F1 News
Date: 23/July/2012
The intense competition within Formula One means reaching agreement can be difficult, as each team weighs up whether it will ‘win or lose’ from any rule changes relative to its rivals.
But the prolonged and far reaching effect of the ongoing economic crisis is herding the teams ever closer towards some form of binding cost cutting and cost limiting measures.
Toro Rosso Team Principal Franz Tost described the present state of discussion as being mainly focussed around a resource restriction agreement for the chassis.
But the Austrian is concerned about the cost implications of the new engine format for 2014, when the present 2.4 litre V8s will be replaced by 1.6 litre, turbocharged V6s utilising cutting edge energy recovery systems.
“The chassis resource restriction agreement is one point, but the costs - especially from 2014 onwards, which will increase dramatically - is the powertrain,” he explained. “Therefore the resource restriction agreement for the powertrain would be for Toro Rosso even more important than for the chassis.
“It must be a complete package. I am really worried that we are discussing on one side [chassis] the costs decrease, but from 2014 onwards, with this new powertrain and the new engine, with the new ERS system, pick-up batteries, the cost will dramatically increase.”
The ongoing talk of rising engine costs, which have prompted some to suggest the introduction of the new engines should be delayed, has clearly irked Norbert Haug of Mercedes.
As well as its own F1 team, Mercedes supplies engines to McLaren and Force India.
Firstly, Haug felt the engine manufacturers should be given credit for dramatically cutting lease costs in recent years, while maintaining a competitive product.
“The engine lease [price] years ago was twice as much as it is right now, that’s due to manufacturers bringing that down,” he said. “I think that was a big help for all the teams.
“I think Formula One has never had an engine formula like today, where basically everybody gets a competitive engine, ten teams at least. That needs to be mentioned.”
Haug then addressed the issue of rising costs caused by changing the engine format, claiming that within a five-year period the lease price for the new engine should be back to the present level.
“There was a process [which] decided that a new engine has to be developed and of course that costs money,” said the German. “We worked very hard, together with the FIA, and we have the same opinion with the other manufacturers to bring costs down but this is over a period of five years, so the target has to be minus 20-30% over five years and I’m sure the engine lease will, over five years, be comparable to what we have right now.”
Haug also warned that delaying the new engine would be even more expensive.
“I hear some voices saying ‘delay the engine.’ One thing is for sure; if you delay the engine, you run two programmes in parallel one year longer and your customers will pay for that,” he said.
“We cannot have fully subsidised engines, this is not possible. I think the engine
manufacturers have been very, very fair and I would be pleased to hear
that at one stage as well, because the engine lease was in excess of 25/30 million
years ago and we brought it down.”
A relative newcomer to the sport, Caterham F1 CEO Riad Asmat said it is not hard to spot areas where costs can be cut.
“I’ve been in this for two and a half years and I can see the level of exorbitant areas that could be managed better,” he said.
But HRT’s Luis Perez Sala, principal of the least funded team on the grid, feels he has no more savings to make and fears that costs for his team are set to rise.
“It’s clear that for the biggest teams there are going to be clear rules. They are going to reduce their budgets, but I’m a bit worried about the small teams like us,” he said.
“To reduce our budget is not easy but even to stay with the same budget, I would say, will be difficult.
“We will need to understand how the situation will be in 2014, as Norbert says, what will be the cost of the KERS, the engine etc.
“I would like to maintain the present level of [engine] costs for the future. It seems that it is going to be difficult.”
One possible solution for the less well funded teams is the possible introduction of customer cars, whereby the main constructors sell complete cars of an older spec to the smaller teams.
It would mean a major shift for F1, which currently requires all competitors to be constructors.
Lotus team principal Eric Boullier was open minded on the matter.
“If we have to go to customer cars to be the Formula One of the future, why not?” he said.
“I think the discussion is open now. I know some teams would like to stay as constructors and some teams would maybe need to be customers to save their budget or their company.”
But Haug saw little point, at least in competition terms.
“If you ran this year with last year’s car then just guess what happens,” he said.
One way for the teams to increase their income would be to hold more races, something that is now being rumoured.
“The year has 52 weeks. We should have 26 grand prix!” smiled Tost
Boullier gave a more considered answer.
“We can speak about cost-saving but more grand prix means more revenue for Formula One and the more countries we can visit is the more countries we can bring Formula One to fans,” he said.
“There is no exact number, no magic number I guess, but I’m rather like Franz - more races, why not?”
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