“We can’t go back to a Flintstones engine”– Toto Wolff says F1 can’t go back to loud power units

“We can’t go back to a Flintstones engine”– Toto Wolff claims Formula 1 can’t go back to the loud roaring engines amidst new aspirations.

In Formula 1, there is a huge romanticism around the loud engines, which were prevalent in the sport before the turbo-hybrid era. Even Toto Wolff has shown his fondness for the loud V12 engines.

But the Austrian believes that it should remain in the past, as F1 aims to bring in more sustainable technology to meet its carbon zero in 2030.

“We can’t go back to a Flintstones engine and, on the other side, going all-electric at that stage is too early,” said Wolff. “We should nevertheless come up with a power unit that we can be proud of.

“Being proud means still having the audio-visual experience for the fans from an internal combustion engine, have a hybrid component that is very strong on the electrical side, so we are giving the electrical side at least equal the performance of the ICE [internal combustion engine] or more.

“It is, in my opinion, the transitional step to something in 2030 that can be very different depending on where the car market goes.”

Need to be a laboratory for the world

Wolff claims that using bio-fuels till F1 wouldn’t be a beneficial thing for the purpose, and rather the sport should become a laboratory for the world to bi-fuels in future.

“We see some of the big automotive manufacturers commit to being in 2030 all-electric, but nevertheless there will be a lot of road cars, tens of millions of road cars on the street that will be running combustion engines,” explained Wolff.

“What we need to achieve is to be the fastest laboratory in the world to develop sustainable fuels, whether it is just biodegradable or whether it is synthetic fuels or e-fuels that are available as pump fuels.

“Because that can be a real contribution to the planet, developing high-performance fuels that work for us and, if you listen to our fuel partners, what we need to achieve is not a spaceship fuel but something the final customer can actually utilise in his own machine.

“It is not only cars that will be on the roads, but also all kinds of industrial applications on machines that run on fuel or kerosine that may utilise our development and our science and I strongly believe in that.

“If you look at what we have done for the NHS with the CPAP and how quickly it went from prototype to actually being deployed on real patients, the speed of development and delivery in Formula 1 can make a real difference.”

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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