Ex-FIA chief says F1 in "acute" need of independent engine provider
Tuesday 27 October 2015 17:19, UK
Former FIA president Max Mosley fears engine manufacturers now hold the balance of power in F1.
Engine politics have proved the dominant off-track talking point in recent weeks amid the uncertainty surrounding Red Bull's future in the sport beyond the end of this season.
With Mercedes and Ferrari, currently the grid's best two performing teams and engine suppliers, rejecting Red Bull's request for a 2016 engine, Adrian Newey last week suggested the two teams were effectively forcing the former champions out of the sport.
Although Renault, Red Bull's current suppliers, and McLaren's partners Honda also build engines, neither company has yet made a success of their hybrid turbo units, meaning Mercedes and Ferrari are set to supply over half the field in 2016.
In a wide-ranging joint interview with F1's commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone for German television, Mosley argued the sport was in desperate need of the return of an independent engine supplier such as Cosworth to guard against the manufacturers taking too much control.
"The difficulty is that you have to have an independent engine supplier who can do so [supply] on a commercial basis," the ex-FIA president told ZDF.
"The great strength of Formula 1 from the late '60s until quite recently was that we had Cosworth, Mecachrome and other people making engines so we weren't in the hands of the manufacturers.
"The moment you have one or two or even three manufacturers and they are involved at board level so [Mercedes chairman] Mr Zetsche can talk to [Ferrari chairman] Mr Marchionne or [Renault chairman] Mr Ghosn then they control Formula 1, you don't control Formula 1. At that point the need for an independent engine supplier becomes acute."
Northampton-based Cosworth were a mainstay in F1 for five decades, with their engines badged as Ford for most of that time, and remain second to Ferrari on the all-time list of race winners for engine makers. The company were last on the grid in 2010-13, but were priced out by the switch of engines for 2014.
Although Mosley left office in 2009, two years before the current V6 regulations were announced, the 75-year-old helped shaped the blueprint for the overhaul with the aim of making F1's engine technology greener and more road relevant.
However, Mosley says that had he still been in charge at the time of time the rules were written, he would have ensured the cost of manufacturing the new engines wouldn't have proved prohibitive for Cosworth.
"It was essential if you were doing that to do the engine in a way that an independent engine supplier like Cosworth could do at economic price," Mosley said.
"So if I'd been doing the detailed regulations, apart from the principle, I'd have gone to Cosworth and said 'can you draft some regulations for us to look at where you could follow this principle but produce the engine for sensible amount of money'.
Ecclestone has long opposed the current engine format and believes the new regulations have escalated into a spending war.
"When we got rid of the V8s, whatever you spent you couldn't get more power - that was it. People had exhausted all the possibilities," he said.
"Since then with the new engine, I suppose, the people who have spent the most money can get a big advantage because if they make mistakes they can make all the changes necessary."
Despite the newly-published 2016 Sporting Regulations stating that in-season development for engine development will not be allowed next year - with such measures devised to save costs - the grid's four engine manufacturers and the FIA agreed last week agreed that those restrictions will be lifted. The provision of old-specification power units to customer teams will also be allowed.
In an apparent response, former Williams chairman Adam Parr, who now sits on Cosworth's board as a non-executive director, tweeted: "So, the #F1 endgame. 3-car A-teams and customer B teams. Engine makers make the rules. Bernie irrelevant."
