Mosley: freeze will bring new technologies

In a letter sent to team principals this morning, which confirmed that F1 was now set for a full engine freeze in 2008, Mosley says that the future introduction of regenerative power systems gives car makers more than enough to prove their worth.

"Having stabilised the existing engines, Formula One teams and car manufacturers seeking a power advantage in Formula One will be able to turn their attention to modern and relevant technologies," he said about future engine rules.

"In the short term (provisionally 2009), teams will be able to recover energy generated by the engine but currently lost in heat during braking, and use that energy a second time to propel the car.

"This will give an advantage and the more energy the team can recover and re-use in this way, the bigger the advantage.

"In the medium and longer term (provisionally 2011), we would like to discuss with the car industry a re-formulation of Formula One engine rules so that power is restricted by energy use rather than engine capacity.

"In this way, the engineer who can get the most power from a given amount of fuel will have the best engine. At present, it is the most power from a given capacity - a rather pointless exercise.

"With energy recovery and re-use combined with power limitation by energy consumed, we will have a Formula One fully in tune with the core research of the major car companies.

"In addition, the spectacle will be enhanced because the energy recovery and re-use system will be used by the drivers to help overtaking.

"All of this, we hope, will make it less likely that a manufacturer will leave Formula One following poor results."

Mosley's letter to the teams comes one day after several manufacturers believed that the move to homologated engines would go against their competitive interests.

Mercedes-Benz motorsport boss Norbert Haug said: "If you have homologated engines - the status of May/June or whatever it was - and you have that frozen for a four-year period, we just don't think that's the right way to go. I think it is the nature of the sport that you can compete.

"I think the engine is quite an important factor. The engine is the heart of the whole machine and we agreed to changes for 15 to 20 percent once a year and I think that is a reasonable approach."

Toyota's John Howett added: "I think we are a competitor and we have a view which I think is in the general interest of Formula One, to maintain a degree of technical challenge and at the same time have a reasonable cost base which doesn't make engines prohibitively expensive for smaller teams."