Theissen: BMW Supports Three-Race Engines

BMW would welcome the introduction of three-race engines in the future, according to motorsport director Dr. Mario Theissen.

The German manufacturer, engine partner of British Formula One team Williams, is believed to be one of the obstructive forces against the introduction of the FIA's new proposals, which include extending engine life from one to two races.

However Theissen, speaking in Budapest during the Hungarian Grand Prix, said they were only against reducing the number of cylinders - a suggestion that has also been part of the FIA's proposals for 2006.

"The FIA proposed a two-race engine for next year," he said. "Generally speaking, in my opinion this is absolutely the right decision, and I would even go further, because if you extend engine life, you dramatically reduce the number of engines used during a year, and this is really the only way that saves money on the engine side."

The FIA wanted to introduce 2.4 litre V8s instead of the 3.0 litre V10s that are currently used, but Theissen argued this wouldn't reduce costs significantly, since design, development and manufacture takes only about 50% of an engine manufacturer's budget.

"The biggest cost is engine parts," he said. "So if you reduce the number of engines used per year, you certainly reduce cost in a big way. Therefore, if an engine has to last for, say, three races instead of one, we would save a lot of money.

"According to our calculations, a 2.4 V8 with the same technology (than in the current engines) would be 7% cheaper than a 3.0 V10, no more than that."

The FIA also wanted to introduce new chassis and tyre regulations for next year, and Theissen said he thought most of the teams were willing to accept these changes.

"If the FIA aims to slow the cars down for safety reasons, they have to see that the performance increase this year has come from the tyres and the aero," he argued. "We had to expand engine life by 100% (for 2004), and we have managed to achieve just about the same power figures than last year. But still we have a lap time drop of 2.5 seconds on avarage.

"This comes from aero and tyres, mainly tyres. So these two packages certainly make sense and are agreed by almost everybody."