Red Bull team boss Christian Horner has warned that more manufacturers could leave F1 unless engine rules are changed.
Red Bull team boss says limited engine development should be allowed
Red Bull boss Christian Horner has warned that more manufacturers could leave Formula One unless rules are changed to allow equalisation of engine power.
Horner was speaking at the launch of his team's new RB6 car, which has a Renault engine that is widely believed to be underpowered compared to some its rivals, particularly that supplied by Mercedes-Benz.
With Honda, BMW and Toyota all having withdrawn from F1 in the past 15 months, Horner believes more could follow unless the FIA relaxes its current rules freezing engine development.
"The problem with the engine freeze is that you freeze in an advantage," he said in comments reported on www.autosport.com.
"I think the Renault has some good aspects and Renault, when the freeze came, took it a bit more literally than some of the other manufacturers. I think there is disparity currently within engine performance.
"On a fair and equitable basis, we rely on the governing body to ensure that you don't have large disparity between engines because the problem is that, as the chassis converge in performance, the engines will become a key performance differentiator, and the idea of freezing the engine was largely to eliminate the performance differential between the engines.
"I think the problem is if you don't allow some development, then you freeze in an advantage for one team or a disadvantage for another.
"So there has to be a balancing of that, otherwise we will end up with Mercedes-powered cars winning all the races - which I think is not good for F1.
"And other manufacturers may choose to leave F1 off of the back of that.
"The engine isn't supposed to be a key performance differentiator and therefore hopefully the ruling body will balance out somewhat the differences there at the moment."
Renault suffered a deficiency in power during the 2008 season but was allowed to make changes to its engine after unanimous agreement was reached between teams.
