Brawn wants engine performance equalised

Opinions among teams are divided at the moment about whether the FIA should act to equalise engines next year - amid suspicions that some manufacturers have managed to improve the performance of their frozen power units through modifications allowed to solve reliability problems.

The FIA announced earlier this year that engines would be equalised providing that cost cutting measures were introduced for 2009 - although a final package of rules has not yet been finalised.

Renault boss Flavio Briatore has led the calls to get engines equalised, and in Brazil was believed to have resisted attempts to make a dramatic reduction in testing unless power units are put on an even keel.

Brawn has backed Briatore's calls for engine parity - thinking it makes perfect sense for the regulations to even things up at the end of each year.

"We have to have a sensible equilibrium, and it does need fettling all the time," said Brawn. "You know what you feel is the correct equilibrium, and you know you're going to have to adjust it because you didn't quite get it right. That is part of the process as far as I am concerned.

"The homologated engine has served a purpose, and those who have had an advantage from it should be glad they had their advantage and be prepared to (accept change). The rules say fair and equitable - and I don't think it is fair and equitable at the moment."

Brawn believes that making engines equal in performance is even more vital because of the length of the freeze - which originally started out as a 10-year plan.

"Our situation on record is that we think the concept of a frozen engine without some parity system is not very fair," he said. "It is partly because of the time involved.

"If you said, right we are going to freeze the engine, you guys did a great job and you will get an advantage for a year and then we will find some way to bring it all together, I think everyone would understand that.

"But to say you are going to freeze an engine, originally for 10 years, then there is bound to be a league table of performance. So whoever is at the top maintains that advantage for 10 years and whoever is at the bottom maintains that disadvantage for 10 years. It just doesn't seem right.

"And the other thing that is happening is that in order to reduce costs, a number of avenues of car development are being reduced. There is a lot of discussion about a reduction in testing, and a lot of discussion about reduction in investment and aero development.

"If you shrink all those things, then the scope to recover performance if you have not got the best engine gets reduced.

"If you shrunk all this down to the minimum - so there was nothing you could do on the car - the best driver would then look at the league table of engines and says I am driving with that engine this year. He goes to the team with that (best) engine, the cars are all the same, so why should he not win every race?"

Discussions among teams to equalise engine performance for next year are further complicated by the move to making power-units last for three races in 2009.

Some teams claim that it will be wrong to base any equalisation on the performance of this year's power plants because tweaking that will be necessary for next season could hamper some engines more than others.