The Weekly Grapevine

On engine supplies

The clearest indication yet that Williams will next year be running Toyota engines came from a source other than spokespersons for the two teams.

How so? During the FIA's Friday media conference, attended by Flavio Briatore (Renault), Ron Dennis (McLaren), Colin Kolles (MF1) and Ferrari's Jean Todt, the question of agreement over the 2007 engine regulations arose.

Each team boss put across his own views, with Kolles, whose team this year and last, relied upon Toyota power, seeming particularly unfazed by the controversy surrounding the issue.

"If they are not coming to agreement, we will run V10 engines next year so we are happy with this. And if they find an agreement, we will have a good V8 engine, so we are happy, whichever way it goes," said the Romanian-born, German-domiciled principal of the team, said to be owned by a Canadian of Russian origin.

Setting aside Dennis's response that "the dispensation for V10 engines was for one team and it was very carefully documented, it's not automatic that everyone else can use them", it follows from Kolles' statement that Midland's engine sourcing plans are presently in a state of flux.

After all, Toyota - understandably an image-conscious company - is hardly likely to restart production of its by-now archaic V10 engines, then re-engineer them to run at the reduced revs demanded by the regulations, merely to satisfy Midland's possible requirements.

Colin Kolles © LAT

Upon agreeing to supply Jordan/Midland for 2005, Toyota publicly welcomed the deal for it alleviated the need to otherwise retrench the heads made redundant by F1's long-life engines. And, in a company of the size and with the global reputation of Toyota, extensive retrenchment programmes of highly-paid staff does not come cheaply, whilst supplying a second team permits Toyota to spread fixed and overhead costs over four race entries and not two.

Equally, the company has long stated that it is open to but one such arrangement (and no more), for it has no intention of jeopardizing its own team's performance or disrupting development and production programmes in order to adhere to contractual minutiae, which are more often than not accompanied by expensive (and potentially embarrassing) penalty clauses.

With Kolles' statement, erroneous as it may be, suggesting that the team's (potential?) 2007 engine supplier is in a position to provide either 2400cc V8s or rev-limited 3000cc V10s, and with there presently being only one company capable of doing same without major upheaval - Cosworth, currently supplier of V8s to Williams and V10s to Scuderia Toro Rosso respectively - it follows that Midland will likely be running Cosworth engines in 2007.

All this, of course, implies that Toyota's best are heading elsewhere - and where else but a Cosworth-less Williams, where the only outstanding issue would appear to be whether to badge the engines 'Lexus' or 'Toyota'?

Negotiations in this regard are said to have delayed the announcement of Cologne-built engines for Sir Frank's cars. Originally expected by the United States Grand Prix - Lexus is very much a North American product, with this up-market brand only recently becoming widely available in Japan and elsewhere - both parties maintained total radio silence in Canada, the US and France.

Why so? The word in Indianapolis was that Williams, having agreed terms with Toyota Motorsport GmbH for a commercial supply of V8 engines identical in specification to those used by Toyota's entries, was wooing both brands as potential badging partners - with the financial stakes being raised with each discussion by a Williams team operating on a tight budget. Hence the delay.

Toyota's Grand Prix is traditionally the Belgian Grand Prix - not only is Toyota Europe based in Brussels, but TMG's factory is a mere hour's drive from the iconic Ardennes circuit, whilst Honda-owned Suzuka could hardly be referred to as 'home' by Japanese Toyota Board Member - but with the demise of that classic race for this year, at least, Nurburgring and Hockenheim have stepped into the breach for the Cologne-based team. Could a Williams/Toyota announcement thus be made during next weekend's German Grand Prix?

Cosworth V8 F1 engine © XPB/LAT

Cosworth, a commercial entity supplying engines for pure gain, is in desperate need of a team to replace Williams, and, whilst rumours increasingly link Red Bull Racing to the Northampton-built, jewel-like CR V8 series, the company can, according to Commercial Director Bernard Ferguson, supply up to three teams. There is, thus, room at Cosworth's inn for RBR, Midland and STR - the latter with either V8s or V10s (although the archaic solution is coming increasingly under siege).

There is, of course, talk that RBR will bequeath its RB2 chassis to its sister STR, indicating the use of Ferrari's V8 in 2007 by the team euphemistically known as Red Bull Lite, thus permitting the drinks company to honour its contractual commitments to Maranello whilst enabling its primary team to avoid deference to Ferrari.

Of equal interest will be the manner in which Max Mosley explains the technology transfer should it occur, for the FIA president justified STR's inheritance of RB1 on the basis that the design's intellectual property rights were handed down to RBR via a Ford Motor Company subsidiary, and thus fell outside the ambit of the governing body's definitions.

Should STR inherit RBR's engines, Cosworth would no doubt welcome supplying both Midland and Red Bull Racing, with a single-specification V8 being by far the most elegant solution.

Midland, of course, desperately needs an engine, for not only will its entries fail scrutineering without a legal lump in the back, but the team is said to be for sale, and a team without engines has zero value on the open market unless purchased by a motor manufacturer. The FIA's latest regulations have hardly increased the enthusiasm of those manufacturers already in the sport, or encouraged incomers.

So, although the row over engine specifications continues unabated - regular readers may have noticed that this column has long given the subject a wide berth simply as the matter changes by the minute - Friday's media conference appears to have provided the best indicators of Midland's 2007 engine plans, and, by extension, those of Williams.