HOW F1 TECH CAN HELP...

The first big car manufacturers have now begun to look at the viability of Vehicle to Grid (V2G) technology, which uses energy harvested from road cars to balance the demands of electricity grids and to help overcome the intermittent nature of wind power. The theory is that by providing stored power when it is needed, the power usage highs and lows could be flattened so that a significant percentage of the coal-burning power stations could be closed down, as they exist simply to deal with the peaks in demand.

This is still in its early stages of development but Tesla has been busy developing techniques that will help the process. In Seprtember 2016 a major storm damaged critical infrastructure in South Australia, causing a state-wide blackout and leaving 1.7 million residents without electricity. Further blackouts occurred in the heat of the Australian summer in early 2017.

In response to this the South Australian Government looked for a way to guarantee that its residents would not have to face such problems again and called for grid-scale energy storage options with at least 100 megawatts of capacity. Tesla proposed a 100 MW Powerpack system, paired to a wind farm near Jamestown. The company took only 90 days to install the required 396 Powerpacks, which enabled the state to dispatch wind energy to the grid 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with full control of when and how much power could be fed into the grid, which meant that 30,000 homes could be upplied with power, no matter what the weather was doing. The rival Victorian government has since commissioned two large-scale, grid-connected Tesla "battery farms" for a solar facility near Kerang. These have proved that renewable energy sources can be a realistic total replacement for traditional power generation.

The idea is catching on fast with Recurrent Energy, a wholly owned subsidiary of Canadian Solar, applying to build a 350-megawatt solar power plant to the east of Palm Springs in California, including a battery facility capable of storing an equal amount of energy.



Capturing energy and managing energy flows is one of the key facets of modern Formula 1 and such technology may well find its way into such industrial-scale developments.

NEW CANADIAN MCLAREN INVESTOR

McLaren has had an injection of $275 million from a company called Nidala (BVI) Limited, for the purchase of 888,135 ordinary shares in the holding company McLaren Group Ltd. This amounts to 10 percent of the share capital of the business, and values the firm at $2.75 billion. This will greatly improve the McLaren balance sheet, as the firm took on debt to finance the purchase of the shares previously owned by Ron Dennis.
“This injection of capital is a vote of confidence in our future strategy and the group remains as focused as ever in positioning for growth," says executive chairman Shaikh Mohammed bin Essa Al Khalifa.

The identity of those behind Nidala remains unclear but there has been speculation that it is a vehicle for the Latifi family from Canada, being a diminutive of NIcholas DAniel LAtifi, who currently races Formula 2 with the DAMS team and has ambitions to become a Formula 1 driver in the future. His father Michael Latifi and mother Marilena are regularly to be seen in the F1 paddock and have been spending a great deal of time with McLaren in recent times. Having said that, it has been known for some time that Michael Latifi was looking to invest in a racing team, not in order to ease his son's path to Formula 1, but simply because he sees it as a good investment at the moment. This is presumably based on the belief that the F1 "franchises" will be worth a lot more money once the new commercial arrangements are agreed for 2021 and beyond. This will definitely be the case if there is a budget cap and if the OTT television streaming delivers the revenues that it is expected to deliver. Being involved in an F1 team could help Nicholas Latifi find a drive in F1, as McLaren may be able to deliver technological help to smaller teams, as it used to do with Force India. Latifi still has a lot to do to prove that he is worthy of an F1 drive. This is his third full season in F2 (or GP2). He finished 16th in 2016 and fifth last year, with a string of podium finishes and a Sprint Race win. Thus far in 2018 has been overshadowed by his team-mate Alexander Albon, although both drivers have had problems at the start of the races. He was announced as a Renault test driver in 2016 and in the Force India reserve driver this year.



Money is not a problem for Latifi as he comes from a family network that is one of the wealthiest in Canada, far wealthier than the Strolls. His father is the owner and CEO of food conglomerate Sofina, which is a big player in meat processing with fresh, frozen, and cooked chicken and turkey products, as well as sliced deli meats, sausages, and turkey bacons; fish products; dry-cured salami, olive oil, and other Italian products. His mother Marilena is a member of the Saputo Family, which founded a dairy business in Montreal in 1954 and is now one of the biggest dairy businesses in the world, operating in 40 countries, with sales of over $16 billion a year. The family is the naming sponsor of the Saputo Stadium, the home of the Montréal Impact of Major League Soccer. The family is reckoned to be worth around $11 billion. The firm is publicly-traded but the family retains control of much of the company stock.

Source: JSNL

RED BULL AND ENGINES

As the Formula 1 continues to move towards defining its engines for 2021, and working out what to do between now and then to avoid disadvantaging the existing engine suppliers, there is still a question of engine supplies for teams for the last two years of the current formula. It makes no real sense for anyone to change in the last year of the formula in 2020 and so the big decisions need to be made for 2019 and Renault in particular is pushing to know whether Red Bull Racing intends to remain a customer (albeit with TAG-Heuer-badged engines) for the next two years. 

It is an interesting  situation because the wily Bernie Ecclestone put a clause into Renault's contract when the French firm agreed to return to F1 that it must agree to supply Red Bull, if called upon to do so. Unless that agreement is negotiated away (and that is unlikely because Renault has funded its current campaign by borrowing money against its future earnings). The deal is believed to extend until 2025, with Renault's payments not beginning until 2021, so it will be difficult for Liberty Media to get the French company to agree to cancel that deal, unless something better is on the table. Thus Red Bull can have Renault in 2019 and 2020, whether or not the French company wants to supply the engines. 

The question is whether Renault is the best choice in the circumstances, or whether it would be wiser to switch to Honda. Renault is building up its factory team and while Red Bull is still ahead, this is beginning to show pace. Renault is also supplying McLaren and so it is anticipated that the Woking crew will also be in the hunt more often in the future. Going with Honda is a risk that might pay off, but such a decision cannot really be taken before decisions about the rules for the next two years, while Renault wants a yes or no by May 15, the date by which teams are supposed to inform the FIA about their power unit plans for next year. 

It is perhaps logical to wait until the rules for 2019 and 2020 are decided and the FIA is unlikely to force the team to make the choice before that, so we may have to wait a little longer before discovering what happens. Red Bull make wish to align with Honda for the longer term, in order to have a manufacturer of its own, because it is by no means certain that the hoped-for Aston Martin engine will happen. The brand wants to get into F1 but plans for a joint venture engine with other teams and Cosworth seem to have gone rather quiet. Aston Martin Joerg Ross and Luca Marmorini are working on F1 concepts, but Aston Martin needs a technical partner to go ahead. Red Bull is busy designing cars for Aston Martin and so might be able to supply a lot of the funding.

Source: JSBM