| FIA President Max Mosley has asked the Formula One teams for proposals on how to cut the costs of competing in the sport by 50 percent. The proposals, which must be submitted within three months and have the support of the majority of teams, will help form revised regulations for the 2011 season.
“Formula One is becoming unsustainable,” said Mosley in a letter to the teams. “The major manufacturers are currently employing up to 1000 people to put two cars on the grid. This is clearly unacceptable at a time when all these companies are facing difficult market conditions.”
Mosley wants to see rules that will not only halve manufacturer teams’ costs but also ensure that independent teams remain financially viable. He says both must be achieved without affecting the spectacle of Formula One racing in any way.
As part of the changes, Mosley is also targeting a 50 percent reduction in fuel consumption by 2015, without affecting speeds, and wants the rules to encourage the research of road-relevant, rather than Formula One-specific technologies.
He also wants regulations that encourage closer racing and more passing by ensuring “that cars remain aerodynamically efficient when in close proximity to one another”. Should the teams be unable to agree a set of proposals by October 3, the FIA itself will prepare new rules for 2011.
The FIA's statement in full:
NEW RULES FOR 2011
We need proposals for regulations to come into force no later than 2011. These should be delivered to the FIA by 3 October 2008 and be sufficiently detailed to allow precise rules to be drafted.
Reduced costs:
It is for the teams to decide how to reduce costs and also to decide if there should be restrictions on the development budgets of the manufacturer teams and, if so, what these should be and how they would be enforced.
The rules must also allow a back-of-the-grid independent team to operate profitably.
Teams which design and develop their own drive train (usually manufacturer teams) must be prepared to supply a complete and fully competitive drive train to an independent team at very low cost. We would suggest about 2 million Euro per season per team. The complete drive train would include all the new energy-saving technologies (eg KERS) and cost would be a design constraint as it is in the car industry.
Among possible cost savings which the teams may wish to consider are: restrictions on simulators, wind tunnel use, CFD and other home-base facilities, together with long-life chassis components, up to ten-race drive trains, no gear ratio changes during life of drive train, current parc fermé rules extended for entire race weekend and other proposals to reduce the cost per kilometre of operating a Formula One car and the costs of going racing.
We would not object to shared technology, eg of core engine.
Measures to reduce costs must not affect the spectacle in any way.
Improved fuel efficiency:
The objective is a 20 percent reduction in fuel consumption for 2011 progressing to 50% in 2015, while keeping lap times and top speeds at current levels.
We believe this can best be regulated by placing a limit on both fuel flow and the total quantity of fuel used in the race (thus limiting both maximum and average power). The road-relevant research objective would then be more power from less fuel.
We hope to see many new energy-efficient technologies deployed. We would like rules to maximise the incentive to develop road-relevant devices for improved fuel efficiency. Teams will need these in order to obtain maximum power from a limited amount of fuel.
We would suggest limiting KERS to 200kw out and 300kw in, with maximum of 1.6 MJ stored energy. We would not exclude taking energy from the front wheels during braking.
We would not exclude the possibility of variable aerodynamics.
Again, it is for the teams to decide how these objectives can best be achieved and whether any, and if so which, restrictions should be placed on the drive train technology needed to produce the necessary improvements in efficiency.
Improved racing:
The 2009 Technical Regulations are intended to improve the racing. We would like to go further, with developments to allow the cars to run in close proximity to one another without losing performance. One possibility is that the car behind should be faster by virtue of being behind not, as at present, slower.
Again, it is for the teams to decide how to achieve these objectives.
3 July 2008 |
