Cosworth, Xtrac and Ricardo win engine tender

[Ciro Pabón]

Letter from FIA President to F1 Teams - 05.12.2008

Gentlemen

Further to my letter of 18 November (copy attached for convenience), we have completed the tendering process and are now in exclusive negotiations with Cosworth together with Xtrac and Ricardo Transmissions (XR) to supply a complete Formula One power train starting in 2010. The engine will be a current Formula One engine while the transmission will be state-of-the-art Formula One and a joint effort by two companies which already supply transmissions to most of the grid.
The cost to each team taking up this option will be an up-front payment of £1.68M (€1.97M) and then £5.49M (€6.42M) per season for each of the three years of the supply contract (2010, 2011,2012). This price is based on four teams signing up and includes full technical support at all races and official tests, plus 30,000 km of testing. The annual cost will reduce if more teams take up the option, for example to £4.99M (€5.84M) per team with eight teams. It will further reduce if less than 30,000 km of testing is required. Neither engine nor transmission will be badged.

As suggested in my letter of 18 November, teams participating in the 2010 Championship would then have three options:

* the above;
* the right to build an engine themselves, identical to the above, having been supplied with all the necessary technical information;
* the right to continue to use their existing engine, with the current ban on development and requirement for engine parity still in place (noting that the engine supplied will become the reference engine for output and other performance indicators and no engine will be permitted to exceed those indicators).

Teams opting for one of the latter two options would nevertheless use the XR transmission.

In combination with the programme of cost reductions for the chassis, race weekend and team home base outlined in my letter of 18 November, these arrangements have a number of advantages. These include:

* enabling the independent teams to survive in the current difficult economic climate;
* facilitating the replacement of a manufacturer team if (as seems likely) we suffer additional losses;
* stabilising Formula One while new road-relevant technologies are introduced together with a state-of-the-art high tech engine, which could be in Formula One as early as 2013 should the car industry by then be in a position to fund its development;
* avoiding any change to the Formula One spectacle and keeping the technology at current levels.

These arrangements are on the basis that at least four teams enter into contracts to use the power train described above, and do so no later than close of business (5pm CET) on Thursday 11 December 2008. In the event of fewer than four teams signing up, the FIA may still proceed but the price on offer will vary.

The supply contracts will be with Cosworth but in the first instance teams are requested to make their intentions known to my office.

So, Ricardo is the only supplier of transmissions from now on and Cosworth becomes the reference engine for output.

December 11th, 5 pm? Additional loses? State of the art engine? Correct me if I'm wrong but it says that it's not only Honda and F1 engines are not state of the art. Something happened to rush teams that way. You have one week, take it or leave it.

Caramba. Merry Christmas, ho, ho, ho.

[WhiteBlue]

From the previous letter it transpiresthat the deal is actually for both cars and that takes the price tag down to 3.5 mil €/a and car for a complete power train effectively over a duration of three years. It is a stunning deal and beats anything on offer from the current engine suppliers. They should go for it.

Regulating both torque and rpm is the obvious thing to do in order to get a level playing field at reasonable cost. Manufacturers may still compete by fuel efficiency as a means of competitive advantage.

So from my side the answer is definetely yes!

[DaveKillens]

This new powerplant arraingement sure makes it easier for a buyer to go after what's left of Honda.

[Steven]

There was a poll here on f1technical with approximately 4000 votes, and the results were astonishing:

http://www.f1technical.net/poll/index.p ... 134&vo=134

[WhiteBlue]

There was a poll here on f1technical with approximately 4000 votes, and the results were astonishing:

http://www.f1technical.net/poll/index.p ... 134&vo=134

not really, because most people do not bother to look into the details.

with Berge's pull out of Toro Rosso and Honda's withdrawl we will effectively have guranteed 8 teams in competition and one to make up the numbers.

[Ciro Pabón]

+1

It's not standard engine, it's standard output. Weight is not regulated (yet).

Besides, what are the alternatives? A1GP? Now, that's standard. Indycar? I don't think so. A split series from manufacturers? Not now.

However, wow, what a poll!

You could preview what could happen: teams that "depended" on extra-engine-output for results (Ferrari, McLaren and BMW come to my mind) will have less advantage over teams that have had to cope with underpowered cars through better chassis management. The grid could change a little, bringing people in.

[WhiteBlue]

And lets not forget that fuel efficiency would not be regulated either. Less fuel consumption would translate into less weight carried and shorter refuelling times. This could be augmented by decreasing the fuel flow rates of the fuel riggs to give engines with better efficiency the competitive advantage.

[Carlos]

Yes I adore the last engine that became a defacto standard engine, the Cosworth DFV 3liter, but F1 got very boring when almost every car on the track had one, maybe there's a compromise, since the cylinder head design is what makes horsepower, why not use a standard short block and all the manufacturers could do their own heads and proudly put their name on the cam covers, and save development money?

[xpensive]

Not exactly being the greatest fan of Mosley's, I have to agree that the proposal from the man is quite ingeniously put together, as well as being submitted at the right time.

Other than that, I am extremely happy for the gallant people of Cosworth, who truly deserves this after being so let down by both F1 and CART/ChampCar.

[pipex]

At least the "standard engine" will be something like the current ones...
Cosworth is like the phoenix bird, a great (for them) possible return to F1
Carlos idea is interesting, but the question of how to control the development budget continues. A manufacturer tuned "standard engine" would be a nice compromise.
I associate this to the small manufacturers of sport cars that always nearly use engines from big manufacturers because of the huge costs of creating a completely new engine from scratch. F1 engine manufacturers are similar, they have to create a very expensive engine to power two cars... it doesn't make much sense (in an economic way).

Regards

[JamesW]

When I had first heard of the standard engine proposal I was under the impression that there were two options - use the standard, or build a clone. A third option seems to have been introduced - build your own, but there will be performance limits. I'm much happier with this. In fact it is such a sensible suggestion to have come from the FIA that I begin to worry that the end-times are coming.

It's great. It lets privateers build a car round the modern day equivalent of the DFV, but manufacturers will still be interested as there are advantages to be eaked out by doing it yourself. As WhiteBlue says regulating power and torque is the obvious way forward. Fuel efficiency is one area where improvement could be found, but there is also reliability, the size of the torque/power bands, heat resistance (run smaller radiator openings like McLaren for better aero), ...

It goes to show. You wait for years for a good idea to come out of the FIA, and then one comes along all alone.

[CMSMJ1]

No. Don't like it.


If a team wished to buy an engine via the FIA/Cosworth - good. If a team wants to bankrupt itself and spend on an engine...then go for it. FIA can mandate a fuel flow reg and we can all end up with very similar engines. Or just ban refuelling please...it encourages waste.

I noted in a thread a while back that a std motor issued for cheap was a good call but to then deny the other manufacturers a chance to demonstrate their prowess is going to force them to rethink. People never talk about buying a car as it has a great chassis...they want a great motor.

[machin]

maybe there's a compromise, since the cylinder head design is what makes horsepower, why not use a standard short block and all the manufacturers could do their own heads and proudly put their name on the cam covers, and save development money?

This for me has got to be the way forward... I'd also enforce a rev limit lower than today's rev limit (15,000 rpm?) and make the teams use the engines for more races....

I'm definitely in favour of the standard tranmission... all that money spent by different companies on parallel research to probably achieve very little performance over the transmission from any other company is just pointless!

[alexbarwell]

So more standardising happening - comparable/lesser performance (oh what a tough choice) one tyre manufacturer (two made for quite a good variation). Unless a team does still opt to supply engines there is much less interest in F1 for the manufacturer as one of the key bits that would carry their badge may have little to do with them. Admittedly as a rider to this the F1 engines have little to do with the road going concerns anyway. Other race series have homologation - who is up for buying a F1 homologation special road car...
Did anyone think it odd how cosworth apparently pulled out of the engine race the other year?

[machin]

as one of the key bits that would carry their badge may have little to do with them.

Although funnily enough the manufacturers have been buying engines for years... its just a bit more obvious now.... how many actual Mercedes Engineers are involved in their engine project? Probably none... its an Ilmor Engine really... Paid for by Mercedes...