Ferrari CEO Sergio Marchionne has said Formula One’s current engine manufacturers would be prepared to manufacture budget engines for customer teams if Bernie Ecclestone’s Formula One Management company (FOM) would finance it.
There has been debate after debate in the last few months as to what’s the best way to introduce lower priced engines for teams without the financial power of Mercedes or Ferrari. The teams have until the end of this week to come up with reasonable solutions and ideas which the FIA and Formula One management will discuss. This is a result of the current engine manufacturers in F1 refusing to manufacture a cheap budget engine for the customer teams.
In an interview with Autosport.com Marchionne explained:
“If you go to Mercedes and you tell them ‘please give us a group of engineers to develop in a parallel mode a different engine, different to that of Mercedes that is compliant with the F1 rules and that costs a certain amount’ then I think FOM should cover that amount of money,”
“Ferrari is available to join a project where we could develop power units.
“We would also consider sharing our technology but we should not be the only one.
“The development commitments should be shared with the other teams having the power units and, of course, that should be done in economic terms.”
Engine manufacturers have been asked to reduce customer engine costs, but they refused. This is because the engine manufacturers believe they should not have to pay the costs involved with designing and developing a more cost-effective power unit they themselves were not going to use in their cars.
“Ferrari spends a lot of money in F1 and this has a great impact on the brands and development on a lot of our commercial activities that do not have a lot to do with F1,” he said. “It costs a lot of money.
“This is also expensive for Mercedes. It seems the only winner is Bernie.
“Those who are managing the commercial rights should take their responsibility.
“We also have a responsibility but it’s different.
“A change in the rules, imposing obligations on Ferrari or Mercedes, is absolutely inappropriate.”
Whether we get a solution this month is still unclear, but it is clear everyone is attempting to find a solution for the current problems.
