Minardi to Sacrifice Engine Power for Reliability

Minardi have "consciously" chosen not to get the same specification Cosworth engine than Jaguar and Jordan in 2004, team boss Paul Stoddart said on Sunday.

Speaking to Hungarian website A5.hu before one of his drivers, Zsolt Baumgartner, gave a couple of demonstration runs with the team's two-seater car in the streets of Budapest, Stoddart revealed he had the chance to buy the latest-spec V10 from Cosworth, but the new engine rules, putting a premium on reliability, as well as "financial considerations" have led him to turn down the offer.

"Jordan and Jaguar have the same specification engine, and we have one specification lower than that," Stoddart said. "Many people noticed that Jordan had a lot of engine failures last year, but we had only one for the whole season. So we had a slightly different way and went for more reliability, trading off about 20 horsepower."

Although they scored no points in 2003 despite the revised points system, Minardi generally proved to be quite reliable, and Stoddart thinks they can build on that this season.

"We took a choice that Minardi would go for reliability, reliability, reliability in the hope that a few races will come along when the other teams do not have it, particularly in consideration of the new engine rules," he said. "It was a conscious decision that maybe a lot of engines would be blowing up, particularly in the early races.

"It may not be, we don't know that, so we've gone for reliability instead of horsepower. But the difference in horsepower is not much."

Minardi usually test very little between races because of their tight budget but - after trying their new car, the PS04B for the first time at Misano last Monday - this week they will travel to Imola, where they will participate in a joint testing session together with other teams. Stoddart thinks this is a more efficient way of allocating their resources.

"If we wanted to pay more money for it, we could have had the same specification (engine as Jordan and Jaguar), however that would have meant that the money would have not been spent elsewhere," he said. "And we believe this year we have a nicely balanced budget which allows us to put money where we need to put it, particularly into research and development, wind tunnel work and testing, all the things we did not do a lot of last year."

When asked if he thought Minardi would be able to catch Jordan, a team that seemed to struggle with their new EJ14 car during pre-season testing, Stoddart admitted "that would be interesting."

"I'm quietly optimistic but, as always, retaining that degree of realism, except the fact that Jordan is our first target for 2004. On days when our tyre partner Bridgestone are having a good day, we will obviously look towards things like Jaguar, like perhaps Toyota to mix it with them," he added.

Minardi, the smallest team in Formula One, will start the 2004 season on March 7 with two new drivers, Italian Gianmaria Bruni and Hungarian Zsolt Baumgartner. The Faenza-based squad have last scored a point at the 2002 Australian Grand Prix, where Mark Webber finished 5th in his Asiatech-powered car.