As outlined last week, 2014 was the year of engines, with political noises from various quarters drowning out the almost whisper-quiet sound of the highest-tech power units ever produced for use in global motorsport.
Rather than being rightly feted, the jewel-like powertrains, which deliver 800bhp from 1600cc with incredible reliability, were slated by the commercial rights holder (which jibbed at their cost while banking millions), team bosses (those with the 'wrong' engines) and a world champion driver (who failed to master their intricacy).
It was the ultimate paradox: global motorsport's brashest and supposedly most technological championship bitched about cost, while its youngest champion conspicuously failed to get to grips with its modern electronics.
Rather than be recognised for technical prowess - and sporting spirit in letting its two drivers race to the end, thus facilitating one of the most thrilling seasons in recent history - Mercedes stands accused of 'destroying' Formula 1, with some predicting the Silver Arrows will reign until the end of the current engine formula, namely 2020.
The bottom line is Mercedes got its sums right while Renault and Ferrari got theirs shockingly wrong, but when two marginalised teams - for Renault read Red Bull - make up two thirds of F1's omnipotent Constructors' Championship Bonus trio (the third being McLaren, switching to Honda power after splitting with Mercedes), the issue becomes a searing political hot potato.
There were no engine complaints when Renault was winning LAT |
When Renault scored six drivers' titles in nine years - via two teams – the world accorded the French company the respect it richly deserved, despite some championships being done and dusted well before season's end.
From the late 1960s through to the early '80s, Ford's Cosworth DFV V8 reigned supreme – F1 tsar Bernie Ecclestone's Brabham team took Nelson Piquet to the 1981 drivers' title with such an engine – in the process garnering awards left, right and centre and forcing the rest to try harder, which they did by spawning flat-12, V12 and even turbo engines.
Yet, when Mercedes engines power three drivers' championships in seven years – each with a different 'name' – the paddock throws up its arms. Yes, Mercedes could have attracted criticism by keeping its gold-standard units to itself – as McLaren did with Honda in the '80s – yet next year the company will power eight cars, while Renault and Ferrari supply a confirmed six and four each.
Matters had reached a head in July, when it became apparent – although the 'brain trust' in the (questionable) Strategy Group should surely have seen it coming – that the engine freeze regulations, which permit only agreed diminishing percentages of components to be changed each season, could not be relaxed due to the sport's mid-year cut-off for rule changes.
For clarity: the current governance structure demands that ALL rule changes for the following season be agreed by the Formula 1 Commission by a majority of 70 per cent and be ratified by the FIA's World Motorsport Council by June 30 (February 28 from 2015), or unanimity thereafter. The Strategy Group is allegedly only a forum that feeds the commission.
However, during May the Strategy Group fiddled about blocking the FIA's cost control plans rather than concentrating on engines, then woke to harsh reality in July. A meeting was called for Singapore, where Mercedes was pushed into accepting a relaxation of the 'freeze'.
What happened during that meeting is open to conjecture, but it seems that Mercedes initially acquiesced to a relaxation, then withdrew its agreement, allegedly due to board pressure – a decision that enraged Christian Horner when the Red Bull team boss was questioned in Russia.
There may, of course, be something in Singapore's water, for (ex) FOTA members are adamant that was where Horner himself backtracked on a Resource Restriction Agreement amendment agreed in 2010, which ultimately led to the demise of the contentious cost control document, in turn spelling the end of the teams' alliance.
However, back to the present: the upshot was that in Abu Dhabi Horner spoke of V6 bi-turbo units with prescription KERS units on cost grounds. Ecclestone, head of commercial rights holder Formula One Management, seemingly embraced the concept, having during the previous race in Brazil threatened a return to the previous V8 units on noise/cost grounds.
Ecclestone continues to push for a return to V8s LAT |
During a recent media briefing with British journalists, the 84-year-old indicated that at the next F1 Strategy Group meeting (on December 18) he would propose a return to either last decade's V8s or their prehistoric V10 sisters – failing which, bi-turbo V6s.
The question of noise is also clearly a factor, but anyone with the slightest understanding of thermodynamics knows that such engines are by design whisperers, what with their hot gases providing turbo power rather than noise.
Forget not that Ecclestone's rumbling Brabham-BMWs claimed the sport's first turbocharged title, so he should know such things.
Quite how twin-turbo units, which would require massive re-engineering in a compressed time frame if they are to be introduced by 2016, could be cheaper than contemporary single turbo engines, whose costs have been largely covered during a five-year development phase, is a moot question. 'F1 accounting' it's called colloquially...
There are no guarantees either that a return to V8s or V10s will be any cheaper, for in many instances the supplier chain is unable (unwilling?) to provide, for whatever reasons, components to the necessary quality and volume standards.
Then there is the question of the $10million price of the previous units, whose costs were kept artificially low as a sop to then-FIA president Max Mosley and his cost control drive: The autocratic former barrister forced through reductions in engine costs (plus frozen specifications), which manufacturer teams accepted as quid pro quo for freedom in other areas.
"When we were operating to budgets of well over $300million per annum and supplying only our own two cars with engines, the on-cost, as a percentage of budget, of supplying two additional cars for 10million per team was almost nothing," a former team boss told this writer after his company withdrew.
"In exchange we could double our grid presence and impose our driver development programmes on a customer team," he added. "It also kept the suits happy when it came to [budget] sign-off time as we could point to four cars, and not only two."
However, he estimated that the cost of supplying a customer team was actually double the $10m (7m) amount recovered annually per customer. "Still, what was 10 on 300?" he asked rhetorically. $10m – sans KERS – then became the benchmark.
In real terms engine prices through to 2013 were thus subsidised, with even Cosworth, which supplied the three new 'budget-cap' teams, proving unable to turn a direct profit on its recycled units at that price. Thus, suggestions that the current engines 'cost' more than double or triple the old V8s are patently false, for the base was artificially low.
There is clearly a massive difference between 'cost' and 'price', and there are no guarantees this time around that engine suppliers will honour long-gone Mosley's pledges in an activity (again)coming under EU Commission scrutiny with respect to its commercial covenants. Thus V8/10s, or bi-turbos, could even come in at similar price levels to current units.
Saliently, cost increases due to changes in engine regulations would not be restricted to engines alone, for chassis would need to be totally re-engineered to accommodate whatever powertrains Ecclestone and Co may force through by March 1 next year.
Here they are patently relying on the make-up of the Strategy Group to vote positively for what a disenfranchised team boss described as a "hare-brained scheme – one which would take F1 back to the last century", for it would require a vote of at least 10:8 on a simple majority basis to reach the Formula 1 Commission.
V8s, V12s and V10s did battle in Formula 1 in the early 1990s LAT |
A team principal, one of the recent 'rebels', went one further, suggesting that Ecclestone was pushing forlower engine costs "so [Ecclestone] can pay us less, or rather have no need to pay us more. It stands to reason: he'll say, 'I've saved you 20 mil on engines, so why do I need to pay you more?'"
That said, what are the chances of changes to the engine formula succeeding?
The FIA, with six votes, can be expected to vote against any change on cost and image grounds, for the current 'eco-friendly' units are very much FIA president Jean Todt's babies, despite having been largely framed under the previous regime.
FOM's half-dozen votes will clearly favour a change to whatever as long as it's not the current units – which proves just how "hare-brained" the scheme really is – leaving Ecclestone to find just four votes from the six teams with a vote each to force through the issue.
The sextet presently is: Mercedes, Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren, Williams and Lotus (last-named likely to be replaced by Force India for 2015 on account of no longer being the top-placed 'other' team). Clearly Red Bull and Ferrari favour change; so that's eight for the FOM faction.
However, Williams and Lotus are Mercedes-powered, so that duo and the works team are expected to go with Todt: nine to eight, leaving McLaren with the crucial deciding vote, failing which it goes to the casting vote, said by sources to be held by Ecclestone. Which way would the newly constituted McLaren-Honda partnership vote? It's too close to call.
However, all this politicking seems to have concentrated minds at Mercedes, which does not wish to gamble its engine's future on a Strategy Group vote. Thus Stuttgart (and Brackley and Brixworth, where chassis and engine are manufactured respectively) are said to have offered a compromise: Mercedes would make available its state-of-the-art energy recovery systems to all.
Whether this generous offer will prove sufficient will become clear on Thursday in Geneva. But, whatever the outcome, the motives need to be questioned. Those of Red Bull/Renault and Ferrari are crystal clear, but why is Ecclestone waging war against Mercedes?
He, of all people, should surely be ecstatic about the iconic brand's presence in F1, and its well-deserved success.
According to a source it seems some financial forces are at play: Apparently when Mercedes negotiated its bilateral deal with FOM it was not offered CCB status on the basis that the team did not then comply with conditions demanded by FOM, so insisted on CCB promotion, with commensurate financial reward through to 2020 should it win multiple titles.
With three or more titles won, the amount could run to hundreds of millions over the period, and thus it is in FOM's best interests, if not the sport's – remember the spectre of a Singapore IPO hanging over F1 like a sword – to clip Mercedes' wings, or force the company to depart.
Introducing new V8/V10 engines (or even dumbed-down V6 units) will surely push the company to the brink. Only in contemporary F1 can success breed such resentment.
As outlined last week, 2014 was the year of engines, with political noises from various quarters drowning out the almost whisper-quiet sound of the highest-tech power units ever produced for use in global motorsport.
Rather than being rightly feted, the jewel-like powertrains, which deliver 800bhp from 1600cc with incredible reliability, were slated by the commercial rights holder (which jibbed at their cost while banking millions), team bosses (those with the 'wrong' engines) and a world champion driver (who failed to master their intricacy).
It was the ultimate paradox: global motorsport's brashest and supposedly most technological championship bitched about cost, while its youngest champion conspicuously failed to get to grips with its modern electronics.
Rather than be recognised for technical prowess - and sporting spirit in letting its two drivers race to the end, thus facilitating one of the most thrilling seasons in recent history - Mercedes stands accused of 'destroying' Formula 1, with some predicting the Silver Arrows will reign until the end of the current engine formula, namely 2020.
The bottom line is Mercedes got its sums right while Renault and Ferrari got theirs shockingly wrong, but when two marginalised teams - for Renault read Red Bull - make up two thirds of F1's omnipotent Constructors' Championship Bonus trio (the third being McLaren, switching to Honda power after splitting with Mercedes), the issue becomes a searing political hot potato.
There were no engine complaints when Renault was winning LAT |
When Renault scored six drivers' titles in nine years - via two teams – the world accorded the French company the respect it richly deserved, despite some championships being done and dusted well before season's end.
From the late 1960s through to the early '80s, Ford's Cosworth DFV V8 reigned supreme – F1 tsar Bernie Ecclestone's Brabham team took Nelson Piquet to the 1981 drivers' title with such an engine – in the process garnering awards left, right and centre and forcing the rest to try harder, which they did by spawning flat-12, V12 and even turbo engines.
Yet, when Mercedes engines power three drivers' championships in seven years – each with a different 'name' – the paddock throws up its arms. Yes, Mercedes could have attracted criticism by keeping its gold-standard units to itself – as McLaren did with Honda in the '80s – yet next year the company will power eight cars, while Renault and Ferrari supply a confirmed six and four each.
Matters had reached a head in July, when it became apparent – although the 'brain trust' in the (questionable) Strategy Group should surely have seen it coming – that the engine freeze regulations, which permit only agreed diminishing percentages of components to be changed each season, could not be relaxed due to the sport's mid-year cut-off for rule changes.
For clarity: the current governance structure demands that ALL rule changes for the following season be agreed by the Formula 1 Commission by a majority of 70 per cent and be ratified by the FIA's World Motorsport Council by June 30 (February 28 from 2015), or unanimity thereafter. The Strategy Group is allegedly only a forum that feeds the commission.
However, during May the Strategy Group fiddled about blocking the FIA's cost control plans rather than concentrating on engines, then woke to harsh reality in July. A meeting was called for Singapore, where Mercedes was pushed into accepting a relaxation of the 'freeze'.
What happened during that meeting is open to conjecture, but it seems that Mercedes initially acquiesced to a relaxation, then withdrew its agreement, allegedly due to board pressure – a decision that enraged Christian Horner when the Red Bull team boss was questioned in Russia.
There may, of course, be something in Singapore's water, for (ex) FOTA members are adamant that was where Horner himself backtracked on a Resource Restriction Agreement amendment agreed in 2010, which ultimately led to the demise of the contentious cost control document, in turn spelling the end of the teams' alliance.
However, back to the present: the upshot was that in Abu Dhabi Horner spoke of V6 bi-turbo units with prescription KERS units on cost grounds. Ecclestone, head of commercial rights holder Formula One Management, seemingly embraced the concept, having during the previous race in Brazil threatened a return to the previous V8 units on noise/cost grounds.
Ecclestone continues to push for a return to V8s LAT |
During a recent media briefing with British journalists, the 84-year-old indicated that at the next F1 Strategy Group meeting (on December 18) he would propose a return to either last decade's V8s or their prehistoric V10 sisters – failing which, bi-turbo V6s.
The question of noise is also clearly a factor, but anyone with the slightest understanding of thermodynamics knows that such engines are by design whisperers, what with their hot gases providing turbo power rather than noise.
Forget not that Ecclestone's rumbling Brabham-BMWs claimed the sport's first turbocharged title, so he should know such things.
Quite how twin-turbo units, which would require massive re-engineering in a compressed time frame if they are to be introduced by 2016, could be cheaper than contemporary single turbo engines, whose costs have been largely covered during a five-year development phase, is a moot question. 'F1 accounting' it's called colloquially...
There are no guarantees either that a return to V8s or V10s will be any cheaper, for in many instances the supplier chain is unable (unwilling?) to provide, for whatever reasons, components to the necessary quality and volume standards.
Then there is the question of the $10million price of the previous units, whose costs were kept artificially low as a sop to then-FIA president Max Mosley and his cost control drive: The autocratic former barrister forced through reductions in engine costs (plus frozen specifications), which manufacturer teams accepted as quid pro quo for freedom in other areas.
"When we were operating to budgets of well over $300million per annum and supplying only our own two cars with engines, the on-cost, as a percentage of budget, of supplying two additional cars for 10million per team was almost nothing," a former team boss told this writer after his company withdrew.
"In exchange we could double our grid presence and impose our driver development programmes on a customer team," he added. "It also kept the suits happy when it came to [budget] sign-off time as we could point to four cars, and not only two."
However, he estimated that the cost of supplying a customer team was actually double the $10m (7m) amount recovered annually per customer. "Still, what was 10 on 300?" he asked rhetorically. $10m – sans KERS – then became the benchmark.
In real terms engine prices through to 2013 were thus subsidised, with even Cosworth, which supplied the three new 'budget-cap' teams, proving unable to turn a direct profit on its recycled units at that price. Thus, suggestions that the current engines 'cost' more than double or triple the old V8s are patently false, for the base was artificially low.
There is clearly a massive difference between 'cost' and 'price', and there are no guarantees this time around that engine suppliers will honour long-gone Mosley's pledges in an activity (again)coming under EU Commission scrutiny with respect to its commercial covenants. Thus V8/10s, or bi-turbos, could even come in at similar price levels to current units.
Saliently, cost increases due to changes in engine regulations would not be restricted to engines alone, for chassis would need to be totally re-engineered to accommodate whatever powertrains Ecclestone and Co may force through by March 1 next year.
Here they are patently relying on the make-up of the Strategy Group to vote positively for what a disenfranchised team boss described as a "hare-brained scheme – one which would take F1 back to the last century", for it would require a vote of at least 10:8 on a simple majority basis to reach the Formula 1 Commission.
V8s, V12s and V10s did battle in Formula 1 in the early 1990s LAT |
A team principal, one of the recent 'rebels', went one further, suggesting that Ecclestone was pushing forlower engine costs "so [Ecclestone] can pay us less, or rather have no need to pay us more. It stands to reason: he'll say, 'I've saved you 20 mil on engines, so why do I need to pay you more?'"
That said, what are the chances of changes to the engine formula succeeding?
The FIA, with six votes, can be expected to vote against any change on cost and image grounds, for the current 'eco-friendly' units are very much FIA president Jean Todt's babies, despite having been largely framed under the previous regime.
FOM's half-dozen votes will clearly favour a change to whatever as long as it's not the current units – which proves just how "hare-brained" the scheme really is – leaving Ecclestone to find just four votes from the six teams with a vote each to force through the issue.
The sextet presently is: Mercedes, Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren, Williams and Lotus (last-named likely to be replaced by Force India for 2015 on account of no longer being the top-placed 'other' team). Clearly Red Bull and Ferrari favour change; so that's eight for the FOM faction.
However, Williams and Lotus are Mercedes-powered, so that duo and the works team are expected to go with Todt: nine to eight, leaving McLaren with the crucial deciding vote, failing which it goes to the casting vote, said by sources to be held by Ecclestone. Which way would the newly constituted McLaren-Honda partnership vote? It's too close to call.
However, all this politicking seems to have concentrated minds at Mercedes, which does not wish to gamble its engine's future on a Strategy Group vote. Thus Stuttgart (and Brackley and Brixworth, where chassis and engine are manufactured respectively) are said to have offered a compromise: Mercedes would make available its state-of-the-art energy recovery systems to all.
Whether this generous offer will prove sufficient will become clear on Thursday in Geneva. But, whatever the outcome, the motives need to be questioned. Those of Red Bull/Renault and Ferrari are crystal clear, but why is Ecclestone waging war against Mercedes?
He, of all people, should surely be ecstatic about the iconic brand's presence in F1, and its well-deserved success.
According to a source it seems some financial forces are at play: Apparently when Mercedes negotiated its bilateral deal with FOM it was not offered CCB status on the basis that the team did not then comply with conditions demanded by FOM, so insisted on CCB promotion, with commensurate financial reward through to 2020 should it win multiple titles.
With three or more titles won, the amount could run to hundreds of millions over the period, and thus it is in FOM's best interests, if not the sport's – remember the spectre of a Singapore IPO hanging over F1 like a sword – to clip Mercedes' wings, or force the company to depart.
Introducing new V8/V10 engines (or even dumbed-down V6 units) will surely push the company to the brink. Only in contemporary F1 can success breed such resentment.
