The next stage of Formula 1's engine debate

While hot and cold blown diffusers and their ramifications were the talk of Silverstone - with the FIA issuing a clarification on the matter on Thursday - a different kind of power play was enacted in Bernie Ecclestone's sombre motorhome at the sharp end of the paddock, with no less than five team principals meeting with him to discuss engine matters present and future.

Almost simultaneously an FIA-called meeting was concentrating minds elsewhere, with the topic of discussion being cost saving and control under the 2014 V6 engine regulations. Therefore at roughly the same time during a rather fraught weekend, three engine-related issues were being discussed; all of them only peripherally related to each other.

A number of team principals head into FOM's motorhome © sutton

Tellingly, the commercial rights holder, which is responsible for paddock layouts at each race, had decided to situate the FIA motorhome at the opposite end of the paddock - amongst the Pirelli tyre trucks and Virgin and Hispania motorhomes.

The first-named meeting was attended by Formula One Teams' Association chairman and McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh, his FOTA deputy and Renault F1 team boss Eric Boullier, Christian Horner, team principal of reigning double champion Red Bull, Ferrari's Stefano Domenicali and Ross Brawn of Mercedes.

According to sources the meeting had been called by the F1 tsar to discuss the Renault engine supply situation, and in particular, the fact that the French company had agreed to supply Williams with engines from 2012 onwards. Article 13.3 of the FIA's Sporting Regulations clearly states 'A major car manufacturer may not directly or indirectly supply engines for more than three teams of two cars each without the consent of the FIA.'

Given that Renault already supplied three teams; Renault GP - now independent of the car manufacturer - Red Bull and Lotus - such consent had been applied for and received from the FIA by Williams. This was separately confirmed by shareholder Toto Wolff and chairman Adam Parr.

But Ecclestone and the others were concerned about the deal for various reasons; firstly that Red Bull and Renault GP are said to have been concerned that their sporting efforts could be diluted by this spreading of supply, while Mercedes and Ferrari were perturbed by what could turn out to be domination of Formula 1 by the French manufacturer.

All parties were also said to be concerned that fourth engine supplier Cosworth could go under, given that the independent company will have lost two teams - Lotus and Williams - in a year, in which case the remaining duo would need to pick up the pieces. Plus, said a source, there is not much security in supplying only the likes of Hispania and Virgin.

When put to Cosworth general manager Mark Gallagher, he refuted the suggestion.

Gallagher says Cosworth can make a profit by supplying only two teams © sutton

"When Tim [Routsis, Cosworth group CEO] agreed to a return to F1 [by Cosworth] with Max Mosley and Bernie Ecclestone, he devised a very elegant system whereby each contract has its own margin. So, even with one team we are making money, and with two it is more," Gallagher said. "It does not take rocket science to realise we aren't make a lot with one or two teams or as much as with four, but we are making money."

Be that as it may, Ecclestone, whose antipathy towards FIA president Jean Todt is a matter of record, seems perturbed that the governing body consented to the Williams request without referring the matter to the Formula 1 Commission, which many believe should decide on commercial matters as they pertain to the sport.

Parr disagrees, having told this column during the British Grand Prix weekend that it would be "ridiculous" to expect a team to ask its competitors - all of whom are voting members of the Commission - for permission to switch engines. But the fact that Ecclestone called the meeting at all suggests that things remain far from healthy between the commercial rights holder, the governing body, the teams and their engine suppliers.

And, if Renault GP and Red Bull were concerned about the conduct of Renault Sport (the engine supplier) before the meeting, they were more so on Saturday, when all manner of photo opportunities were staged between Renault Sport and Williams. One Red Bull team member within earshot of the love-in between the engine supplier and Sir Frank's team asked: "Who really won last year's World Championships for Renault? Red Bull or Williams?"

Then came news that Renault Sport planned to up its customer count to five teams.

Either way, Williams requested and received consent from the FIA, so the conduct of team and engine supplier has been above board. If, however, Ecclestone and the rest feel aggrieved about the situation, they could always turn to the courts for relief. That is what Ecclestone is believed to be considering with regard to V6 engines, which he feels were forced through 'extra-procedurally' - another topic on the agenda of that Friday morning meeting.

An RRA for engines was discussed with the FIA's Gilles Simon © sutton

While all this was going on, team representatives from the four current engine suppliers plus Craig Pollock representing PURE - which intends to join the fray in 2014 - met with the FIA's Gilles Simon, a man who headed up Ferrari's F1 engine division before following his former boss Todt to Paris. The topic: a sort of Resource Restriction Agreement for engines.

This was no round table thrash of technical people, with the attendance list being ultra-high powered: apart from Pollock, CEO of PURE, Cyril Abiteboul, executive director of Renault Sport F1; Luigi Centenari, Scuderia Ferrari's head of finance and administration; Thomas Fuhr, managing director of Mercedes High Performance Engines; and Gallagher attended the summit. No mistaking then, that all and sundry are taking the matter extremely seriously.

The RRA concept was devised by the teams in reaction to former FIA president Mosley's attempts at introducing a budget cap, an idea that failed to fly and understandably so. However, aware that they needed to (and still need to) cut costs dramatically, the teams developed the agreement, which details on a matrix basis what teams may spend overall. In a nutshell, it enables larger teams to maintain generous headcount levels and retain state-of-the-art facilities while permitting independents and the smaller outfits to outsource many of their activities.

While no such system will ever be perfect, the current RRA has capped costs at the top end while permitting teams such as Virgin to (previously) sub-contract their entire car design and development effort to an outside party. That it did not work as planned in this instance is hardly the fault of the RRA; instead the decision to concentrate on Computational Fluid Dynamics in lieu of wind tunnels should be blamed. However, the RRA has also enabled Virgin to cut a deal with McLaren for future technology - albeit it with Cosworth engines - which in turn provides the latter team with income to offset against its costs under the RRA.

One of the advantages of the RRA is that, while it will never ensure budgetary parity between a McLaren and a Virgin, it does make sure that an upper cap is imposed, which means the minnows are not talking about competing in a space race, merely a very expensive F1.

If there is a glaring anomaly, it is the fact that to date the RRA has applied only to teams and not their engine suppliers. At the time it was thought that no need for an engine RRA existed as supply contracts were fixed by a common agreement with FOTA after engine lives were extended. Given that the V8s were based on ancient 1990s technology with virtually no major upgrade for dive years - and that with the number of units used annually capped and testing scraped, there seemed to be no need for such an agreement.

All smiles here, but antipathy exists between Ecclestone and Todt © sutton

This, though, resulted in the remarkable situation whereby the Mercedes engine operation (HPE) has almost as many heads as Mercedes Grand Prix (400 to 420), while Renault GP has 500 staff members to just 170 at Renault Sport - despite the latter two entities being divided by a common name. The comparison with Mercedes holds.

This situation in May prompted (Renault-powered) Red Bull adviser Dr Helmut Marko to criticise the RRA concept, pointing to this disparity in engine budgets at a time when teams are required to operate within the agreement or face sanction.

However, this new initiative has been driven fundamentally by the FIA, and while Marko's comments are consistent with the aims of the FIA, the governing body included cost-capping mechanisms in its original green engine concept.

Renault Sport engine director Rob White said:"I think it's sort of one of the things where clearly the FIA leads the discussions about the technical rules, and so the discussions about the financial framework are sort of a continuity of that process."

The objective is obviously to contain costs without jeopardising engine suppliers' marketing programmes, so the primary cost drivers of engine programmes (headcounts, dyno hours, numbers of [destructive] test engines and computer processing power) have been targeted.

Renault therefore would be permitted to arrive at circuits with, in the words of one insider, "gold plated motorhomes while Mercedes could supply free company cars to all employees - including the cleaners - while enabling a Cosworth to remain in the business of [profitably] supplying F1 engines to one or more F1 teams."

Two crucial elements were discussed on Friday: an implementation date and penalties. White is adamant that the former issue needs to be clarified soon: "It is one of the crucial elements of the discussions, which period it should account. And again, these are very competitive organisations, so you need to be careful of unintended consequences. An RRA which comes into operations at some determined but slightly distant point in the future, which has as a side-effect to create an arms race for the next two or three years probably wouldn't be very popular. So we have to be very careful of unintended consequences.

Renault's Williams deal takes it to five F1 teams © sutton

There was equal concern about penalties to be levied should a supplier be in breach of the RRA. Here it was felt that sporting penalties (grid slots, a points deduction or similar) were preferable as financial penalties are - in the words of a engine man close to the situation - "there to be ignored if you're a motor manufacturer who can afford to chuck money at a programme but not a cash-strapped independent".

Follow-up meetings are scheduled, and there will almost certainly be a rocky road ahead, particularly for a company like Mercedes that stands to cull around 50 per cent of its workforce simply to get on level terms with Renault. Ferrari steadfastly refuses to publicly disclose the number of dedicated workers on its F1 engine programme, but sources suggest the number exceeds Renault's level.

But sustainability is not simply about directly-consumed energy resources, and if F1 - specifically the engine side - is to prosper then some form of cost control is required. It is a sobering thought that even should PURE - which has been granted a reprieve through delaying the new engines by a year - make the grade, the sport has less engine suppliers than at virtually any other time in its recent history. This is in spite of TV numbers, and therefore on-air exposure for manufacturers being at record heights.

The mere fact that no additional car companies have committed to the new 'eco' engine regulations suggests something is screwy with the cost/benefit ratio offered to engine suppliers, and the RRA intends to address just that.