FIA presses ahead with engine freeze plan
| By Jonathan Noble |
Friday, June 9th 2006, 11:49 GMT |
The FIA has decided to press ahead with plans for a full engine freeze in Formula One from 2008, even though the manufacturers had hoped to reach a compromise deal this weekend.
FIA president Max Mosley said in a press conference at the British Grand Prix on Friday that the failure of the manufacturers to find an agreement over plans to revise the rules has left the governing body with no choice but to implement their original plans.
"With the regulations that are published it is clear that the engines have to be homologated for a period of three years," he said. "There have been some discussions about whether this can be relaxed for a period of time....but there is no consensus.
"We intend to stick to the regulations as they are and they were published on March 28. The reason is to limit development costs on the engine."
Mosley said the FIA had investigated the costs of the alternative 'Maranello Agreement' proposal but believes that it would prove more expensive than the current plans for the three-year engine freeze.
"When the calculations were done it was still going to cost 15 million Euro per year more rather than the completely static engine. The current engines are good, they are running at 19,500rpm, they are very reliable and a more than powerful enough.
"So we will implement the engine rule as published and we will be sealing some two race engines."
He added: "There is no further discussion on the homologation point."
Mosley's comments come on the back of BMW motorsport director Mario Theissen saying that he was hopeful a compromise deal could be agreed this weekend.
"I hope and I am confident, because we had some talks with the FIA in Monaco and it sounds to me like if there is a joint proposal from the manufacturers that achieves the target set, which is cost-cutting, then the FIA would be open to take this," Theissen told autosport.com.
"And I am pretty sure the proposals of the manufacturers will achieve the target - and it will include some sort of homologation."
Mosley added that he hoped at the end of the three-year engine freeze period that a completely new set of engine regulations will be introduced.
"We want a different engine formula where the limit of power was not the capacity of engine, but to limit the power by the amount of energy consumed," he said. "There are all sorts of ways of doing that and this is precisely the area where the manufacturers are investigating for road cars.
"We want the manufacturers to propose the formula."
Mosley said it was logical for the homolgated engines to come in next year but that the FIA would not try to impose them, and that it would be up to the teams.
"It will make no sense at all to run in 2007 developing the engines only to come back to the May 2006 spec in 2008, but we cannot impose that. It has to be agreed by the F1 Commission, but I would be surprised if the F1 Commission would not agree.
"It is not for me to say, it is a decision for the teams but I would be surprised if they did not do that."
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