Quote:
Originally Posted by MachineDriver
I love F1 more than BMW. Soon after the announcement I got back my deposit for the X6M. I really disagreed with BMW pushing KERS on the sport. The fact that they abandoned that tech somewhat foreshadowed their exit. I just hope their decision doesn't kill the Sauber team. I got my M3 in part because of F1 lineage. Efficient dynamics is a much harder sell than a throttle body for each cylinder. At least to me...
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The F1 lineage in the M3 is a load of nonsense- That car is more about ALMS and always has been. The marketing guys got you good. A throttle body per cylinder has been in existence for ever in any form of racing- the thing they should have done was gone direct injection.
BMW has not transferred tech from F1, except in for making the engine block (early 90s tech). The rest was a marketing exercise; and as Footie said- The sport is not like it used to be. The N52 engine being magnesium and aluminum has more tech in it than the ///M3 block, and that has nothing to do with F1 or racing.
There is no longer the ability to develop new things in F1 and the KERS was the last thing to develop- the reason BMW wanted the KERS was so that some on of the F1 development will yield tech for production cars (other manufacturers also wanted this) and to make the sport a bit greener.
ALMS yields just as much in terms of street product as F1- minimal, it is cheaper to operate and has a large following outside the US with US numbers increasing. The IMSA/ALMS push for being green is also a plus. I have had this discussion with the guys from BMW Motorsport and they have said that street cars contribute more to the race cars than vice versa (traction control being one of them).
I am a huge motorsport fan and F1 over the last few seasons has been a bore and really comes down to tire strategy than anything else.... and since you can't change the aero on your own car every week F1 yields nothing.