15/12/2016
NEWS STORY
While there has been much focus on the negative aspects of the new engine formula introduced in 2014, there has been little public recognition of the positive aspects.
While much attention is still focussed on the noise and even the need to manage various aspects of the new power unit, the sheer reliability - unless you are Lewis Hamilton - and energy efficiency of the new rules has been woefully overlooked.
Technical guru Ross Brawn, who has been linked with a senior role in the sport under Liberty Media, believes F1's powers-that-be should be looking to the next engine formula change in 2020 and in particular decide whether the sport should continue heading in the same 'green' direction as road cars.
"F1 has to take a hard look at what it wants from an engine," he told the FIA's AUTO magazine. "What we've done in the last few years is align ourselves with road cars. We've got this revolution going on, and the road cars we'll have in five to ten years' time are going to be very different.
"Can we maintain the technological marvel of F1 but acknowledge that perhaps now is the time to start diverging from where road cars are going?" he continued. "If we don't, logic says we could have electric or fuel-cell F1 cars in a few years' time. We have Formula E and that's establishing its place, but for me F1 isn't just a technological demonstration, it's a whole circus, and what's the best way of maintaining that?
"It might be time to say, 'We've had this technological marvel, but we're going to step back and think about what F1 ideally wants from an engine, which may have to contain some technologies that are relevant.'"
"We have to sit down with the manufacturers, teams and interested parties and decide what we want beyond 2020," he argues. "Maybe it's what we've got now but refined in terms of cost and complexity, because the engine is too expensive.
"In some ways the current engine is a technological marvel and it did re-engage the manufacturers, but if F1 starts to look at 2020 now there's time to do it without anyone feeling any competitive disadvantage, with the investments and plans being made correctly.
"You need two years to sort an engine out. By the end of next year, Formula 1 needs to know what sort of engine it needs for the future."