Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost believes the current engine manufacturers in Formula One are stalling for time over the introduction of future power unit regulations.
Bernie Ecclestone and FIA president Jean Todt had threatened to introduce an independent Formula One engine manufacturer in a bid to cut costs and improve competition unless current manufacturers Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault and Honda came up with a solution that would address the costs and supply of power units, as well as their performance and noise.
This threat was muted when the current engine manufacturers submitted proposals that would see a £12 million a year cost cap on power unit supplies to customer teams, as well as guarantees all teams would receive power units if needed, and 2018-20 rules and regulation stability.
Unfortunately, the final details are yet to be agreed upon which led to Bernie Ecclestone threatening last week to personally fund the development of independent Formula One engines.
When asked by Autosport if anything had happened since the proposals Tost said: “They play it quite clever.”
“They play the time card, and the longer we discuss, the less solutions we will come up with.”
Tost is convinced the current manufacturers should swallow the vast majority of the costs involved in designing and building the hybrid power units given the cross-over between Formula One power units and road-car technology.
“This is something I addressed four years ago, when the new regulation came in, that costs would increase by a minimum 100 per cent.
“People in those days didn’t believe it, but it’s simply the case.
“And what we missed in those days was saying, ‘OK, if manufacturers are in Formula 1, if they come up with this new technology, which is technology for the future, then they should also pay for the possibility to present something all over the world, as a marketing tool’.
“They should pay for this, not the private teams. Now, it’s the case that the private teams are covered with very high costs and this is not the correct way.
“Of course, it costs some money, but it’s a difference of whether you pay, I don’t know, 25 million or 10 or 12 million, for a private team.”
Tost is hopeful a solution can be found and an agreement can materialise before the April 30th deadline currently set by the FIA.
“This is what the FIA and Formula 1 has to work out, to find a compromise.
“I hope we will find a compromise because for us, the private teams, it is quite difficult to find all of this additional money. That’s the financial side.
“On the performance side, the manufacturers are in a position to say, first of all, who gets an engine, and second, they also can more or less decide how good the engine performs. I don’t think this is the best way.”
