Have F1's engine makers become too powerful?

Bernie Ecclestone, Max Mosley and Adam Parr have all in recent days voiced their concern that F1's engine manufacturers have become too powerful.

The trio - comprising the acknowledged supremo of F1, the former FIA president, and, in the shape of Parr, a former chairman of Williams who now sits on the board of independent engine manufactures Cosworth - are rarely all in agreement on anything, making their collective concern all the more resonant.

"The moment you have one or two or even three manufacturers and they are involved at board level...then they control Formula 1, you don't control Formula 1," said Mosley this week in a joint interview with Ecclestone.

Ecclestone himself had already warned about the increasing power of engine manufactures in an interview with Sky Sports F1 at the Russian GP, observing: "If Mercedes were supplying you with engines and they wanted a vote on something, you'd have to put your hand up and vote for whatever they wanted otherwise maybe you're not going to get the engine you want."

Meanwhile, in an apparent response to the four existing engine makers agreeing to allow in-season development, Parr tweeted: 

Why have engine makers become so powerful?
Predominantly because engine power has become the key performance differential in F1 since the sport was restarted in 2014. 

"I think that's where things have got out of kilter," said Red Bull designer Adrian Newey at the start of this season. "F1 should be a blend of the performance of the driver, the chassis and the engine, and the current regulations have swung too much in favour of the engine with a very restrictive set of regulations on the chassis, so if an engine manufacturer derives a benefit it's difficult for a chassis manufacturer to make enough of a difference to overturn that."

Newey, of course, has a vested interest underpinning his misgivings about the current state of F1 given that Red Bull won four successive title doubles prior to the 'rules revolution' and are now in danger of leaving the sport.

But few paddock insiders would argue against engines being identified as the most important influence in F1's on-track balance of power. The V6 units of Mercedes and Ferrari are unarguably the most powerful in the sport and it's no coincidence that, between them, Ferrari and Mercedes have won every race this year.

But have they become too powerful?
While there isn't necessarily too much sympathy among fellow teams or fans for Red Bull's plight, the refusal of Mercedes and Ferrari to supply their rivals with 2016 engines underlines how powerful a position the two manufacturers now hold.

While they don't exactly hold all the cards - Dietrich Mateschitz could and still might pull the plug on his F1 involvement for other reasons - Red Bull would probably stick around were either of their rivals to give the green light to a 2016 engine. Without such a concession, the grid could well be reduced by two teams and one of its biggest names.

There are actually four engine suppliers already in the sport - Renault and Honda being the other two - meaning Mercedes and Ferrari can hardly be accused of establishing a market duopoly. However, the pre-eminence of their power units, while hard won and completely legitimate, means that they will supply more than half the grid next season. 

What are the sporting dangers?
Firstly, that teams without the backing of an in-house engine division will remain uncompetitive, stuck below a glass ceiling separating them from elitist 'works' outfits. When McLaren announced their switch from Mercedes customers to partners with Honda, team boss Ron Dennis told Sky F1: "No grand prix team is going to win a World Championship in the future unless it is the dominant recipient of an engine manufacturer's efforts."

If Dennis is right, and a customer outfit will be unable to win in F1, the number of title-capable teams will be the same as the number of engine makers in F1. That's currently just four, but with the engines of Renault and Honda no match for those of Ferrari and Mercedes, it could just as easily be stated that there are only two teams at present which appear capable of challenging for the Constructors' Championship. 

The second concern stems from the ongoing uncertainty surrounding Red Bull's future - detailed above - and the very real prospect of the team falling out of F1 because none of the four manufacturers will power them. 

Whereas in years gone by Ecclestone's wish was F1's command, Ferrari and Mercedes' intransigence despite the F1 supremo's determination to grease a deal can be read as a telling insight into how powerful the sport's leading engine manufacturers have become. It also explains why both Ecclestone and Mosley are hankering after an independent engine provider in the mould of Cosworth to offer units at an "economic price" to those teams in need.

Is the claim the 'engine makers are making the rules' true?
What you see is not always what you get where the F1 regulations are concerned.

Although the Sporting Regulations for next season state that in-season engine development and the ability to provide more than one specification of engine during the season are prohibited, a meeting of manufacturers and the FIA - which took place just two days after the regulations were published last week - has since resulted in agreement to relax those rules, pending formal ratification by the F1 Commission and World Motor Sport Council.

In terms of the competitive health of F1, those agreements are positive. Struggling engine makers Renault and Honda will have more time to work on their 2016 improvements, rather than having to rush them through to meet an end-of-February homologation deadline, while the ability to offer older-spec engines increases the options for customers, such as Toro Rosso and, if it ends up being their only option to stay in F1, perhaps even Red Bull.

As ever in F1, however, there is a flip side and not for the first time it centres on cost. The current F1 engine regulations were devised to keep costs down. Encouraging ongoing development will do little to satisfy such concerns - and unless brought back under control at a later date, that certainly isn't quite so positive for the health of the sport.

How did F1 end up in this situation?
As long ago as 2006, then FIA president Mosley argued F1 needed to increase its road relevance and develop 'greener' engine technology. Five years later, and with Jean Todt now at the helm, F1's governing body announced that from 2014 the sport would race with 1.6-litre V6 turbocharged engines, requiring dramatically improved fuel efficiency and enhanced energy-recovery systems.

Engine development had been 'frozen' to control costs in the final years of the V8 era, with manufacturers having by then largely converged on performance. Two seasons into F1's new turbo era and, in the wake of 28 wins for Mercedes in 34 races, the opposite remains only too true.

Speaking on the F1 Midweek Report in June, former Cosworth boss Mark Gallagher recalled: "In 2010, a year before these regulations were signed off, I remember sitting in a meeting in Paris at the FIA and we all discussed what would happen if one manufacturer got it so right that they ran away with the ball.

"Everyone said: 'Well we'll just have to make sure that doesn't happen.' Well that's precisely what's happened and the reality is that Mercedes deserve every pat on the back; they deserve these world championships that they're winning last year and this year.

"But we now have to say we got that wrong."

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