Toyota not happy with KERS plans

[dime3]

Of all the things I expected to hear about KERS, this wasn't one of them!

"The adoption of energy recovery leaves me rather perplexed because the system chosen by the FIA is really primitive," Marmorini said in an interview with Italian magazine Autosprint.

"(They are) extremely simplified compared to the system we have on the Toyota Prius road car, or even on the Toyota Supra HV-R that won the 24 Hours of Tokachi.

"The potential of hybrid engines is immense, but the solution chosen by the FIA restricts itself to recover energy from the rear wheels. The parameters involved should be more.

"Let's say that, if the Supra that races at Tokachi recovers 70% of the dissipated energy, the system chosen for F1 restricts itself to 20%.

"This system will end up being the same for everyone too, and in this case we'll refer to it as an accessory, devaluing a great technical issue along the way."

Marmorini's calls for more radical systems in F1 have been backed by famed car designer Mauro Forghieri, who has made no secret of the fact that he is unhappy with the engine regulations in Grand Prix racing.

"The environmental way of energy recovery and percentages of bio fuels is an interesting thing, but this aspect could be done more radically by defining a maximum amount of energy available, giving the engine designers full freedom to find the most suitable and imaginative technical solutions," he told Autosprint.

"It's sad to realize that today, in order to see an ample variety of engines in a race, you need to look at endurance racing, at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, while F1 has become like F3 engine-wise, only faster and infinitely more expensive."

[Mark]

But these are high-performance racing cars, which the Prius is not.
This looks like a Toyota publicity stunt.

[dime3]

Totally, its not like Toyota have anything else to say in terms of F1. Apart from look at us we are crap! But I have a feeling that this is the start of it. KERS is a whole new field and the teams don’t have much longer to develop it. Let the rumblings begin!

[dime3]

crap - double post sorry

[wedge]

But these are high-performance racing cars, which the Prius is not.
This looks like a Toyota publicity stunt.

Motor racing, to a degree is a publicity stunt.

There seems to be great potential with KERS and F1 is afterall, supposedly the pinnacle of motorsport.

[Sleeper]

Did Marmeroni actually specify what parts of the KERS rules he wasnt happy with.

I know that originally the FIA planned to have some kind of electric motors, that would be powered by the KERS, in each of the four wheels, but with eachteam going back to using their own electronics to run these things, it was thought that it would open up to have the car to having stability controle, negating driver talant, so the motors in the front wheels were droped. If this is what he is on about, then we can dismis it streight of.

[Mark]

I was on the understanding that the energy generated would just be used to charge a small battery which would be used to power the cars electrical systems and thus negate the need for an alternator, the lack of drag on the engine would thus increase fuel efficiency / performance.

[Sleeper]

^ I'm left wondering if the FIA even know how the KERS tech is going to be implemented now. They're certainly not telling the public, at least not directly.

[RS]

Quote from Max Mosely in reply to this:

"The development of engines has been frozen, meaning that extra power can only be gained by making better use of energy, or by getting more useful work from the fuel burned."

I don't get how banning engine development can be good long term. I think a better plan overall would have been to make the fuel tanks a limited size, and not refillable during a race. Then the teams would have to get as much performance as possible from one "package" of energy. They could allow KERS or any other methods to achieve this, surely in the long term this is going to put more investment into fuel efficient systems.

The FIA could then decrease the size of the fuel tank year on year either to slow the cars down or increase their efficiency further.

[Kevincal]

To Toyota's credit, they haven't exactly had a young, high caliber driver to show what their car has really been capable in the past few years...

[SGWilko]

If F1 allowed a 'no holds barred' approach to regenerative energy, I think the likes of Toyota and Honda would excel, after all they currently invest heavily in such areas for their road cars.

Perhaps the idea behind a relatively basic system is so as not to hand the advantage away from the 'lesser' teams.

[wmcot]

Any bets that we end up with a one manufacturer KERS system to go along with the single supplier ECU?

[ioan]

I don't see why Toyota are wrong.
What they say is that actually the KERS proposed by the FIA is just a half arsed attempt to use the energy regenerating systems.

Toyota are at the top of that technology at the moment and would become no.1 F1 team overnight if the FIA would let them use their full knowledge in this domain.
I strongly believe that the FIA wants to protect the currently strong teams against the knowledge of Toyota and Honda when the KERS will be introduced. And I don't see the reasoning behind it, much like I don't see why Bernie is protecting McLaren day and night!

[ioan]

Any bets that we end up with a one manufacturer KERS system to go along with the single supplier ECU?

I suppose you are right, and given how retarded the McLaren ECU is, according to the rest of the teams, the FIA might award them the development of the KERS too.

[JSH]

I don't see why Toyota are wrong.
What they say is that actually the KERS proposed by the FIA is just a half arsed attempt to use the energy regenerating systems.

Toyota are at the top of that technology at the moment and would become no.1 F1 team overnight if the FIA would let them use their full knowledge in this domain.
I strongly believe that the FIA wants to protect the currently strong teams against the knowledge of Toyota and Honda when the KERS will be introduced. And I don't see the reasoning behind it, much like I don't see why Bernie is protecting McLaren day and night!

I'd agree that there's nothing more in this than Toyota thinking the FIA is doing this half-arsed.

But I think it's jumping at shadows and black helicopters to think it's a conspiracy to keep Toyota at the back of the grid.

Where Toyota excels in Hybrid technology is making it cheap and producing it in large quantity.

Other companies are overtaking or have overtaken them in the actual technology - it's just expensive and hard to make. Expensive and difficulty to manufacture are not things that F1 cares about.

[wmcot]

Perhaps the FIA are just afraid that Toyota might slap a few Prius parts in their F1 cars and dominate the series! ;)