Are rotary engines alowed in F1??

[he7lius]

The same way Mazda won Le Mans with the rotary engine could a F1 team use it as well??

[nchs09]

i dont know.... i dubt it, they probably dont, since you dont see them, or mazda cant make the performe better than normal engines

[FerrariKiller]

I'm sure if Mazda created a competitive package that didn't have an unfair advantage it would be allowed. There's no rule against it so they have no reason to ban it outright. Of course I doubt the issue will ever come up.

[Toronto]

no F1 will not allow a rotary engine, it is not in the formula, check out FIA site if you want to know more,
the reason mazda was allowed to in lemans was it was in the unrestricted class, f1 cars must have engine blocks and so one, and so many valves per cyl. in lemans it is engine displacement

[AlienDB7]

Interesting, I just saw a mazda commercial tonight claiming they have "the same" engine in a F1 car as in RX-8. Maybe it wasn't a F1 car or it's simply marketing trick.

[MontoyaWannaBe]

Interesting, I just saw a mazda commercial tonight claiming they have "the same" engine in a F1 car as in RX-8. Maybe it wasn't a F1 car or it's simply marketing trick.


that wasn't an F1 car... and fince the FIA rules call for a certain number of cylinders, valves, etc, and a rotary engine was no cylinders, and lacks a lot of the things that a traditional internal combustion engine has, it technically could never meet the rules...

[yg60m]

The rules are very stricts in F1 : 10 cylinders , before the number was free, Toyota prepared a v12 for its arrival in f1 but the rumour says that Ferrari intervened to make prohibit an architecture which was representative of him and they did not want to remake a v12 whereas they had invested so much on the v10.
It is said too that Renault wanted to make a v8 but now it's prohibited.
No ovals pistons too (like in the Honda NSR 750, who remember it ?). 4 valves per cylinder ... not really place to innovations, at least for the architecture. :(

[Toronto]

Interesting, I just saw a mazda commercial tonight claiming they have "the same" engine in a F1 car as in RX-8. Maybe it wasn't a F1 car or it's simply marketing trick.

i think i know what ad spot you are talking about, it goes "non of these cars have ever, cracked a valve......" and the show pics of the Le Mans cars.

[deth]

that all sounds rather stupid...i thought F1 was a place where new tech and ideas could be implemented and tested

[yg60m]

that all sounds rather stupid...i thought F1 was a place where new tech and ideas could be implemented and tested

Yes, it's my opinion too but it's the herd instinct, when they see something works well they follow. But when someone comes with a new idea, he can't do it in F1.
:(

[deth]

well i dont know about that...i think its teams have too much control, as you mentioned before ferrari strongarming teh FIA to implement certain rules. again money makes the world go round.

[AlienDB7]

This is the commercial I was talking about: http://users.pandora.be/draak666/RX8_Race_Car_Engine.zip

[levensnevel]

It's a "Pro formula Mazda" series single seater if I understand the voice over correctly..
Seems these cars will be equipped with the Renesis rotary engine this season
http://www.formularacer.com/smp.html

[he7lius]

F1 is at the peak of motoracing, in almost every part of a car. If we take the ceramic brakes for example, before they appear on every supercar at the moment they were used in F1.

By imposing rules aren't FIA limiting the development of new technology??
Fossil fuel will finish, and should it be allowed a F1 team use for example a hidrogen engine if they think that would be competitive??

Should FIA impose some rules in terms of lets say weight of the engine, or can only consume a max of X amount of fuel???

What do you guys say??

[SFDMALEX]

I highly doubt that a rotary would be succesful in F1.

[scubywrxr]

Dont think a rotary would cut it at F1 performance levels even if they allowed any other engine besides the V10.. Mazda did pull a surprise out the bag at Lemans though... pity they have not had the opportunity to repeat that success.

[astonmartinandy]

What is the most powerful rotary engine that has ever been made then? Doesn't mazda own a patent on the design as well so that nobody else can copy it?

[deth]

^^ mazda didnt invent teh rotary engine...some guy named wankel did,, hence the hwankel engine, i suppose they could have bought the patent from him, but it likely would have expired by now

[Toronto]

isn't the rotary engine really old, and when he built it he was a like 20 or something, i am not 100% tho

[bmwfreak]

F1 has ceased to become a technology showcase anymore, but more of a circus sideshow. Witness Max Mosley in his attempts to improve the show. Or team bosses voting for that ridiculous ban on drivers who have prior GP experience (Wilson, Verstappen, etc) to conduct testing.

Where is the cutting edge now?

Mazda : why not ask the FIA for a try? see what you can come up with. Get an exemption. Surely not ALL FIA suits are bean counters and ringmasters? At least SOME might still be petrol heads?

[sentra_dude]

F1 is at the peak of motoracing, in almost every part of a car. If we take the ceramic brakes for example, before they appear on every supercar at the moment they were used in F1.

By imposing rules aren't FIA limiting the development of new technology??
Fossil fuel will finish, and should it be allowed a F1 team use for example a hidrogen engine if they think that would be competitive??

Should FIA impose some rules in terms of lets say weight of the engine, or can only consume a max of X amount of fuel???

What do you guys say??

I pretty sure ceramic brakes were never used in F1...only carbon discs with carbon brake pads; ceramic brakes are a pretty new development, newer than carbon brakes I believe, and ceramic brakes wouldn't cut it in F1.

You all seem to think that the FIA is trying to kill an innovation in F1, and to some extent you are right, but you must realize that innovation costs lots and lots of money...and F1 is already absurdly expensive. Many of the regulations the FIA has are not evil anti-tech rules, they are there to either slow the cars down or decrease costs. Even the large teams are getting a little squeamish about the costs, Ferrari spent in excess of $300 million last year, and to get any more edge they will have to spend even more next year. Then again some of the FIA rules are just plain stupid...

F1 has ceased to become a technology showcase anymore, but more of a circus sideshow. Witness Max Mosley in his attempts to improve the show. Or team bosses voting for that ridiculous ban on drivers who have prior GP experience (Wilson, Verstappen, etc) to conduct testing.

Where is the cutting edge now?

Mazda : why not ask the FIA for a try? see what you can come up with. Get an exemption. Surely not ALL FIA suits are bean counters and ringmasters? At least SOME might still be petrol heads?

I think F1 is still a tech showcase...the teams are still throwing way more money around in R&D than any other motoracing series...and they are still pushing the limits of automotive tech. Where else do they have pneumatic value closure, 18,000+rpm, 300hp/L, and aerodynamics that more advanced than some airplanes...

[dylan99]

Formula One is still and will always be tech showcase you should have seen a documentary on F1 at the Discovery Channel it was very good they spoke about technology drivers etc.

[he7lius]

Formula One is still and will always be tech showcase you should have seen a documentary on F1 at the Discovery Channel it was very good they spoke about technology drivers etc.


Does anyone have the video??

[eCartman]

Ford is a major shareholder of Mazda and they probably don't see any need to push Mazda in F1.

Ford is behind Jaugar's F1 effort already so they won't make more money available to fund more F1 team. Besides, for the last few years Jaugar has been running with less and less money from Ford already.

Mazda themselves isn't interested in getting into F1, they're too small a company to make it work. They'll just spend their own money on Research and hope we can see a true successor to the RX-7...

[eCartman]

F1 is at the peak of motoracing, in almost every part of a car. If we take the ceramic brakes for example, before they appear on every supercar at the moment they were used in F1.

By imposing rules aren't FIA limiting the development of new technology??
Fossil fuel will finish, and should it be allowed a F1 team use for example a hidrogen engine if they think that would be competitive??

Should FIA impose some rules in terms of lets say weight of the engine, or can only consume a max of X amount of fuel???

What do you guys say??


Actually teams are not happy because some of these rules are too vague and needs clarification. They think existing rules can still gives them enough freedom to design their cars with tons of room for improvement. What they want are rules that are clear and precise so that there's less mis-interpretation. What happened was some teams spend so much money on one technology only to find out they were banned after 2-3 races.

They don't mind having more rules as long as it makes sense. Also some of these rules allow tons of room for them to move around. Current engine rules are pretty open-ended, there's tons of innovation still out there waiting to be discovered.

[ravenpaua]

isn't the rotary engine really old, and when he built it he was a like 20 or something, i am not 100% tho

The Wankel engine was patented in 1936 by Felix Wankel, but the "real" rotary engine was made by NSU in 1959.

[kteo2003]

rotary engine was an idea of mr wankel...he made the rotary engine at 1864....F1 has changed...at first they said that they had to make the "cars"more safety for the pilots-result:totaly lack of entertaintment with passes.....try to see motogp...now they say that they have to make new rules so that teams with lower budget than ferrari mclaren etc partecipate F1....
but what they finaly did is to destroy F1 to please these guys that give the money to FIA to the teams....
it would be very interesting to see how rotary engine would go at F1......if for a city car they can make a wankel 1300cc with 231bhp for F1with 3000cc what could they do????? :twisted:

[kteo2003]

sorry i wrote 1846 but i meant 1964...

[t-maxx]

i would like to see turbo cars back in f1.

[kteo2003]

and i would like to see slicks but......

[ae86_16v]

You all seem to think that the FIA is trying to kill an innovation in F1, and to some extent you are right, but you must realize that innovation costs lots and lots of money...and F1 is already absurdly expensive. Many of the regulations the FIA has are not evil anti-tech rules, they are there to either slow the cars down or decrease costs. Even the large teams are getting a little squeamish about the costs, Ferrari spent in excess of $300 million last year, and to get any more edge they will have to spend even more next year. Then again some of the FIA rules are just plain stupid...

I think F1 is still a tech showcase...the teams are still throwing way more money around in R&D than any other motoracing series...and they are still pushing the limits of automotive tech. Where else do they have pneumatic value closure, 18,000+rpm, 300hp/L, and aerodynamics that more advanced than some airplanes...

Exactly. . . Best post yet. It isn't just about the engine, although the engine is extremely advance as it is. This year to cut down on cost, the engine must last an entire weekend from qualifying through the race, approximately 800km. But these days, a lot of it has to do with aerodynamics of the car, suspension set up, and of course tyres.

I also have heard that Toyota and Ferrari are pushing pass the $500 million mark this year.

i would like to see turbo cars back in f1.

Why? The engines are spectacular enough as it is.

and i would like to see slicks but......

Actually a while ago, I remember reading the some articles about tyre technology today. If today's grooved tyres were put on cars that were using slicks, they would still be faster than slicks. So could you imagine how much faster the current generation cars would be with slicks?

There has been complaint that the grooved tyres of today, usually end up as slicks after a couple of good hard laps. . . don't know too much about that though.

[kteo2003]

you are not quite right...the new groove tyres at the end of the grand prix have to be still yet "grooved"...i don't remember the depth they must have but they must...i also have seen a tv show and they all said that assuming that all the new tech would be done also woth slicks the cars would be much much faster.it is a fact that the todays F1 cars don't use so much the grip but the aerodynamic.FIA doesn't approve the slicks because the F1cars would go much fasyter and there would be more danger for accidents to happen.

[ae86_16v]

you are not quite right...the new groove tyres at the end of the grand prix have to be still yet "grooved"...i don't remember the depth they must have but they must...i also have seen a tv show and they all said that assuming that all the new tech would be done also woth slicks the cars would be much much faster.it is a fact that the todays F1 cars don't use so much the grip but the aerodynamic.FIA doesn't approve the slicks because the F1cars would go much fasyter and there would be more danger for accidents to happen.

No, I understand that it is still there are still grooves at the end of the race. . . you could clearly see that they are still grooved. It was a sarcastic comment. Last year Ferrari was complaining about the tires that McLaren was using, something about the grooves and providing better traction in the corners and such. (Too lazy to dig up the story).

But in terms of aerodynamics, all it does it pushes the car to the ground so the tires could get better traction.

[steven 1234]

The lamans rotary engine was a 26B, equivalent to a 5.2 L piston engine - it made 600 or 800 hp using turbos. I don't think they can get close to a f1 engine output of 800hp if reduced to 3L

[ae86_16v]

The lamans rotary engine was a 26B, equivalent to a 5.2 L piston engine - it made 600 or 800 hp using turbos. I don't think they can get close to a f1 engine output of 800hp if reduced to 3L

Ummm, no, the R26B R4 was 2.7L, 654cc x 4 rotors (rated by FIA formula at 4.7L, 4708 cc) and it was Naturally Aspirated! It produced 700 bhp at 9000 rpm and 608 Nm / 448.4 ft lbs at 6500 rpm.

By the way, it is Le Mans.

[FerrariKiller]

The 2004 F1 tech regulations say:
"ARTICLE 5 : ENGINE
5.1 Engine specification :
5.1.1 Only 4-stroke engines with reciprocating pistons are
permitted.
5.1.2 Engine capacity must not exceed 3000 cc.
5.1.3 Supercharging is forbidden.
5.1.4 All engines must have 10 cylinders and the normal
section of each cylinder must be circular.
5.1.5 Engines may have no more than 5 valves per cylinder.
5.2 Other means of propulsion :
5.2.1 The use of any device, other than the 3 litre, four stroke
engine described in 5.1 above, to power the car, is not
permitted."

So that settles it.

For more check out:

http://f1.racing-live.com/img/regulations/2004tech_en.pdf

[he7lius]

Thanks of clarifying this.

[akumapc]

haha it would be funny to see a rotary engine in F1. If they were limited only by using an engine with 3 liters of displacement, mazda's rotary might have an advantage simply because their measurement of displacement is really half of what the engine really is. Thus a 3 liter mazda rotary would really have 6 liters of displacement. The bad part would be that the car would have to be refueled every lap...

[lovatof1]

I highly doubt that a rotary would be succesful in F1.

Anyone interested in the whys and hows of current F1 tech should pick up the book "Formula One Technology" from Peter Wright, former Lotus F1 designer/technician/engineer type guy. It explains the main reasons Rotary engines would not do well in F1, besides not having a specified 3.0L displacment with no more than 12 cylinders(how about none? :-D), is there is a big weight and balance issues of the mass in the rotors. This leads to all sorts of vibration problems due to the chassis characteristic harmonic resonances being the same as the vibrations of the spinning mass. In otherwords, the engine would shake the chassis to pieces, and be slow to boot.

cheers,
James

[Anonymous]

senna (RIP) the greatest because no matter what happened in the race. you could never count him out. master of the rain (RIP)

[Anonymous]

senna (RIP) the greatest because no matter what happened in the race. you could never count him out. master of the rain (RIP)

[biff19_a]

I'm sure if Mazda created a competitive package that didn't have an unfair advantage it would be allowed. There's no rule against it so they have no reason to ban it outright. Of course I doubt the issue will ever come up.

well they banned the V12 that toyota was supposedly working..

the one thing i love is the fact that the mazda won buy luck at le mans... the porches broke from what i remember

[kompak]

if F1 use rotary...the engine can produce quick response compared to the V10 engine used by F1 now because the rotary only make revolutions and hence reduce the power loss...but the V10 engine produce more resistance due to the up and down movement of the pistons...rotary don't have pistons