Tech Draft: F1 PU elements shouldn’t decide on the title

The 2021 Formula 1 season is now more than two-thirds over, and since the battle for the drivers’ championship has been closer than it has been in many years, we all hope that the decision will be made by driver management and not by resource management, namely: F1 PU penalties.

Remember this sequence of numbers; 3, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2, 8, because it could be the key to who will become the F1 driver world champion in 2021 in this exciting battle between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, Red Bull and Mercedes.

According to the F1 regulations, a pool of the following engine elements is available to every driver throughout the season; 3 combustion engines, 3 turbochargers, 3 motor-generator units for heat (MGU-H), 3 motor-generator units for kinetics (MGU-K), 2 energy stores, 2 control electronics and 8 exhaust systems.

If a driver exceeds this allocation of an element for any reason, a starting place penalty will be imposed on the driver at the next race he starts; the first time an additional element is used: 10 places, each additional element after the first time: 5 places, and if a driver receives a penalty of more than 15 places, he must start the race from the end of the grid.

So far this season every driver has already used up their quota of ICEs, Turbos and MGU-Hs, but Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez have already suffered their fourth assignment and thus starting penalties.

Worryingly in the battle at the top between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, both drivers and their respective teams made no secret of the fact that they were in at some point at the Russian Grand Prix this weekend until the final race. exactly the same fate could happen to Abu Dhabi.

In 2005 Formula 1 introduced a new rule that for the first time governed the use of engines and ensured that they should last 2 full racing weekends to avoid penalties, and in 2009 a new rule was introduced that reduced the number of engines to eight limited per season.

The regulation of engine usage served two main purposes; to reduce a team’s operating costs over the period of a season and to ensure that Formula 1 is seen as more efficient with longer engine life.

Although in this modern era of highly complex and expensive hybrid drives it is entirely justifiable to regulate their use for the same reasons, it seems somewhat contradictory that the championship may become dependent on the top drivers who have their teams as a strategic advantage of a likely under-mandated F1- Manage PU pool allocation.

With the potential for even more Grands Prix to be added to the F1 championship calendar in 2022, and the number of events potentially rising to 23 or even 24, the risk of even more drivers exceeding their allocation of F1 PU elements can only be get even bigger.

Recently, the outcome of F1 races has become increasingly dependent on strategic aspects such as tire management, fuel management and 2022 brake management, but does PU element management really have to become a possible championship factor?

# F1 Before the #RussianGP starts at @SochiAutodrom, here are the PU elements used so far. (Courtesy of @hlawiczka) #MsportXtra pic.twitter.com/xIV4xBS1ci

– #MsportXtra (@MsportXtra) September 21, 2021