Formula One is the pinnacle of motor sport and determined to remain that way, despite the FIA’s attempts to keep it in a cage. Already the engineers have found a way to get around the engine freeze, trumpeted as a way to keep down costs. If we can’t touch the hardware, let’s have a look at what else is possible, goes the reasoning.

Renault and their fuel supplier, Elf, have been talking about how they will extract more power from their engine this season. The idea is to increase the efficiency of their oil and other ancilliaries, thereby reducing friction and making the most of the power the engine produces. They have already solved problems with the fuel resulting from high temperatures in engines running at 20,000 rpm, now they can concentrate on expanding that technology to cover the lower speed ranges.

Which goes to show that you cannot halt F1′s drive to increase performance – someone will always find a way to circumvent any restriction you might impose. That is the engineer’s job, after all, to gain some form of advantage over the competition. And it makes a nonsense of the FIA’s attempt to put a brake on expenditure – those with money will work out how to spend it anyway.

Now that Renault and Elf are working so hard to maximize efficiency of their frozen engine, you can bet that the other teams will want their fuel suppliers to do the same. So we see the end of the tire wars only to head into a new era of fuel and lubricant wars. F1 remains the pinnacle because it will always seek out a way to go faster.

Speaking of tweaks in search of an advantage, whatever happened about Ferrari’s wheel inserts? I see they have been using them in testing and there is no doubt that they give an aerodynamic advantage, whatever the stated reason for their existence. Why haven’t the other teams started to use them too?

It seems a bit strange that they ignore the possibility of performance increase through the insertion of some flat pieces of plastic into the wheels but are prepared to spend whatever it takes to gain a few extra bhp through fuel technology. Obviously, they must know something I don’t.

Could it be that they know that, if they use the inserts and then go faster than Ferrari, the darn things will be banned? Or maybe they do have them and are just waiting to see whether Ferrari will use them in a race, in which case they shove them on too and the playing field is level again.

Ah, the complications of F1 – all part of the glorious show.

Renault’s engineering director, Pat Symonds, has added his voice to those expressing doubts about the idea of customer cars in F1. Like Mario Theissen of BMW, he feels that the legalizing of customer cars in 2008 will create a situation where there are only six manufacturers running two teams each and that the championship could be manipulated as a result.

But just a cotton-picking minute there – that’s two representatives of the manufacturers who fear that their companies will exploit the new rule to favor one driver, thereby winning the championship. Apart from the fact that this is unlikely since, if one manufacturer does it, they all will and that will cancel out any advantage they might have gained, why is it the potential manipulators who are suggesting such a scenario? I hear no complaints from the small teams who apparently face such a dismal future as the pawns of the big guys.

It seems to me that there is more going on here than meets the eye. The potential for devious tactics is not the real reason for the manufacturers’ doubts – that is just an excuse to justify their objection to the rule change. We must look elsewhere to find the motivation of the manufacturers, methinks.

Is it possible that they have looked at the history of F1 and fear the inventiveness, speed of reaction and dedication of small teams? To supply a chassis and engine to a customer team and then find that their customer has devised a tweak that makes their version of the car quicker would be unbearably embarrassing for a manufacturer. It is not beyond possibility.

So let us say that the big boss takes a walk down the pitlane and instructs his customers that, from now on, they must let the supplier’s lead driver win or the supply of chassis and engines will dry up. Well, we all know how leaky F1 teams are – it would not be long before the news made its way to the press and the resulting row would be far more embarrassing to the manufacturer than losing an occasional race to its own products. The Norberto Fontana revelation of last year may have been squashed very quickly by Peter Sauber but doubts linger in many minds, I’m sure.

The argument doesn’t float. In reality, the manufacturers don’t want their task of winning to be made even more difficult by the addition of small teams with competitive cars. It is hard enough already to beat the other manufacturers without having to consider the challenge of customer teams as well.

The suggested collusion by manufacturers raises another possibility that has not been mentioned. If they are prepared to stoop to such underhand dealing, what is to prevent them getting together and deciding to share out the championship between them? It would ensure that no manufacturer enjoys a long period of domination and hogs all the publicity as a result; if they take it in turns to win and get the marketing benefits, everyone is happy and avoids the possibility of never winning, something that they must all dread.

The fact is that the presence of small teams in F1 actually makes the possibilities for collusion much less. They would not be a part of any share-out of the spoils and will ruin any such attempt merely by competing to the best of their ability. And the customer car rule is the one remaining lifeline to such teams – without it they will be consigned to a Minardi-like existence, scrimping and scraping to get enough money together to continue for one more season.

So I’m sorry, Pat, but I just don’t believe you. You have one thing right, however:

“If you say that in 2008 you can do it (run customer cars), then does it really matter about things being pushed forward a year,” he said. “Many other rules have been pushed forward a year, is it really a big deal?

“On that basis, you would say it is a storm in a teacup. But it is easy for me to say that from a Renault perspective. If I was Spyker, I would not be at all happy about it. Rules are rules.”

Spyker may be complaining about the Toro Rosso and Super Aguri cars for the coming season but I haven’t heard that Colin Kolles objects to the 2008 rule change. Maybe that’s because he knows that Spyker haven’t the resources to compete with the really big manufacturers and might have to buy in a customer chassis themselves in future. They are already buying engines, after all.

I was not going to deal specifically with each launch of the new F1 cars since the press are covering them quite adequately, but I find that I have been won over by the BMW Sauber site. Their car is just so pretty!

The new Ferrari is being talked about incessantly, the McLaren is parading around to much admiration (sorry, Ron, I disagree with your drivers – that color scheme is just plain ugly), even the Renault is pushing its way into the news (and it will take a while to get used to that dark blue). But no-one is taking much notice of the BMW so it seems allowable that I devote a post to my new enthusiasm. Take a look at this photo of the F1.07 in action and tell me it doesn’t look great – the white allows us to see the true shape of the car and the blue trim has been tastefully blended into the whole design.

The finish on the car is excellent as well – easily up to Ferrari standards. But the real reason for this post is to parade the fact that I have now done my homework and know all about zero keels, single keels, V keels etc. Craig Scarborough has written a very good article that explains everything but, in a nutshell, the whole business of keels is caused by the necessity of raising the nose to get improved aerodynamics.

Raise the nose and you find difficulties in attaching the lower wishbones of the front suspension – suddenly there is empty space where there used to be chassis. Various solutions have been tried, most involving building extensions (known misleadingly as keels) downwards to allow attachment of the suspension. The single keel is a triangular section extending down from the chassis whereas Renault knocked a hole in the triangle to allow more airflow, thereby inventing the V keel. But the zero keel, apparently first used on the Spyker cars, gets rid of the keel altogether by angling the suspension upwards to attach to the chassis at an angle. This can be seen quite clearly on the F1.07 – note how the front suspension arms droop downwards from the body to the wheels.

The benefits of the zero keel are purely aerodynamic in that the airflow is not interrupted by any extension to the chassis. There are disadvantages – the angled suspension allows for less adjustment to suit different conditions – but these are compensated for by the improved aerodynamics. At least, almost all the teams seem to think so, only Renault sticking with their V keel.

BMW Sauber have had their zero keel for a while now so they should know all about it. The changes they have made are mainly in the design of the front and rear wings, lower and more carefully shaped rear bodywork and a new quick shift gearbox. The fancy flip-ups attached to the sidepod cooling towers don’t even get a mention, however.

Take a look at this photograph taken from above the car – in spite of all the winglets and protuberances demanded by aerodynamics, it still forms a harmonious overall design.

An old F1 saying is that what looks right, is right. If that is true, then the BMW has a very good chance in 2007. I wish the team well, although I’m still betting on Button for the championship.

Yes, I have to admit it – the holidays are upon us. And, to provide a bit of entertainment, I thought I’d present you with one of my hare-brained inventions of long ago. To explain it, I have to tell a little story, so I must ask you to bear with me.

It begins in the mid-sixties, when it was decided to change the formula for F1 cars from 1.5 liters to 3.0 liters. This came at a time when two or three of the engine manufacturers had just invested huge sums in fiendishly complicated little engines that they thought would outperform the rest. And so the FIA threw the manufacturers a bone: an allowed alternative to the big 3.0 liters was a 1.5 liter supercharged engine.

This was actually no compensation at all. At the time, no supercharged 1.5 could hope to match the power of a 3.0 liter and so the provision was ignored for ten years. But over those years the science of turbo-charging developed and, in 1977, Renault entered a turbo-charged 1.5 liter car. It was fast but unreliable at first but, as the engineers solved the heat problems of turbos, it became clear that such an engine could produce far more power than any 3.0 liter. The turbo era of the eighties dawned.

But, if I may take you back to the time of that rule change in the sixties, a wild idea had been born in my imagination. I read an article in a motoring magazine that considered the alternative specification that had crept into the regulations and pointed out that, if one could supercharge a 1.5 two-stroke, it would produce phenomenal amounts of power. Theoretically, such an engine would be an almost unlimited power source; what a pity that it was impossible to supercharge a two-stroke.

“Is it?” thought I. One sees the problem immediately: no valves. Without valves, any pressure built up by a supercharger would force the mixture straight through the combustion chamber and probably cause a nice little explosion in the exhaust system. But what if you added valves? Ordinary valves won’t do, of course – the ports in a two-stroke are in the sides of the cylinders and any valves would stick out and get wiped off promptly by the piston. But there are other types of valve that don’t need to protrude into the combustion chamber; rotary valves, for instance. And one could time the opening of the valves so that the exhaust closed just as the inlet opened.

Now, anyone who knows anything about engines also knows that rotary valves are more trouble than they’re worth. They have tremendous problems with sealing – finding a material that will stand up to the heat and wear implicit in seating such a valve would be enormously difficult. The valve would have to rotate at astronomical speeds to keep up with the high revs of our theoretical engine. It was probably beyond the technology of the time to seal such valves effectively. But today, it might just be possible. Certainly the Mazda engineers have solved similar problems on the rotary engine that bankrupted NSU in the sixties.

So I maintain that it’s not impossible to supercharge a two-stroke engine. And, if my memory serves me correctly, the article I read suggested that power output of such an engine would exceed 700 bhp. With that sort of power, it would have dominated F1 for a decade at least.

If it had ever managed to finish any races, of course. Merry Christmas everyone!

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