Report: Cosworth is done

The independent British engine manufacturer´s foray into F1 is over, rivals say these days.

Coming back in 2010 to supply engines for the three newest teams on the grid, Marussia, Lotus and HRT, as well as Williams, but only the latter team managed to score points that year, finishing 6th in the championship. 2011 was a step back for Cosworth it seemed, when all their teams finished at the back of the grid, with Williams again being the best of the four, though only scoring 5 points of the season.

For this season only two teams are left with the Cosworth engines, HRT and Marussia. Williams and Caterham, the former Lotus team, both switched to Renault, but the immediate future looks grim for those final Cosworth powered teams. Rule changes from 2014, mean that the current V8 units are history, replacing them with Turbo charged V6 engines, and it´s a big question of Cosworth can even stay for the final season.

Speaking to motorsport-total.com, Renault´s Jean-Francois Caubet said:

“Cosworth, for sure, are finished.” Caubet is pushing for FIA to ‘relax’ the rules so that engine suppliers can have more than four customers. And last year Caubet said: “I am pushing for an open market because we are in formula one and regulations cannot solve all the problems,” he added.

So what´s left for the teams to choose from? Craig Pollock, who we know as former team principal for the BAR Racing Team, is ready with the answer. His PURE engines have been under development for some time, and expects to be ready to take on customers when the new rules for 2014 are introduced.

“Cosworth cannot be there in 2014. They just can’t make it in time now, no matter what anybody says,” Pollock said. “It’s an absolute impossibility.”

When BMW and Toyota dropped out of F1 before the 2010 season, the engine diversity dropped too. For the first time in 30 years, only four engine manufacturers supplied engines to the teams.

Cosworth have supplied engines to such teams as Lotus, McLaren, Matra, Brabham, March, Tyrrell, Surtees, Hesketh, Lola, Williams, Penske, Wolf, Ligier. From 1969 to 1973 every world championship was won using the powerful DFV-engine, Double Four Valve, winning 155 races out of a total of 262 between 1967 and 1985.

Like a wolf guarding sheep

Flavio Briatore, the former Renault team principal who were thrown out of F1, is in the process of writing the rule book for a new race series, the GP1.

No, really. It´s true. After being banned from motor racing for life, for his role in the Singapore race fixing scandal in 2008, the ban was later lifted and made into a five year ban from F1, Flavio Briatore is making his way back to the life of motor racing.

GP1, a new race series is underway and Briatore is the man writing the rule book. A little like having wolves guarding sheep. At the moment, the series is hoping to get a official FIA badge slapped on it, otherwise all they can hope for is a World Series or Cup, not a World Championship. And as Joe Saward writes on his blog:

“Thankfully, it is fairly clear that the idea of a GP1 Series is simply a lever in negotiations over a new Concorde Agreement with the FIA. GP1 is not a very good lever because unless the FIA is behind it, it will never get the “World Championship” tag and this is what the teams and car manufacturers are after.”

GP2, on the other hand, has produced F1 drivers such as Nico Rosberg, Timo Glock, Lucas di Grassi, Nico Hulkenberg, Romain Grosjean, Pastor Maldonado, Sergio Perez, Bruno Senna,  Heikki Kovalainen and of course 2008 champion Lewis Hamillton.

Briatore to Ferrari?

Ousted former Renault team boss Flavio Briatore is rumoured to be taken on by Ferrari as a consultant.

The disgraced former team boss from Renault, Italian business-man and flamboyant team-manager Flavio Briatore, is rumoured tobe in talks with Ferrari regarding a position as consultant to the team. This would lead the way for the controversial figure to take over Stefano Domenicali´s role as team boss for 2013.

Briatore was kicked from Formula One after it became evident that he had been the master planner behind the crash of Nelson Piquet in Singapore back in 2008. The details of this only came to light about a year later, when Piquet, now out of a contract with Renault, talked about what had happened, which lead to the demise of Briatore. Briatore was banned from motor sport for life by the FIA, then a civil court over-ruled that decision, and the FIA made a deal with Briatore that he could return within three years in a management role.

These rumours aren´t new, in fact since September 2010 there have been plenty of un-supported rumours regarding Briatore to Ferrari. He visited Ferrari headquarters in June, and then again twice in September. He was also spotted at Monza last year, talking to Ferrari´s president Luca di Montezemolo, as well as FIAT top brass John Elkann and Sergio Marchionne. And with Montezemolo being wheeled in as a possible replacement for Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, changes at Ferrari could well include Briatore.

Personally I don´t think this is more than rumours. Briatore is a brilliant manager, he is managing Fernando Alonso for starters, and also knows how to run a championship winning team, but can he fit inside the corporate structure at Ferrari? The answer is probably no, which renders the rumours as sketchy at best.

Williams-Renault link-up revived

The Williams F1 team confirmed Monday that they will be powered by Renault from 2012. This would revive one of the most successful partnerships in modern F1 history.

Most of us remember the Rothman themed Williams cars, which ran with Renault engines between 1989 and 1997. The team won five of its seven constructors championships in that period, with Canadian Jacques Villeneuve the most recent world champion.

The engine deal will see the cars be powered by the engine used to win Red Bull their 2010 title and will be for two years initially. The deal also means that Renault is supplying four teams, Williams, Red Bull, Lotus and of course the Renault team itself. But this is not a problem, insists Williams chairman Adam Parr.

Given the massive investment that Renault has made in its V8 and will make in the V6, they need a decent group of teams to supply – remember that they do not have their own team and so linking up with a number of successful chassis makers is essential,” says Parr. In addition, the number of engines now used each season is very small. From over 200 per team a decade ago we are now down to about a tenth of that. From 2014 it may well drop by half again. Also with limited, single-car testing four teams gives Renault much more data for reliability and whatever development will be allowed in the future. Renault has always shown total integrity in offering parity to its partners and that is another essential factor for all of us.

As mentioned the deal will be for two years, but both parts of the deal will be looking to work together beyond 2014 when the new engine formula arrives. From V8 to V6 with turbos.

This partnership is for the long-term. It will see Renault provide Williams with its championship-winning RS27 V8 engines for 2012 and 2013. Meanwhile we are already working on an extension for the new engine formula which arrives in 2014.

Renault is serious about success and so are we. They compete in Formula 1 because it’s at the cutting edge of developing technologies and because it is the pinnacle of motorsport. This is also why we compete in the sport and together we believe we can return AT&T Williams to our former competitiveness.

For Williams, it has been a strategic priority to align ourselves with world-class automotive companies. Just two months ago we announced our partnership with Jaguar to create the C-X75 supercar together – a project that we both expect will lead onto a more general collaboration on high-performance road vehicles. Today, we have announced a partnership with Renault; they are not only making a championship-winning engine, but they are independent, totally committed to Formula 1 and, of course, there is a resonance and heritage to Williams-Renault that creates a real buzz for both of us. So, in a short period we have signed two critical partnerships which will (literally and figuratively) power us forwards in coming years.

The technical department of Williams have also been re-vamped. Mike Coughlan has been recruited, so has Jason Somerville and Mark Gillan.The latter has been working with Toyota on the aerodynamics.

So expectations are even higher for 2012 than in recent years. With the worst start to any season for the team, 2011 is a total write-off it seems. Foucs should be on the FW34 and the implementation of the new power unit. The good news is that the regulations for 2012 regarding chassis is not going to affect the way you mount an engine, and by supplying four teams now, Renault can make the most of the data they collect. Despite memories of a more successful past, its still another step forward in the teams attempts to get back up in front.

We constantly put pressure on ourselves to improve our performance regardless of expectations. We’re not satisfied with just finishing races or picking up a few points – our aim is to win and we want to put ourselves back in a position to do so. Clearly our performance at the moment is not where would like it to be, but we are doing all we can to rectify that and this partnership is another step in that process. This partnership is about the future. In a sense, it is about earning the right to inherit the past,” said Parr.