Pollock confirms turbo engine plan

Former BAR boss Craig Pollock has confirmed that he’s involved in a project to create a turbo customer F1 engine for 2013.

The PURE corporation counts Mecachrome – long associated with Renault – as one of its partners. Former Renault F1 engine head Christian Contzen is a consultant and Jean-Pierre Boudy, another leading ex-Renault man, is also involved.

Pollock says he now needs to find potential customers among the existing teams, although that clearly won’t be easy.

“The project has started up since the beginning of the year,” Pollock told Reuters. “And we are in a design and development stage at the moment but we now have a good package that we can go forward and start talking to teams.

“Our design team have actually been working on this since the announcement on December 10.We are very much down the road, probably the same if not further ahead than the key manufacturers.

“Formula One to us is one project but we have other projects that we are working on in marine engines, aviation, helicopter engines. We are definitely looking to use Formula One as a test bed to be able to take cleaner technology back into the mainstream.”

PURE also offered a supportive quote from Jean Todt: “We welcome PURE to Formula One. The rule changes for 2013 have been developed to provide lower cost, greener and more fuel efficient technologies for Formula One. We wish PURE every success in developing powertrains compliant with the new FIA regulations.”

The arrival of a new manufacturer will clearly give Todt more ammunition as he tries to fend off Bernie Ecclestone’s attempts to change or delay the 2013 rules package.