Price of the combustion engine has fallen massively - Theissen

There has been a lot of discussion recently around Formula One rules and regulations. Some teams and manufacturers are striving to lift the "freeze" on engine development, in order to bring the performance of the power trains into line. BMW Motorsport Director Mario Theissen warns against rising costs.

"The downside is that cost rises will resume immediately if you unfreeze the engines," he explains. "I would be in favour of not spending any money on developing these engines any more, and focussing on the next generation of engines. The gap between individual engines is not that big, but the topic has been exaggerated lately."

One aspect that has received much criticism is the fact that the restrictions to engine development may have initially reduced costs, but that the resources saved were then allocated to another point in development. Theissen responds: "If you look at the money we spend on the combustion engine, it has gone down massively. Some of the money saved we are now spending on future projects, like KERS. In my opinion, that makes a lot of sense. We are working on KERS at the same time as the combustion engine, and are still significantly below the budget we used to have in 2003 or 2004."