The cool part of this innovation is that it can directly benefit consumers.

Trick engineering in F1 usually just tricks the regulations or the kinds of physics that only apply to racing prototypes. An example of tricking the regulations would be the double-deck and blown diffusers that were just clever interpretations of the rulebook. Tricking physics is a bit more interesting, a good example would be McLaren's F-Duct which used fancy fluid dynamics to turn a driver's leg into an on/off switch for drag on the rear wing. They basically ran a duct from the front of the car all the way to the wing, with a hole cut into it by the driver's leg. Cover the hole and pressure sucked air through to the wing, smoothing it's profile and reducing drag. Very cool, except I don't know many family sedans that need over 1 ton of downforce at 150mph.

The timing of this innovation in turbocharging couldn't be better. Every manufacturer is trying to gain efficiency with small, turbocharged engines. Small displacement engines are efficient but consumers don't want to trade half their horsepower for 5-10mpg. So companies like Ford and VW are slapping turbos onto these engines and cranking boost levels through the roof. The Fiesta ST runs 21 lbs of boost off the showroom floor. That kind of boost means a lot of heat (the same issue Mercedes' F1 engineers were faced with) so engineers are using every trick in the book to keep temperatures in control (direct injection, temporary overboost, expensive aluminum intercoolers).

What Mercedes' has done isn't so much about the innovative layout, it's that they've made it work without turbo lag. Bring whatever technology they've developed to combat the weight of the turbine shaft to the road and you've made it possible to operate on lower octane fuel while making more power from even smaller displacements.

This is what I like to see from motorsport.

I'd love to know how they are running the shaft from the turbine to the compressor .. these things spin at something like 100,000RPM if I'm not mistaken. Normally this would be handled by a few bearings with direct oil intake at high pressure with the bearings being only a few centimeters apart if that .. but to span an entire engine is some special kind of precision engineering.

edit: special because any imbalance in the shaft would rip the bearings apart.

Some Garrett turbochargers can spin up to 280,000 rpm according to their site: http://garrettbyhoneywell.com/turbo-fundamentals/how-a-turbo...

The motor/generator sits in the middle of the two turbines so that can help keep shaft length down but gearing 280,000 rpm down to something that wouldn't blow up the motor creates a whole new world of complexity. All I know is that this is very impressive engineering and that there are tons of unique innovations needed to make it all work together.

Eliminating turbo lag is less about making a better turbo, and more about making the turbo work in concert with the engine. This is usually about picking a good size turbo that picks up smoothly with the given engine.

Better turbos will make for better engines, but I would think you can never fix turbo lag with turbo improvements alone...

Mercedes has their turbo tied in to a motor/generator that smooths out the spin-up/spin-down cycle and can recover a bit of energy as a bonus. A lot of companies have tried to make electric-assisted turbos work but this is the first real-world application I know of.

This is the way F1 turbo/engine is specified to work. Not specific to Mercedes. Only the split turbine/compressor is Mercedes specific.

Oh, I see, so it isn't actually a traditional turbo at all anymore. That does change things.

That is a cool feature. good use of instant torque. offsets the inertia during windup.

> What Mercedes' has done isn't so much about the innovative layout, it's that they've made it work without turbo lag.

The innovative layout is what enables the reduction in turbo lag. The latter is entirely predicated on the physical positions of the turbine relative to the compressor.

I'm loving the direction F1 is going. Sure, for the hardcore fans, the noise just isn't the same, and the cars aren't going as fast anymore, but I love that they are trying to force the manufacturers to improve their lower spec engines. Maybe the next rule change we'll have CVT as a requirement instead of a gear box.

As an F1 fan, it isn't the noise, and speed that are making this championship "boring". It's the fact that Mercedes is so superior that you really have to ignore them in order to enjoy the "real" racing / fights behind them. (It's true that the Hamilton-Rosberg fight in Bahrain was also fun to watch)

Mercedes' dominance is ridiculous - and I don't want to take engineering credits away, but there are no fights to watch at the top. Just take a look at the 22 second difference they managed to create in just 11 laps, the laps left after the safety car at Bahrain went in the pit lane. The fun was behind, Force India vs Red Bull vs Williams (vs Ferrari, sigh). Lets hope that other teams can catch up.

> there are no fights to watch at the top

Were we watching the same race? The last 11 laps were an epic battle between Rosberg and Hamilton, and the mob contending for points was no less thrilling. I thought it was a great race, at least at the end.

And have you already forgotten 2013? Red Bull won every single race in the second half of the season. Yeah, Mercedes is on top, for now, it's not like a constructor has never been dominant before.

Please read my entire comment:

> (It's true that the Hamilton-Rosberg fight in Bahrain was also fun to watch)

My point is: this year looks like the last years' championships with RBR... same dog, different collar.

Not exactly. Webber vs Vettel wasn't really close. Rosberg and Hamilton will be a lot closer.

Is it though? We haven't even arrived in Monaco yet, anything could happen and the drama has been amazing to watch so far. Take tonight for example... Vetel being instructed to let Ricciardo pass and complying, Force India going 3/5, Hamilton and Rosberg dueling, Massa(??) blitzing the field on the start. The president of Ferrari walking out in disgust. That horrendous flip...

This doesn't even get into new arrivals like Magnussen and his amazing debut. This season is far from over and getting more interesting by the day.

We need to wait until we get to Europe, that's when the new parts will start arriving and the other teams have a chance to catch up. Development is going to be key this year.

Sorry. Pretty late night where I am, and a couple too many bottles of, uh, "rose water".

Anyway my point was - the lack of a real fight doesn't have much to do with the rule change, since it was present last year as well. And anyway, the season's just beginning - let's see what happens.

I don't think RB was nowhere near where Mercedes is this year. They are unbeatable like Brawn GP was on 2008. Others wont catch them this year. But otherwise very interesting season.

Just as ridiculous ( and remarkable) as Ferrari's dominance was for so many years with ol' Schumi at the wheel. As long as no one is cheating, whoever leads most certainly deserve to be at the top.

Barhrain today was nothing compared to the past 14 years. There are always instances of one team getting it more right than others, 88, 93, 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 09, 12, 13, 14. But those years (except 09 and 88) were pretty much one sided.

This year the cars look amazing on track, the torque out of corners is great to watch, the skill of the drivers is now more important than ever. Gone are the days of Vettel sticking his foot down and hitting the apex with ease. Other teams will catch Mercedes up, the the engine unfreeze at the end of the year if not before.

So what your saying is you want Balance of Performance adjustments?

Also keep in mind that Formula E debuts this year; it will be the sport we all eventually follow (not sure how I feel about the passing cars sounding more like aircraft than cars): http://www.fiaformulae.com/

Who cares about the sound? I'm tired of seeing blog comments on Jalopnik complaining about it. Of the many dumb excuses car nuts use to whine about electric cars, "they sound different!" is by far the worst.

I have an old muscle car with a built V8. The crackling sound of the engine start, and the sound it makes when it 'digs in' under acceleration, is viscerally thrilling.

The smell of a hot engine, and the shaking of the car also add a lot of fun.

One of the best movie montages ever is the opening sequence of the movie "Grand Prix" where they start the engines and warm em up.

In "Rush" they ruined the movie by having a rock soundtrack laid over the sounds of the cars.

"Bullitt"s car chase has never been equaled because the director had the guts to let the V8s and various car noises be the whole soundtrack. The music overlay stops when the chase starts, the complete opposite of every other movie.

Sorry, but Bullitt's car chase is terribly boring. I don't get why it's so fascinating?

Maybe you're used to the modern cinematographic technique of quick cuts where one barely has time to focus on a scene. Older movies tend to use longer shots in action sequences.

Besides what I already mentioned, Bullitt is cool because:

1. the setup where the guy puts on his seatbelt

2. the total lack of dialog - the driver and the gunman understand each other just by looks

3. the deadpan expression on the driver

4. when Bullitt slides off the road, the slightest, most barely perceptible smile on the driver's face

5. McQueen's expression of complete focus and concentration

6. the 68 Mustang and Charger just totally rock. I never understand having a chase sequence with boring cars

7. the lack of CGI, models, and special effects

8. the skid marks from earlier takes

9. the amazing teleporting Green Beetle :-)

10. I love the shot of the rearview mirror when the hunter becomes the hunted - it's just classic

It needs more Michael Bay! Kidding aside, I do agree the Fastback and Charger are beautiful pieces of engineering. What I wouldn't do to own a Charger.

I'll have to (try and) watch the movie again.

Personal favourite is the car chase from Ronin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVaNBrYLvFg#t=339

Link to Bullitt chase: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Lbs_nYW3-o

> What I wouldn't do to own a Charger.

What stops me is I don't have the garage space for it, or I'd get one. If you don't need one fully restored, or numbers matching, or all original, the prices aren't too bad.

They are in Denmark ;-)

Don't forget the car with 6 hubcaps!

It's refreshing to see a car chase that looks and sounds a lot like what an actual car chase would actually look and sound like, as opposed to the very synthetic and stylized depictions typically found in modern movies and television.

At the end of the day sound is an inherent inefficiency. The aim is to maximise the kinetic energy output of the motor — any sound or heat energy produced is waste that could've better been produced as kinetic energy.

Not always. Did you know that in top fuel cars, the "waste" energy of the exhaust works like jet thrusters, providing up to 1000lbs of traction-boosting downforce?

The exhaust might do that, but the sound certainly doesn't. Any sound is wasted energy.

And in any case there are better ways to harness energy if you want create downforce.

I have to admit I love the sound of a good engine - and aeroplanes, and boats, trains, everything. It's the sound of power. Watching cars race without that sound is a far less emotive experience. One of the commentators on tonight's Bahrain race said that the safety car sounded much better than the race cars, and I wistfully agreed.

That said, I do think some people overdo it a bit and I actually like that FIA is willing to force innovation, even if it's (initially?) unpopular.

They have a long history of suppressing innovation though. Chapter 13 of this book is about all the tech that was banned. http://www.amazon.com/Formula-Technology-Peter-G-Wright/dp/0...

It is the most interesting chapter in the book.

Search 'look inside' for the word 'banned' to see what greg's talking about. He's right. That's cool.

What would F1 be like if they relaxed all the rules?

Edit: Just got through the chapter, the author speculates on what would be possible without bans.

I haven't read the book but I think CanAm in the 70s was pretty much racing with no engineering restrictions. Hence you had the Porsche 917 putting out 1500hp+ and only weighing 1800 lbs.

When you go to a race, you can feel the thrum of the engines in your chest. It can be a part of the experience. The same way that 100mph on a motorcycle is more thrilling than 100mph in a BMW, because of the roar of the wind, the heat of the bike, and the scream of the motor.

As someone who had to study and do exams while the F1 was one, thank you and screw those people.

Lots of people do - some were drawn to F1 just because they stopped walking past a TV or near a track and wanted to know what was making that unworldly racket.

That, to me, is equivalent of saying who cares what the cars look like? It's all part and parcel of the appeal of the sport - if somethings amiss, you've lost a little bit of that appeal.

Was completely unaware of the upcoming Formula E. Thanks for sharing.

I'm a bit surprised by the "single provider" system used there. Read the Wikipedia article and it sounds like McLaren will supply all teams? Doesn't sound ideal to promote research. Also would love to see a Tesla Formula E team.

Formula E is only going to be around along enough to prove the concept is viable. Once it is, its going to either be relegated to a feeder series, or the ideas merged into formula one.

Thanks for the link. I didn't know about Formula E! I watched a video linked off the front page and while I missed the roar of a petrol engine, but it had it's own neat sound.

> the cars aren't going as fast anymore

Lap times are about 1% away from last year, not a huge difference. I would expect that by the end of the season, lap times will have caught up.

>> "Sure, for the hardcore fans, the noise just isn't the same"

Hardcore fans don't care about this noise. They're there to watch a race not listen to it. Sure it enhances the atmosphere but it's the racing that's important and judging by todays race that's only getting better.

I'm a hardcore fan and I love the new sound. I do miss the epic V-12 screaming, but the sound of the turbo? Breath-taking.

I didn't think turbos usually made sounds. Superchargers whine, but turbos seem pretty quiet?

They make a nice whistling and wooshing sound.

Listen on the downshifts. You can hear the turbines spinning at high speed, lagging behind the V-6's speed a bit. It almost sounds like a sucking sound as they lift off the throttle.

Well, I'm a long-time fan, and I sure miss the noise.

I have nothing against the turbo engines, but the lack of noise takes away a lot of the atmosphere, especially live.

But particlarly odious is the fuel metering. This is racing - not hypermiling. When stupid rules interfere with racing, racing suffers.

Long-time fan here who also finds fuel metering ridiculous.

A lot of the hardcore fans seem to like the noise. I'm waiting for the teams to start pushing closer to the rev limit where the engines really start to scream (I think they use around 13000 of the 15000 available).

CVT's were previously used but they were banned pretty quickly.

I've only been to one F1 race in person that was 1988 in Montreal and I couldn't believe the noise, vicious! My teeth vibrated, even my bones I couldn't believe I could feel my freaking skeletal bones vibrate. Some friends and I went because the turbos were going to be banned in 1989.

I was 19 years old and the only thing I remember about the trip is 1) the noise! 2) crazy Italians 3) crazy Brazilians 4) strip club under a Burger King

The mid-80's turbo era was the best. The awesome sound, the cars twitching with the torque and sparks flying from the undertray made for good watching.

The JPS 98Ts are still possibly the best looking cars ever.

"Sure, for the hardcore fans, the noise just isn't the same"

Many hardcore fans are more than happy that the cars sound again like they did back in the 80s before turbo was banned, a deep sound full of power.

The Mercedes F1 team appears to be one team that makes cars with engines that they also supply to other teams. However it is not quite like that. The engines part of the business has been going for a long time with McLaren since the mid 90's and before that they were 'Ilmor'.

Then, five years or so, Mercedes bought what was the Honda/Braun constructor team. Both the engine business and the car constructor part of the empire are in the UK albeit geographically separate.

It would be unsporting for Mercedes to supply their on-track rivals with lesser engines, particularly since they pay top money for them. So the official PR story for this is that the separate constructor part of the business came up with this innovation all on their own for packaging reasons, i.e. a more aerodynamic car.

There is no foul play going on, Mercedes planned this from the start. They knew that coming back into the sport they had no chance to catch the dominant Red Bull cars so for the last 5 years the team has been solely focused on developing a car for this season's rule changes. Mercedes intentionally made the decision to have a worse team the last few years to put more money toward R&D for this season. This sacrifice culminated in them having a better designed car than any other team this year with their innovative turbo/compressor placement:

http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/12472/9243875/revealed-how...

Your engine point is moot, because it is up to the team to implement the supplied engine and there are huge monetary differences between teams. A team buying supplied engines is always at a disadvantage in terms of time and design because they didn't design the engines. They have to adapt their car to the engine, while the manufacturer team can develop both in concert. Its similar to Android vs. the iPhone, Apple's products use similar parts but the experience was better because its OS and hardware were developed together, instead of hooked together at the end like Android phones. Also, F1 is not fair in terms of money. Manufacturing teams, Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes etc, have R&D budgets multiple times the size of the smaller teams. Even though, Force India buys Merc engines, they have a fraction of the budget to figure out how to optimize it, and terrible drivers in comparison.

The interesting bit about the Ilmor relationship is that it stemmed from development of another Mercedes' branded motorsport superweapon.

Ilmor was founded by 2 Cosworth engineers who disagreed with the development direction of the DFX CART engine, they started with funding from GM to design an Chevy-branded engine for CART which went on to win 6 straight Indy 500s. Despite their immense success, the Ilmor team wanted to design a one-off engine around a loophole that allowed much more regulatory freedom if the engine used pushrods instead of overhead cams. That loophole could theoretically allow an engine to make ~200hp more than the competition butGM was winning trophies hand over fist. They declined to fund the concept so the two companies parted ways.

They still saw enormous potential in the pushrod concept and found willing partners in Roger Penske and Mercedes. Shortly thereafter the Mercedes 500l had been born, also known as Mercedosaurus Rex. It's the spiritual predecessor to this year's engine in that it was in a completely different league than its competition.

If you're interested in motorsport history and engineering you should read this: http://8w.forix.com/penske-mercedes-pc23.html

It's nearly book length but it does a great job of explaining why the 500l deserves its place in motorsports legend.

They cannot within the rules of the sport supply power trains of different designs to the different teams — all Mercedes power trains are identical.

Indeed but McLaren and Williams manufacturer their own gearbox.

This article is already dated. Today's race was one of the most thrilling races of all time. "Hamilton defeats Rosberg after epic duel": http://www.formula1.com/default.html

F1 2014 is more exciting than season 2013 where Red Bull was superior (and '12 & '11) - that was boring.

Aw, a spoiler warning would have been appreciated there.

The article title might have given it away ...

Mercedes has been dominant the past two races as well so it's not necessarily a spoiler to say they have been owning the season. On the other hand today's race ended a few hours ago and I didn't expect to run into race results on HN of all places. Oh well.

To be fair to him, a thread all about which team is dominating F1 is the kind of place on HN that I would expect to see races discussed. Not sure that shouldve taken you by surprise! Anyway, sounds like the race was good enough for you to enjoy anyway.

Don't worry about the results, watch that awesome race!

What is interesting is that Mercedes came up with the split turbocharger only in the first race - in preseason winter testing, they were running a more traditional turbo charger.

Now that we've seen the split turbocharger with the turbine at the back, the compressor at the front and the motor-generator unit in between on top of the engine block it seems all too obvious. But coming up with this is ingenious, and making it work on such short notice is quite a feat of engineering.

I can't wait to have this in my road car, 40% fuel saving with only a little drop in performance.

I think the hard part wasn't coming up with the configuration, it's making it work without inducing immense turbo lag. The software controlling the motor/generator has to be impressively precise considering the forces and timings it is working with.

Didn't the article say they were working on this for 2 years?

Yes, the article did say that and I found it a bit odd. While they probably have been working on the power unit for two years, the split turbocharger was first seen at the first race.

Of course, my knowledge is based on media reports, it is possible that none of the media have seen it in Jerez and Bahrain tests but it was first reported by Craig Scarborough during the Australian GP weekend.

The split turbocharger was most likely identified by interested journalists at the first race. The power train was homologated for the season at the end of February, so the design was finalised prior to the third pre-season test. It's most likely that the turbo was in this form a while ago.

I don't follow F1, but surely with anything that's going to give a team a big competitive advantage, a.) there always has to be a line between "haven't used" and "have now used" and b.) to delay other teams efforts to copy, the later that point comes the better.

> But those teams–McLaren, Williams, and Force India–haven’t been testing these new V6s as long as the official factory team.

Finally Hamilton's choice to leave McLarren paid dues. I remember him saying last year that "I have the change to run for a team that builds the car piece by piece, from the engine to the tiniest screw, the only other team that can do this is Ferrari". But although the car was fast last year, it was not consistent, too many breaks. This year seems to be the good one.

Also I have to say that I admire Hamilton for not applying any first-second driver policy on Rosberg. After the all he is without doubt the star-driver for Mercedes. I wish him good luck, he deserves another championship, after all the fist one he got was kind of obscured by the McLaren scandal[1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Formula_One_espionage_cont...

I have been a fan of F1 since the days of Nigel Mansell and I have got to say I am no fan of the new direction of Formula 1 present day.

To me Formula 1 represents the pinnacle of engine/chassis engineering uninhibited by any green standard of the day. For once just let the creative minds of auto engineering have their day at the track and let the best team win.

There is nothing more sexy to a car guy than hearing a V10 scream down the straights at Fuji Speedway at 21k RPM and nothing more exciting than seeing a V10 engine detonate at 21k RPM. I certainly miss the days of Schumacher and Alonso battling in the final days of the V10 engine.

Mercedes may be currently winning it by the years of preplanning for this day, but the race is already over by using today’s standard.

EDIT: In case you never heard a V10 engine http://youtu.be/MGEqlNU30Tg

How much does anyone know about the details of this engine?

I'd like to think some of the immense amount of research and development that went into the Bishop Rotary Valve for Mercedes F1 has not gone to waste.

   http://home.people.net.au/~mrbdesign/PDF/AutoTechBRV.pdf

That innovation was killed by article 5.1.5 of FIA:

   "Only reciprocating poppet valves are permitted"

Seems a bit arbitrary. Though I have heard it the BRV was killed by the limit of certain metals seen as poisonous -- also dubious considering the danger is in the manufacture, not racing.

Why would it be bad to put hot air into the engine?

For blast furnaces you want to preheat the air going in so that it does not cool down the furnace. Is it just about cooling the engine down, or is it something else?

The engine and turbo compress and heat the air charge immensely. Others have mentioned air density, but while dense air is nice, the increased temperature is the important part when it comes to high performance turbo applications. Everyone knows that overheating an engine is bad, but what actually happens when you push things too far?

If your combustion chamber grows too hot, you can suffer from pre-ignition, where your fuel-air mixture ignites sooner than it should. This results in wasted power and increased temps as the engine has to compress the now-expanding combustion charge.

What often follows pre-ignition (provided nothing has melted or blown up yet) is detonation. In normal combustion, you have a flame front that expands smoothly from the ignition spark and causes a smooth increase in pressure. It occurs quickly, but it's not an explosion. Detonation is the opposite. Pockets of fuel-air mixture in any part of the combustion chamber ignite explosively, sending out sharp shockwaves that are too fast to be absorbed by the rotating mass of the engine. If the detonations are too powerful or too frequent, they can cause catastrophic damage.

There's plenty more that can be explained on the subject and I'm sure somebody can find something to correct, but that's the gist of it. The engine is already hot enough, higher intake temps make things worse, go too far and you get abnormal combustion which results in spontaneous disassembly.

Cold air is denser. Denser air contains more oxygen for combustion, and won't get as hot after compression. In 4-stroke engines, this means more power.

All three of the replies to your comment are true, but they don't cover everything.

Car engines are heat engines, they extract mechanical work from differences in temperature. Heat engine efficiency is n = 1 - sqrt(Tcold/Thot)

If Tcold, the cold end, isn't cold enough, then you lose efficiency, and thus horsepower. A badly overheating engine loses a lot of power. If you can cool the compressed air back down to ambient, then your engine produces more power.

This seems orthogonal to me. Tcold for the efficiency is the exhaust temp, not the intake.

For pure efficiency, it is actually beneficial to capture waste heat in the exhaust to heat the intake air. But it destroys your power density, for the reasons already mentioned (hot air has less mass at the same pressure). I believe some automotive engines actually do this under light load conditions, but you wouldn't see it in F1.

cool air = more dense = more oxygen to burn

For those interested - it's not just the engine; you'll find plenty of teams/drivers also struggling with the new brake-by-wire as outlined here: http://www.racecar-engineering.com/articles/2014-f1-explaine...

It's among a myriad of new tech introduced this year, and Mercedes just happen to have the most complete package available.

Today's race was the first time we got to see just how fast the Mercedes is on low fuel with new tires. This innovation is worth 2 seconds per lap, which is massive in this sport. The championship is theirs to lose this year. Teams don't make up such a time gap over a season, and Mercedes won't stop developing.

And now Ecclestone is hinting at mid-season changes that FIA should pursue to wink protect the other teams.

I say tough. They will catch up eventually. But there should be no drastic changes that hurt all the work Mercedes put in.

Did anyone else cringe at the grammar of the title? It's the McDonaldsization ("I'm x-ing object!") slash subcontinental present continuous affectation.

Interesting article. Depressing to see the word 'boffins' still in use.

I wasn't aware there was anything wrong with that word. Is it derogatory?

It's generally used by non-scientists to refer to scientists. People don't tend to use it to refer to themselves (though a few might, in a humorously self-deprecating fashion).

It might have a dismissive or mocking connotation, depending on the intention of the person using it. I guess in the worst case, its use could be described as 'othering'

https://google.com/search?q=define%3A+othering

English is not my mother tongue. When I reached the word boffins I stopped and opened the OSX dictionary which gave the right perspective... Because I instantly related boffins with buffoons which has a totally different meaning and didn't make any sense to call F1 engineers buffoons ?! It's okay if it comes from Archimedes, Francis Bacon and another 10-15 fellas I guess because it's kind of relative... But if I were an F1 engineer, I would had a hard time accepting such a degradative term from anyone else!

ps. Funny how fast all these vivid thoughts crossed my mind in less the 2 seconds.

Hey, the same thing happens with native English speakers. I just heard a radio spot where someone was reprimanded for using the term "pussyfoot" at a meeting.

That's nothing, though, compared to this: http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/1999_02_02_newy...

Don't be silly. Other than perhaps in a school playground where _any_ word said repeatedly enough can be considered abusive, boffin is not word that anyone can take offence from really.

Many scientists do take offence.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2013/jul/2...

From the description on Wikipedia, it doesn't seem to be a pejorative.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boffin

It has a slightly negative connotation.

In my experience it's actually rarely used negatively (ymmv of course) - I only really hear it when the context is "these people (the boffins) do something about which I don't understand", so it's almost self-deprecating to call them boffins. On the otherhand it's also not particularly positive, either.

As an example: Stephen Fry uses it, and he is a.) a geek and b.) not the kind of person to insult people for that kind of thing - when he uses it he always just means that they're people doing something complicated that he doesn't know about.

Stephen Fry is incredibly condescending almost constantly, so I wouldn't cite him in defense of the word.

Indeed. Especially so for children. In British schools in the 80's/90's at least, it was commonly used if you enjoyed class a little too much.