Bernie Ecclestone has confirmed that the idea of allowing V8s and the new turbos to race alongside each other in 2013 was floated at yesterday’s meeting in Barcelona.
Jean Todt met with engine representatives and FOTA’s Martin Whitmarsh, who had the chance to express their opposition to the rules. Although he still intends to pursue the turbo route the Frenchman acknowledged that one solution might be to allow the V8s a longer lifespan.
“What he is talking now is about letting the V8s run for a year or something,” Ecclestone told Reuters today. “But I mean, equivalency formulas never work, do they?”
Bernie acknowledged that it at least it was a sign of potential flexibility from Todt.
“We’ll have to see now. I don’t know. I hope, I hope, I hope. I think he’s beginning to understand that the manufacturers all realise its going to cost them a lot of money and they can’t hand that on to their customers because the engines are going to be too expensive.
“I think the whole idea of this engine is the wrong way to go. I haven’t changed and I told him yesterday I have not changed my opinion.
“Jean is still believing that he says we should be giving a message. I don’t know what the message is because there is more fuel used in the Tour de France than there is in Formula One. In my opinion it’s all a bit of window dressing for the wrong reasons.”
Adam Cooper F1 
Silly of Todt to even mention that, now Bernie can smell weakness.
I wouldnt bet on those new engines happening yet, despite everyone having started work on them already.
If Mr. Ecclestone is correct, I think he likely is, that more fuel is used in that bicycle race, then that fact and more like it need to be made widely known. Public opinion can be easily and inexpensively be changed with the truth. If you think about it, F1 is likely the one of the more fuel efficient sports, given the Worldwide fan base, T.V. viewership vs. fuel used. Just getting 350million people to set still for 2 hours, every other week, is a fuel savings. That is something to boast about.
For once Bernie is being a friend of the fan instead of issuing the dribbles of an generational challenged person. The move to the 6’s is strictly political correctness. More fuel is used on a scheduled 747 flight from Singapore to London than the entire F1 season.
What about all the 747s used to fly the car around the world, the transporters around Europe, the helicopters, the fans cars etc. etc. etc.
While I think that stat and the tour de france one are interesting it’s not a fair comparison because it only takes in to account fuel used by the cars not everything else (which is what the tour de France one is based on).
I love F1 but the very nature of it will never be environmentally satisfactory and that’s ok, it’s an entertainment business.
I think Berine should be careful saying stuff like that – lest he look more arrogant
Best news ever!
So we will have naturally aspirated vs turbo engines at least for one year!
Let them use the V8’s, the Engineering for the engines has greatly improved over the decades thus less fuel is used and more power is obtained besides I want to see and hear them next year here in Austin. 🙂
Bernie points out something that has been going on for quite a few years in Formula One, which is continually changing specifications whilst dithering about the ‘cost’ of doing business. Building a stressed four cylinder turbo engine that will deliver the necessary horsepower as well as the required reliablity is not a simple or cheap exercise. For that matter, neither is KERS. If you wanted an inexpensive increase in horsepower, just allow the teams to raise the RPM above the current limits, but instead they’ve added weight, complexity, expense as well as waste.
Keeping with Bernie’s Tour de France analogy, if what has happened in F-1 had happend in cycle racing they would have been told they could only pedal their bicycles at a certain RPM, but they would be allowed to have bicycles built for two in which you could bring another cyclist along who would only be allowed to pedal when passing.
We currently have teams that field cars that are barely faster than what one finds in GP2, and at one point in the Spanish GP the hard tyres reduced the pace to F3 levels, why do we need new smaller engines, with lower horsepower and bigger KERS? Ideology little more.
These engines, if they are indeed introduced, will kill the sport.