After years of almost silence on all things F1, Jean Todt has leant his weight as president of the FIA to the cause of reducing the cost of engine suppliers to customer teams. Ferrari vetoed the proposal for a 12 million euro engine cost cap on the new V6 Hyrbid Turbos, which merely saw Todt and Ecclestone respond by inviting tenders for a new specification for a ‘cheap’ F1 engine to be built by an independent manufacturer for 2017.
Red Bull Racing want to take greater control of their power unit destiny as reported by TJ13, however their desperate plight for 2016 is not connected to the discussions which took place today at the F1 strategy group and F1 commission.
The ‘cheap engine’ proposal passed the F1 strategy group today because as a 2017 regulation it required just the 6 votes from the FIA and the 6 votes from FOM to hold sway. The teams’ 6 votes therefore were irrelevant given a simple majority was required.
The afternoon at a meeting of the F1 commission, the result was quite different because this forum includes all those on the F1 strategy group plus F1 sponsors, race organisers and the teams excluded from the F1 strategy group. 18 out of 24 votes were required to affect the 2017 regulations and the ‘new engine’ specification proposals appear to have failed at the final hurdle.
Despite this vote, the FIA has threatened to push through the ‘new engine’ proposal on the basis of force majeure, however this may prove a tenuous argument and could well end up in the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Even if the FIA were to score a victory in this jurisdiction, F1 may simply see a return to the days where Ferrari and Mercedes threaten to withdraw from F1.
So for now, the ‘unicorn’ engine proposal designed to force Ferrari and Mercedes to reduce the prices they charge for power units to customer teams – appears to be dead in the water.
To quote the great Gomer Pyle, “Surprise, surprise, surprise!”
old Gomer was cool 🙂 and nope no surprise..thing is the manufacturers holding the sport to ransom has just been proven the FIA\FOM have no option but to force this through or they have lost full control of their very own sport,
It looks to me like FIA/FOM gave away control, they are the owners and supposed to be the rule makers.
Thank goodness that particular piece of nonsense has been aborted. May it slumber peacefully evermore.
Forgot to add….According to JA’s site even the great Paul Hembrey was party to the charade……
For mine, I loathe the two short stops pretending to run the game, the guy at the money launderers, the fool with ‘control’ at the circuits and now that tyre halfwit.
I’ll bet Ecclestone’s contract decides Hembrey’s vote.
Todt pulls on his leadership pants for the first time since becoming President of the FIA in 2009, but has lost to Sergio Marchionne.
Will Todt continue the good fight against Marchionne, or return to idle?
He wasn’t leading Ecclestone dressed him.
I get the distinct feeling the engine manufacturers have just painted a massive target on their backs.
Max Mosley’s idea of greater technological freedom in exchange for a budget cap should surely now get a massive push. With Bernie/Jean now aligned, the Strategy Group may aswell be non-existent, and you’d have to believe the smaller teams will vote for it.
The big teams won’t. Race organisers probably would as it would bring more variety to their grand prix. Sponsors will side with whichever team they’re affiliated with.
Bernie/Jean may have lost the battle, but not for 1 second do I believe they’ll lose the war.
This should also be the end of Red Bull in F1… Red Bull agreed to sign for 2016 because of the budget engine and now a week or two after signing for 2016 Red Bull gets to hear that the reason why they signed has been rejected.
Sign for what? They are already committed until 2020 with their contract with Bernie, or else they pay a huge fine to get out.
Teams have to sign up for the season with the FIA and that the sign for what means. And as far as the contract goes off course they should be there if they want to avoid the fine but it is more a question of could they be there and if not how does that effect the fine? (I can imagine that a judge would say Red Bull has done everything they could to get an engine and nobody wants to give them one so no fine, maybe not realistic but imaginable ;-))
I think you’ll find that all the Renault IP palaver quietly takes a walk and the Illien iteration will have them on the grid.
But the alternative engine was always for 2017, not 2016, so it was always irrelevant to Red Bull next year and they would have to find a different solution.
Ending up in front of the EU may just suit Ecclestone’s needs now.