Mercedes customer F1 teams won't get upgraded engine in 2015 - F1 news - AUTOSPORT.com Yes they have a right to do this. I also feel they are scared of competition. Cowards. The Mercedes customer teams will not receive the latest specification of Formula 1 engine from their supplier this season, Autosport has learned. All Mercedes-engined drivers are due to fit their fourth allocated units of 2015 for this weekend's Russian Grand Prix, apart from Nico Rosberg and Nico Hulkenberg, who are already using their fourth power units. Championship leader Lewis Hamilton will use a fresh version of the 'phase four' development engine introduced on the works Mercedes cars at September's Italian GP. The German manufacturer spent its remaining seven 2015 development tokens on a combustion upgrade for Italy, as it explored what it called a "new development direction". But the Williams and Lotus drivers, plus Force India's Sergio Perez, will continue using the previous iteration for this weekend's Sochi race and the remainder of the season. Williams said at Monza it hoped to tie its final scheduled engine changes of 2015 in with an update from Mercedes, but AUTOSPORT understands the German marque is unable to produce enough of the latest specification of parts to supply all of its customer teams this year. The customer teams will now have to wait until 2016 before they get the opportunity to update their power units again.
They've already turned down the option of supplying Red Bull with power units because they feel Red Bull would be too much of a threat to them, so is this news really any surprise?
Probably it´s a money/costs issue. I don´t think that they´re afraid of Williams or Force India. Actually they would want to put customer cars between them and the Ferraris and Red Bulls.
Mercedes would likely not be running this new engine in their car - if Ferrari hadn't of closed the gap so fast. Mercedes rushed it in. When Nico's had a problem at Monza - they had no second engine even for their own cars!!! What people who have not worked manufacturing do not seem to understand, is cost is time + energy + expenses of machinery and over head. If an engine cost a million dollars, and an engine built in the same shop to some other spec was $200K, the overhead remains about the same, the machinery remains about the same, but the time + energy is about 5X. Machine the 200K engine and assemble in a week, machine the million dollar engine and assemble in over a month.
Good idea, let's cut the field down to 6 or 8 cars. After all, it's coming down to Mercedes vs. Ferrari, with Williams happy to be the best of the non-automakers and Honda circulating until they can no longer take the embarrassment.
I don't think this is a conspiracy. No other Merc engined team can challenge Merc for victories, and no other team outside of Ferrari has even the slightest mathematical chance of winning WDC. So, there is absolutely zero tactical advantage to Merc not supplying the latest spec motors to their customers. Sounds like yet another non story in F1...
Agreed, we are reaching a low, remember when CART was great in the early 1990s, it can happen to Formula 1. The race this weekend will make 2 in a row that I have skipped (I have not missed watching a race since 1991 until this year). It is great to enjoy vacation and not worry about where to catch the race, I will be enjoying Milan instead! The lack of testing and ability to evolve the engines as was possible in previous seasons has turned this into a death spiral for all but the factory Mercedes team and Toto tells us that F1 will be fine without Red Bul, Toro Rossa and Lotus, is he really that dumb or just in a state of denial.
They will change the rules when people stop going to the races. My GF and I still tune in, and complain, every weekend however just on the off chance something exciting may happen. I really don't understand the rules of this sport. I shouldn't have to understand. People should watch and be entertained with racing. You know when they actually pass each other occasionally. Who wants to watch any sporting event when the outcome is already determined? In large part to rules making it impossible for others to catch up to the team who has the formula right?
