Mosley outlines blueprint

With no agreement among F1 team principals over the early introduction of widespread changes proposed a couple of months ago by Mosley for introduction in 2008, the World Motor Sports Council met in Paris this week and played its trump card. Article 7.5 of the Concorde Agreement allows short-term changes to be made on safety grounds and this is the tool now being used by the governing body.

The FIA is claiming that the recent accidents to Felipe Massa (in Canada) and Ralf Schumacher (at Indianapolis) 'have tested the absolute limits of the FIA's latest safety measures'. The FIA's safety delegate Charlie Whiting will, therefore give notice to the F1 technical working group on Tuesday (July 6) that they must produce proposals to reduce the performance of the cars.

Mosley said at Magny Cours: "The Technical Working Group has two months to produce proposals and we then have to decide if they are acceptable."

Considering that a factor in Mosley's decision to stand down was his growing frustration at the inability of the F1 team principals to agree anything, he is somewhat sceptical that acceptable proposals will be forthcoming.

"If not," Mosley went on, "then we can give the teams three alternative proposals of our own, from which they choose one. If this is not done within 45 days, then we can impose a set of measures of our own which can come in after a three month period.

"To help them [the teams] we will furnish them with a precise set of regulations on three topics - aerodynamics, engines and tyres - within the next two weeks."

Broadly speaking, these would be the same or very similar to the regulations that the governing body would impose if forced to push through its own measures.

"With regard to tyres," Mosley said, "we suggest dramatically reducing the number available, with one set for Friday/Saturday and then a second set for qualifying and race, with two types available. The original set could be used as back-up if they found they could not use the second set.

"On engines, we are proposing that in 2005 an engine will need to do two weekends between rebuilds as a means of achieving a slight reduction in power before, in 2006, introducing 2.4-litre V8s with more restrictions [in terms of dimensions, crank centre lines, etc] than those presented by the manufacturers.

"People will say, well, what about the teams who don't have access to a 2.4-litre V8 because they are not aligned to a manufacturer? We will therefore allow a 3.0-litre V10 to be used, complete with a rev limiter set at a level that ensures that the engine is less powerful than the 2.4s. An incidental benefit of that for the smaller teams will be a significantly smaller power deficit than they currently have. We will worry about the rev limit when we know the power curve of the V8s.

"On the aerodynamic side, there will be a significant package for 2005, which is still being worked on, and we will have details within the next two weeks."

When Mosley revealed his radical proposals for 2008 earlier this year, he indicated that standard engine electronic control units [ECUs] and a single tyre supplier were elements that he strongly wanted to see. He confirmed at Magny Cours that he still wants standard ECUs, hopefully by 2006, but has moderated his position on tyre supply.

"I would have liked a single supplier," he said, "but we can't see a reason to reduce performance that way when we can do it by regulation and our best advice is that we can. If it doesn't work, then we'd have to look at a monopoly."