During the past few years, we’ve seen several car manufacturers pull the plug on their Formula 1 programs; Japanese automaker Honda left the sport at the end of the 2008 season and cited “economical hardships” as the reason to their decision; Toyota and BMW followed in Honda’s footsteps at the end of 2009; Toyota used economical hardships to back their decision as well, while BMW described their decision as a move to restructure their motorsport activities. Renault was another withdrawal, a slightly less obvious one though; they remain in Formula 1 as an engine supplier but the factory team is now owned by Genii capital and has been renamed Lotus F1.
There was nothing left but comeback rumors ever since then, and the most recent ones were related to Porsche, Toyota and Honda. Toyota’s rumor turned out to be an April Fools’ joke, Honda’s comeback story was never officially confirmed, but some strong sources believe that the Japanese carmaker is planning to return as an engine supplier for McLaren in 2015. Porsche, meanwhile, said that Formula 1 was indeed an option; nevertheless, they opted against it and preferred joining Toyota and Audi in the World Endurance Championship.
Porsche stated Formula 1’s lack of road relevance as to why they picked the WEC, which to me, made a lot of sense. Some people slammed Porsche for not having the “guts” to compete on the highest-level in Motorsport, but in my opinion, what was once the highest-level is no more.
I love Formula 1, I always have, but organizers in recent years have become so obsessed with “the show” that they started using fake and artificial ways of producing excitement for the fans. They completely forgot, and put behind, one of Formula 1’s major aspects: technology and innovation.
Formula 1 has become more of an aerodynamic game, with teams racing to develop the best aero solutions on their cars: double-decker diffusers, blown-exhaust diffusers, coanda exhausts, etc. Question is, have you ever heard someone saying: “Yo, check out the blown-exhaust diffuser on my Civic”? I doubt it.
Some of you might bring up McLaren’s P1 and Ferrari’s LaFerrari and their F1-inspired KERS and DRS systems; can you really afford 1 Million dollar hypercars though? And how is DRS or the KERS of any benefit on every-day road cars?
If you look at endurance racing, the WEC for example, you see automakers putting real-world solutions to the test, and by real-world solutions I mean different powertrains. Audi and Toyota use the WEC championship rounds as a test bed for their engines, transmissions and hybrid systems which are applications that we’re already seeing on our affordable road cars.
With the engine freeze and constant tech-banning, Formula 1 has become more concerned with publicity, money and entertainment, something that does not appeal to most car manufacturers, and something that has kept arguably the most successful brand in motorsport, Porsche, away from the sport.
The introduction of new 1.6-liter V6 turbo engines should help boost the sport’s “green” image; but whether it will attract more automakers is a question yet to be answered.