Formula 1 cars may well be powered by eco fuel-powered two-stroke engines by 2025 according to news from the Motorsport Industry Association’s energy-efficiency conference. Chief technical officer of Formula 1, Pat Symonds said “I’m very keen on it being a two-stroke,”
Pat went on to say that the new engines would be “Much more efficient, great sound from the exhaust and a lot of the problems with the old two-strokes are just not relevant any more.” According to a report in Motorsport Magazine the synthetic fuel will be a hydrogen/carbon mixture captured from the air using surplus green energy.
New engines for 2025
The current F1 engines have until 2025 to be replaced and surprisingly it looks like electric engines (as used in Formula E) won’t be their replacement. Symonds said “I certainly think that the internal combustion engine has a long future and I think it has a future that’s longer than a lot of politicians realise because politicians are hanging everything on electric vehicles”.
We all know that electric vehicles (in their current form at least) aren’t the long term solution to pollution, other than for reducing the levels of local pollution where they’re used. Research presented at the conference backs this up, stating that electric racing cars produce twice the level of carbon emissions as hybrids when making the batteries. Pat went on to say “There’s nothing wrong with electric vehicles but there are reasons why they are not the solution for everyone.” Symonds is currently visiting universities who are carrying out engine research to inform them of the new regulations. You can read the full Motorsport feature here. Thanks to Tommy Tomlinson for the tip-off.
The future may well be exciting
What happens in motorsport eventually filters down to production vehicles. It’s highly likely that the bike racing world will also be looking to this advance in two-stroke technology to keep racing exciting. Nobody wants to watch a near-silent day of electric racing, a return of big two strokes in MotoGP could well be on the cards for the future.
We saw recently in Milan that Italian company VINS had released a ROAD LEGAL new 250cc two-stroke bike, using direct injection to clean it up. We’ve already got new two-stroke scooter engines from the likes of Casa Performance, Targa, Gran Turismo, BFA, Pinasco, Malossi and eGig amongst others. I was sceptical that these would have a short shelf life before being totally outlawed by future legislation. Maybe this news from the unlikely source of Formula One may well pave the way for not only new production two-stroke engines but also for direct injection aftermarket performance scooter engines, running on synthetic fuel. The future may well not be as gloomy, quiet and uninspiring as we’re lead to believe…
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I wasn’t expecting this! I’ve always hoped someone would develop a synthetic eco friendly 2t oil. Years ago heading to a rally we got talking to a guy in a petrol station with an outboard engine shop out back. He said that a 2t eco friendly outboard oil had been developed which, with an injection system ran with a very low % mix but was too expensive for people to try…..there’s hope for us yet!
What about the oil burning? How do they get round that?
It’s direct injection using synthetic fuels and the emissions are meant to be very clean but we’ll have to wait and see.