V8 engines will return to Formula 1 by 2030 declares FIA president
Mohammed Ben Sulayem says F1 will return to V8 engines
Formula 1 could be heading back to V8 engines as early as 2030, with FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem declaring: ‘It’s coming.’
And if the sport’s power unit manufacturers aren’t onboard, the FIA will have the power a year later to push through the V8 engines.
Mohammed Ben Sulayem makes V8 promise: It’s coming
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Formula 1 switched to turbocharged V6 engines back in 2014, with drivers and fans decrying the lack of guttural volume coming from the new power units.
However, the sport stuck with the V6 engines for the new era that began this season, also adopting a 50/50 split between combustion and electrical power.
The new formula has been widely panned as “Mario Kart” racing with its “mushroom boosts”, with overtakes – largely dependent on battery power at the time – labelled “artificial”.
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But while the FIA and Formula 1 have taken steps to improve the spectacle by reducing the need for super clipping and battery harvesting in qualifying, while also reducing the power boost in races, the drivers have called them “small steps” and that sweeping changes are needed.
Formula 1, though, may have to wait until 2030, or even ’31, to get the one big change that fans and drivers both want – V8 engines.
“It’s coming,” Ben Sulayem said as per RacingNews365.
“In 2031, the FIA will have the power to do it, without any votes from the PUMs [power unit manufacturers]. That’s the regulations.
“But we want to bring it one year earlier, which everyone [externally] now is asking for. When you try to tell them [the PUMs] they say no, but what will come, will come, and it [the power] will come back to the FIA.”
Asked for a timeline, he said: “I’m targeting 2030. One year before the maturity [of the regulations]. It will happen.”
According to the FIA president, Formula 1’s power unit manufacturers are in favour of bringing back the V8s.
“They want it to happen,” he insisted.
“But,” he added, “let’s say the manufacturers don’t [vote for it], then one more year and it will be done. It’s not a matter of, ‘Do I need their support?’ No, it will be done.
“V8 is coming.”
He added: “Let’s not talk about the technical side of it, let’s talk about the mission of it.
“The mission will be less complication, not like now. When the MGU-H was there before, it was there to serve a purpose, but none of the manufacturers benefited from it in the real world.
“Now, with just the MGU-K, it’s the same engine. It’s turbo, it’s 1.6 litre.”
But while the sport will, at least according to Ben Sulayem, return to V8 engines, he ruled out the possibility of even going as far back to the V10s, which were dropped in 2005.
That, he reckons, would be a leap too far for the sport’s engine manufacturers.
“I feel like a V10… if I ask any of the manufacturers who are in F1 now if they produce any cars with a V10, an era that many of the cars had, but now, no,” said Ben Sulayem.
“The most popular and easiest to work with is the V8. You get the sound, less complexity, lightweight.
“You will hear about it very soon, and it will be with a very, very minor electrification, but the main one will be the engine. It will not be something like now, which is a 46-54 split. There will be very minimal [electric] power.
“The V8, you see it [in road cars] with Ferrari, Mercedes, Audi, Cadillac. You see it with most of the manufacturers, and that gives you a lightweight car.”
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