Anti-Innovation
For a sport that bills itself as the peak of motorsport, Formula 1 can sure be anti-innovation when somebody thinks of something that didn’t occur to others. Last year it was the double-diffuser row, which even once formally declared legal by the International Court of Appeal still left half the grid grumbling about the added cost beyond the end of the season. Where would we be if every innovation which was within the rules was instantly banned on the ground of costs? Still driving around on skinny little tyres with the engine at the front? If 2009 was the ‘year of the double decker diffuser’, 2010 is now building up to be the ‘year of the blown rear wing, via a duct through the cockpit and along the back of a shark fin’. Admittedly, it doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.
Red Bull where initially unhappy but having sent Mark Webber to have a snoop around, they’re presumably on their way to designing their own system. Renault’s Bob Bell, however, is not a happy bunny this morning: “They have opened up another arms race; it’s going to cost everybody a lot of money,” said Bell. “The governing body needs to be a lot stronger with these things. Now we have just opened another arms race that will cost us all a lot of money. It’s just a nonsense. I think the governing body needs to be more responsible in decisions like this.” 
Strange, I thought Formula 1 was one big arms race – it’s what differentiates it from a single make series. Renault were not exactly keen on everyone using a Cosworth engine were they?
“Oh, the wailing and gnashing of teeth that goes with being beaten to a technical punch!” - Stuart Codling
Homologation of the monocoque may make it tricky to copy McLaren’s idea but we’re not talking about the level of changes needed to add a double diffuser as most of the grid managed last year.
Then again, while one moment Renault are complaining that McLaren “have driven a cart horse through the spirit of the rules and regulations” the next they’re lodging a request to make modifications to their engine outside of the current engine freeze. The claim is that it is in the name of reliability and cost reduction but the likelihood is that such changes will give an improvement in performance. The Renault engine was considered down on power last year but the team seem to be keeping quiet about their superior fuel economy.
So much for the spirit of the rules?
Re: the Renault engine modification.
How does modifying it make it cheaper? Surely leaving it alone makes it cheaper, as you avoid the costs of redesigning, testing, protyping, manufacture, homologation, retraining of engineers, chucking away perfectly good parts that are in your stores etc.
Modifications may indeed make the engine a tiny bit cheaper to build, but when you offset it against the cost of designing and carrying out those modifications, and it will either be cost-neutral or even more expensive over all. Methinks Rebault are being disingenuous on this one. Pitmonster(Quote)
Comment from Christian Horner which I won’t add into the main article:
“It was obvious from testing McLaren were doing something different. We wanted to know if it was illegal or innovative – and apparently it’s innovative. It’s a little bit like the double diffuser, but nowhere near the same magnitude in terms of performance advantage. It is certainly against the intent of the regulations, but the FIA have okayed it. There is no point bleating on about it, we will all end up developing one, so we may as well get on with it. Hats off to McLaren, they have came up with it and we will all end up with derivatives of it.” Maverick(Quote)
Listening to the various pundits and team spokespersons, it would appear that, providing the various chassis offer up suitable routes for the necesary ducting through the monocoque, that an upgrade for a team will be relatively easy and low cost to achieve, so potentially not a costly in terms of development times and cost as in the case of the double diffuser. newdutchstar(Quote)
I think it all depends in how much modifying you need to do to the monocoque. If you already have access panels covered by blanking plates then you could change that flat plate for your air inlet.
But if you have to start cutting holes in your monocoque to allow the air to get in (either via a McLaren-style snorkel, or an inlet in the nose – the air still has to pass through the monocoque somehow in order to be controlled by the driver’s leg) and then allow it back out to the rear wing via the engine cover, then that could weaken the structure and it might not be as safe in an accident, and it would also not be the same as the chassis that was homologated which would break the rules – I undertsand that the same monocoque design (possibly worded as ’surfaces’ ?) has to be used all year, to keep costs down.
So if you don’t already have the required holes/slots/gaps in a homologated chassis then you can’t modify it or redesign it for the whole season.
McLaren may have an idea that others cannot replicate until next year, by which time expect it to be banned. Pitmonster(Quote)
Good point. I really don’t think that Renault of all teams should be talking about sticking to the spirit of the rules until their two-year suspended ban expires at the absolute earliest. GM(Quote)