Standard Engines set for go-ahead

So, F1 will be"powered by Ford?

 

They stole Tony George's idea!

 

Wow! - Renault!..... I thought they were on record as saying "screw the standard motor"....

I don't have a problem with Cosworth powering half the field - In fact, I have very fond memories of the DFV in virtually all the cars.

But "pegging the performance" of any other manufacturers lumps is ludicrous IMHO - Let 'em at it and may the best team win! [Remember when Ferrari had tons of power, but the cars were, basically, crap?]

What concerns me more is its starting to look like the FOTA is, once again, going to be divided when going to see Mad Max in the headmasters office. He'll trample all over 'em (again) and get his crazy plans through unless they stand united.

My 02c,
Cheers,
Ian

 

It's all posturing. As soon as Ferrari and McLaren pull out,
there's no F1, then we'll see what Max settles for.

 

If there is an engine freeze then why is there a need to have a FULL engine program?
Don't you simply need to manufacture/test the same 2.4 V8 at that point?

The R&D for all the little loopholes teams know about probably cost more than the manufacturing of the engine alone.

 

Agreed Ian.

 

Max is a clever ba$tard and won't let that happen, he is appeasing them, they can use there own motors ,albeit restrainted!

The best we can hope for as Andreas has pointed out is, lets hope for grey area's where they can succeed, the only trouble I see with this is, as soon as Ferrari or Mclaren or whoever running there own motor gets a run away lead, they get there motor deemed to good and found to be illegal, Hence great scripting of the show again.

 

An easier way out of this mess is to offer the other teams Toyota/Mercedes/Ferrari engines at half the cost of the Cosworth engine, thus putting them out of business. It would be loss leader for the manufacturers but more profitable in the long run.

 

The other thing we're overlooking, for once anyway (!), is that Ferrari & McLaren can't agree on the time of day.

As stated, MM is a *really* sharp person (*) He's made his living by utilising a "divide & conquer" approach - I'll say it again, until FOTA can stand 100% united he's going to cane them (pun intended). Hell, he was *condemned* by some of most powerful people around and came through.....

Cheers,
Ian
(*) - I couldn't get another word than "person" in there that the parser didn't keep ****'ing out!

 

That's a nice attitude! Makes no sense IMHO.

~7.5M per year for the "garragisti" is a good deal - Cosworth is a *proven* entity that (along with Ford in the early days) pretty much kept F1 grids full.

Any F1 team could get motors, or you could build your own (IIRC, for many years, at different times, Ferrari was the *sole* builder of it's own motors.)

Furthermore, there is nothing to stop, STR for example buying anyone's engine - I believe Force India have changed suppliers this off season for example.

Hopefully, MM will get Cosworth in to the game with, say, 4 teams. Then the big 3 you mentioned will each supply one other team (Any more and they tend to whine about the "effort" being too much - Poor little darlings....)

My 02c,
Cheers,
Ian

 

I dont see it as such a bad thing per se. It allows teams with a low budget to spend much more of their pennies on car design, which hopefully allows more teams to be competitive.

 

I get the bit that more teams can compete, but I'm worried when this spec-ing up will end, I would prefer a budget cap on the bigger teams, thus giving smaller teams the chance to compete with smaller budgets.

You could argue constantly changing things trying to cut costs actually increases costs, and this I'm fed up with.

Now KERS is for the time being been left open to the teams to get the best out of it, and I suppose this will be the difference giving a edge to the team that has developed or gets the best out of the unit, also I would imagine it would be hard to copy a KERS unit unlike taking photos of aero stuff, that is until such a time they become standard or banned..

I still say limit the budget let the teams do what the hell they want with the money, blow it on beer if they want, its there money to waste, and let them race uninterrupted by all the bollox of you can't do this and you can't do that.

I suppose I'm a geek, I like all the tech and development stuff, but maybe the majority don't care and wouldn't even know if all the cars are the same.

 

What makes sense is leaving F1 alone instead of destroying it with a spec series of racing that nobody will watch. IRL sucks, it's a joke, I pray that F1 will not follow that same road to he...

 

The manufacturers should just give The Dwarf and Mad Max the finger and form their own series.

Jack.

 

So instead of the teams being able to spend the money the engine development over the winter break to give possible 4 week races the Firetards decided to add KERS to the equation. Standard engines would lower costs but with the combination of KERS the costs are still going to be higher. I agree with the others and say they should just disban and recreate a new league maybe called BMS1, (bernie and max suck).

 

R.I.P. Formula One.

It's been on life support since the NASCAR-style spec engine rules, but the merciful thing to do now is to quickly pull the plug.

 

I was a bit surprised by the response from Renault to the standard engine. Looks like F1 Indy Style is coming in 09. Such a shame for what purports to be the "pinnacle" of motorsports. (GT2 in ALMS, LMS looks to be the biggest thrill of '09!)

Carol

 

No - Kevin Kalkhoven and Gerry Forsythe purchased Cosworth from Ford as a supplier to Champ Car (which they also owned).

Again, no. Not to rant on about TG, but he's rarely had a good or original idea. It was Kalkhoven and Forsythe that promoted the idea of a spec series with Champ Car. For a short time, it looked to be a good idea, but internal strife caused them to sell out to Tony George. Tony wanted engine manufacturers to compete (a la Toyota and Honda), which frankly caused the demise of both CART and the IRL IMHO. If it weren't for Honda (and they are rumored to be leaving), the IRL would be dead. In fact, Kalkhoven has made a move to buy back all the turbo Cossie engines liquidated from his sell off to Tony in order to keep a supply handy, just in case Honda leaves.

I totally agree, but not because of spec engines. It sucks because it's a) mostly oval racing b) there's no strong names (too many Marty Roths and field fillers) c) the cars are butt ugly... I could go on, but I don't think it has anything to do with spec engines.

If F1 retains the driver quality (and it does a good job of promoting the names) and the historic constructors (and I mean primarily Ferrari, McLaren, and Williams), I see no issue with Max's proposal. I personally would take it further and get the cars looking a little more like the late 80's / early 90's variants, which would reduce the aero dependence and make them far easier to look at/lust after.

FWIW

 

Actually steve, I've never looked at it from that side, setting a maximum of what teams can spend annually makes much more sense.

But i think there are way to many loopholes that way though...

With the 500 orso million a team like ferrari or mclaren has to spend annualy, I'm correct in saying that salaries of the drivers and the other high functions are included right? They can already cut about 80 million by telling massa and kimi that they 'only' recieve a million each for racing. But the rest of their normal salary is made by testing new road going Ferrari's.

 

Thanks for the clarification. I try not to let the facts get in the way of a good line

 

No worries - it was a good line!

 

Then my work here is done.

 

I along with many others, in fact most likely the majority, are not going to watch a Ferrari with a stinking Cosworth engine in it... No self respecting Mercedes/McLaren fan will watch their car with a stinking Cosworth engine in it... It's not F1 without F1 engines from F1 manufacturers, it's GP2... F1 will be dead soon if this continues and all the paramedics in the world won't be able to revive it...