Ferrari used its veto to block engine price cut – FIA

2015 F1 season

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Ferrari used its veto privilege to prevent a reduction in the price of engines, the FIA has revealed.

Formula One’s governing body claimed in a statement released on Monday that Ferrari wielded the veto power granted to it by its long-standing agreement with Bernie Ecclestone to block a move to cap how much manufacturers can charge other teams for engines and gearboxes.

The FIA says it will not challenge Ferrari’s move in court “in the interest of the championship” but said it will continue its push for the introduction of a low-cost “client engine” from 2017.

“A large majority” had agreed on cost-cutting measures including the increased used of standardised parts before Ferrari stepped in to nix the plan, the FIA claimed.

FIA statement

The FIA has studied cost reduction measures for teams participating in the FIA Formula One world championship which were not conclusive, including:

• a global cost ceiling,
• a reduction in costs via technical and sporting regulations,
• an increased standardisation for parts.

The FIA, in agreement with FOM, suggested the principle of setting a maximum price for engine and gearbox for client teams at the last Strategy Group meeting.

These measures were put to the vote and adopted with a large majority.

However, Ferrari SpA decided to go against this and exercise the right of veto long recognised under agreements governing F1.

In the interest of the championship, the FIA has decided not to legally challenge Ferrari SpA’s use of its right of veto.

Therefore the FIA will initiate a consultation with all stakeholders regarding the possible introduction of a client engine, which will be available as of 2017. Following this consultation a call for tenders for this client engine, the cost of which would be much lower than the current power unit, could be undertaken.

Supported by FOM, the FIA will continue in its efforts to ensure the sustained long-term development of the championship and look for solutions enabling it to achieve this. It asks all of the teams to make a positive contribution to the success of this approach through proposals and initiatives in the interest of the championship and its continuation over the long term.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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60 comments on “Ferrari used its veto to block engine price cut – FIA”

  1. This highlights how broken F1 has become.
    No single competitor in any sport should have veto power over regulation changes.

    1. i dont say it’s right but in comparison to any other sport ferrari or any major engine manifacturer is one of only 2-3 companies supplying the entire sport, no football club has this power because every football club is replaceable within their league. Ferrari/mercedes/renault aren’t replaceable and will never be.

      1. I think the expression you are looking for is “Too Big To Fail”. And yes, that is the problem with F1, the top manufacturers (Merc really) are not risking anything (virtually), because they have moved their risk on to the backs of the smaller teams. (see the FIA)

        If you want to be “successful” (And I would never use it this way) in life, you find ways of mitigating your own risk, by still taking risks, and moving that risk on to other people. They share more of the risk, but you still capitalize/profit if you actually had undertaken the risk. It’s called the stock market, or legalized gambling on Wall Street. And a lot of stupid people invest their retirements, and pay ridiculous insurance rates in order to absorb a lot of the risks the fat cats are taking.

        F1 needs real risk takers, not haves and have nots.

        1. No team is ‘too big to fail’. Yes, the blow F1 would receive if Ferrari were to leave would be massive, but it would not be fatal.

          1. F1 seems to be doing the fatal thing all right with out Ferrari’s help

      2. I think ferrari, mercedes and renault are all replaceable. Just as honda, toyota, bmw, lamborghini, porsche etc. were replaceable.

        Sure if merc and ferrari decided to leave it would mean trouble in the short run. But if push came to shove I’m sure bernie could find an engine at least for two seasons until new engine programme was decided and started. Be that an indycar engine, gp2 engine or whatever. Nascar engine, whatever.

        Big manufacturers come and go and if merc or even ferrari decides to go they are gone. Things can change overnight and no matter how many names are written on various pieces of papers it is just ink and paper and if someone really wants to leave (look at renault) then they will just leave. These are after all just big multinational corporations for whom f1 is just marketing excercise. None of them are in it for any kind of sporting reasons. But similarly none of them are what is f1. Together the teams and drivers (among the rest) are f1. The teams individually are nothing less than combination of factories, engineering companies and pr firms.

    2. Agreed. Back to garagistas.

    3. Most likely Ferrari consulted with Mercedes and others and used the veto on behalf of all of them.

      1. This was one of my first thoughts.

    4. What this highlights is that they made a wrong decision going to the current engine formula and need to go back to simple engines with “normal” transmissions. Then try to get other engine manufacturers to come in and supply engines within the same rules the other manufacturers are using. There should be no shame in admitting that a mistake was made. The shame is in being too proud to correct the mistake.

      1. Switching to another formula now would be more expensive than keeping the current formula as even with more ‘simple’ engines you still need to come up with a new design, Put the R&D into that design & then reconfigure the engine plant (With new castings etc…) to shift focus into manufacturing the new design.

        Then on the team’s side they need to go back to scratch with car designs & reconfigure everything for the new engines & the cooling requirements, Larger fuel tanks, software etc..

        The current power units are expensive, However its important to remember that over the next few years the cost’s will go down & they will become more affordable.

      2. @velocityboy Why would any serious manufacture with the financial power want to come into a Formula with engines that hold no technological benefit to their core business? After all these engines are here in order to keep manufacturers in the sport and attract new ones, which so far it has done.

        It’s not surprising that the manufacturers after investing such vast amounts of money in this technology are unwilling for another set of rule changes that would take away the philosophy behind these PU.

        In terms of costs, I don’t agree with the Ferrari veto, and I don’t know how far Mercedes talks went in order to come up with a plan to bring costs down to customers but you have to think that with the complaint to the EU and the outcomes of what that could mean for the current financial agreements with teams then I don’t see them voting for anything that will reduce their income from engine supply that will pay of R&D.

        1. I agree that the engines should be something that translates to the manufacturers core business, but I think they strayed too far from that as they are power units and not engines. That’s a part of what I mean when I say simpler. They don’t necessarily have to go to V8s or V6s, but the formula needs to be simpler and easier for someone to jump in and be competitive fairly quickly. Honda’s struggles and Ferrari still being off the pace given their resources and experience are not going to motivate others to want to jump in and give it a try.

    5. Incompetent FIA needs this.

    6. @mtlracer Agree, although this is a reasonable use of the veto. I don’t think it’s fair that the PU manufacturers would only supply PU’s for publicity whilst receiving a small compensation for their work, it would also detract manufacturers from supplying other F1 teams. It would keep new manufacturers away. It would make powerful teams such as RBR even less likely to sign a deal for a PU. Also a 2 tier championships isn’t going to work in the 21st century, this is not WEC, it’s not just for show.

      1. There you go again, spreading lies about the WEC; it is not a two-tier championship, and you know it.

        1. It is not 2 tiers at all, it has LMP1, LMP2, GTE PRO & GTE AM. It is a 4 tier championship, 5 if you include Rebellion and ByKolles not being able to run hybrid engines like the big LMP1 teams as they cannot afford to make their own and the big manufacturers would not give them one.

          F1 must make engines more simple and cheaper and they can in the current formula. Have spec hybrid units which various manufacturers can build their own combustion engines to work with. We wuold then have the hybrid element but relatively easier to design v6 twin turbos or whatever they want to build to match to the standard hybrid part. You have engine differentiation that can make a difference, lower costs as the hybrid part is surely the most expensive bit and hardest to get right and that is classic F1, build the best chassis and combustion engine you can.

          1. Have spec hybrid units which various manufacturers can build their own combustion engines to work with.

            That was talked about before but they were not keen on doing it because most of the development potential with these power units & the primary area where power/performance improvements will be made is in the hybrid systems.
            Keeping the current engines but moving to a spec hybrid system removes a lot of why manufacturer’s were keen on the current formula.

            Another option could be to have a cheap alternative hybrid system available for those who want/need it. But the downside of that would be the manufacturer units would be constantly evolving & improving at a rate I doubt the cheap spec alternative’s would be able to, Especially if it’s an alternative unit designed by an independent, less well funded supplier.

          2. Under the current prescribed combustion unit a spec hybrid would not be enticing for the manufacturers but they could loosen up what you can design for the engine, I bet the cost of a hybrid unit and developing it costs more than allowing engine makers to have different combustion engines. There would always be compromise but I feel this would strike a better balance between costs and engine makers showing what they can do. Many previous eras engine makers developed their combustion engines to beat their rivals so why not same again but with the highest cost element the hybrid being a spec part.

    7. …has become.

      You must be young. It has always been like that or at least since Bernie has been in control.
      What is new, is that it all comes out in public.

  2. MtlRacer you are right in principal but this is f1 and f1 is ferrari and the other way around.Ferrari has this power because without this team f1 is no longer the same sport f1 owes this power to ferrari for all the year of support the team has given to the sport since the begging in 1950 .Without ferrari f1 would have been long gone or never as popular as it is or was .Is it right to for the team to have such great power no! do they deserve it yes!

    1. Judging by their past actions, I’m sure they’d love to have an F1 championship of nothing but Ferraris out on track racing one another. At this rate, sure seems like they’re working towards it. Keep pulling all the money they can from their championship bonus and continue to block any attempts at reducing costs in hopes of bankrupting the other teams. Reduce the field to where we need 3 car teams. Since that won’t stop the bleeding, we’ll at some point have 4 car teams. Maybe it’ll be just two teams fighting each other eventually. And finally, someday, the other one will not feel like toiling away against a team that has for so long been given the power, the breaks and the money. Then all these people who claim that “Ferrari is F1 and F1 is Ferrari” will get their wish.

      But y’know, keep insisting that an egocentric team keep being allowed to make destructive choices toward the sport that built it like it’s going to improve the situation.

    2. petebaldwin (@)
      27th October 2015, 10:52

      No they don’t deserve it. No-one deserves an unfair advantage over the other teams. For me, it taints everything Ferrari do. Every time they do well, I think “I wonder if they’d have done that if they didn’t have an unfair advantage…”

      Their performance over the last decade considering that for the whole of it, they have had an unfair advantage over every other team is embarrassing and doesn’t fit with the whole “F1 need Ferrari” argument.

  3. Odd that the FIA feel they need to highlight this. Ferrari veto’s are not a new thing and Toto Wolff is a known opposer of engine cost caps as well. I’d like to know who the ‘majority’ are, but that would not support the narrative that the engine manufacturers have too much power.

    Not surprised they used this to back their stance about engine manufacturers, but interesting that they do not mention what kind of engine they’re looking for at all. Typical FIA vagueness.

    1. I think I read somewhere that both Mercedes and Honda asked Ferrari to use that Veto power @npf1, I guess the “client engine” is that 2.2 liter dual turbo V6 they mentioned during the weekend.

      Nice little powergame going on there. The mistake off course was not discussion a cost cap right from the start and making a gradual cost reduction as much part of the regulations as gradually limiting development is.

  4. I really don’t like where this is going…

  5. Frankly, as much as I agree that lower-priced engines should be used, a cost cap cannot be the answer. An engine supplier should not be forced to supply engines at a price that is potentially below cost, and it should be the right of the engine manufacturer to spread fixed development costs across all customers and the works team.

    I think the two goals “cutting edge hybrid technology with dual energy recovery” and “cheap engines” are mutually exclusive.

    1. Exactly what happened with the V8s – Max forced them to supply engines below cost. That’s why Bernie/FIA is whining now to bring back the manufacturer-subsidized engines. ;-)

    2. petebaldwin (@)
      27th October 2015, 10:45

      @mike-dee – There is (….was) a solution. Implement a cost cap when the engine regs are announced. That way, they aren’t being forced to sell at a loss because it’s up to them what they spend.

      I don’t believe this would make the manufacturers not want to supply others because there are huge benefits of having multiple cars testing your engines.

  6. This just goes to show why Bernie has to go. His secret, behind the door deals with individual teams has left F1 broken and yet whenever there is an issue like RB quitting he tries to make it out as if he has nothing to do with it when actually he is the architect of most of the problems facing F1. You can’t go around giving teams powers to change and adapt rules and then complain and criticise when they use that power!

  7. It’s this kind of thing, along with the tobacco sponsorship and extra payments, that make Ferrari success mean less than other teams’ success.

    1. So what Ferrari are the most important element of F1 for me so I am always happy with what they do and to hell with the little teams, they should take what they are given however a customer engine is a great idea for those little teams as long as it is designed to the same rules as the others. Why should any supplier or company be forced to sell something at a loss for those without.. F1 would end up like the UK benefits system.

    2. tobacco sponsorship is a crime? Top 4 teams and mclaren get extra payments too. in case you didnt know.

      1. Tobacco sponsorship is illegal in the EU @crr917, but it’s left to national governments to enforce. Italian government Ferrari. Yes other teams get extra payments, but less.

        So my point is @markp that they can have your support that’s fine but when they win it represents less of an achievement, obviously, when the playing field is slanted so much in their favour.

        Also iirc the veto was part of the deal for betraying the other teams in 2005.

        1. Tobacco advertisement is illegal. And you are saying that extra payments are ok as long as they are less than what Ferrari gets? Or there is some particular value carved in stone somewhere? A law or something? Are you joking

          1. Tobacco sponsorship is specifically illegal @crr917, so it’s a source of revenue other teams are denied. It’s a lot of money, because PMI can’t spend their money elsewhere.

            Extra payments mean extra performance – more money: more performance. Ferrari gets a 2.5% chunk the others don’t get.

            Now the veto, to make more money, at the expense of F1 as a whole. We know the unit cost is £750k, the rest is development cost which the engine manufacturers would spend anyway.

            So I discount the significance of their results somewhat. I’m disappointed because I had been liking Ferrari a lot better since Montezemolo left.

          2. @lockup so it seems you are not joking. good luck

        2. I would say the same in many aspects of sport. In Spain 2 teams get more payments than all the others and a close relationship with the govenment. Audi at LeMans seem to have had rules written for them before other big manufacturers come in. The Royal family in the UK get the biggest government handouts of any family when they already have a lot of money, it’s one of those things. Bernie only paid 10 million in tax in a special deal when he owed 1 billion, if I owed 10000 and offered 100 I would be put in prison. Ferrari have always had this power I fail to see why all of a sudden some small teams want to drag everyone down to their level if they manage it maybe I will enter F1 and drag them down to my level and everyone has to build their cars in a garden shed from old lawn mowers so I can compete on a fair fiancial level.

  8. FIA is pretending to be doing its job. Had to shift the blame for its incompetence. But what’s the point of a public statement? Why is PR so important? Why throwing

    • a global cost ceiling,
    • a reduction in costs via technical and sporting regulations,
    • an increased standardisation for parts.

    here? A number of teams have been opposed of global cost ceiling. The reduction of cost via technical and sporting regulations is what FIA has been doing all the time. Allegedly. And it leads to standardization which should be vetoed. Keep it in spec series.
    How is engine and gearbox cost cap the answer to F1 problems? Why don’t FIA explain that.
    That last paragraph is obscene.

  9. I’m not saying Ferrari having a veto is right, because it’s bonkers, and this is coming from a Ferrari fan. What I’m muffed about is the flak Ferrari is getting over this while they might have only used it to protect themselves from being possible forced to sell engines under cost price.

    Let’s face a well known fact in the F1 community. Jean Tod’s rule as FIA president has neglected F1 in favor of other projects such as Formula E, WEC and the road safety campaign. The fact the FIA went as far as mentioning Ferrari’s veto is merely a ploy to cover up their incompetence when it comes to governing our sport.

    Shame on you Jean, shame on you.

    1. What I’m muffed about is the flak Ferrari is getting over this while they might have only used it to protect themselves from being possible forced to sell engines under cost price.

      I agree with you: these engines are already at “minimum” cost. Yes, each hybrid-engine costs in the vicinity of $1M, but that is about as cheap as you can make a hybrid-engine that meets the current F1 specifications. The standard is a 1.6 litre V6 engine that needs to be able to push the car in excess of 340+ km/h (DRS enabled), last 5 races + practices and qualifying, survive crashes, and has to meet fuel flow restrictions. I think it was during the build up to either FP3 or Qualifying for the US GP that some of the commentators discussed the fuel efficiency of a current F1 car, and it was something like 30% better than the old engines. If you want a cheaper engine then something has to go.
      Say you removed the hybrid components and associated generator units, that would make the engine a whole lot cheaper, but then the car wouldn’t meet the F1 fuel flow requirements while traveling at 340 km/h.

  10. Just when the overall opinion on this site about Ferrari was becoming more and more positive…

  11. I’m actually grateful for the veto for a number of reasons. Every time the FIA introduces new rules to decrease costs in the sports–i.e. limited engine supply–it has the opposite effect. Limiting the number of engines and gearboxes in a season has become a standard cost-limitation method for the rules committee, but all that happens each time is big manufacturers dump huge sums of money into increasing the reliability of their engines and then pass the cost along to their customer teams.

    Standard parts in the engines just push the sport further and further towards a spec series. I personally look back 20-30 years and feel no small amount of envy for the variety in design and innovation. Costs were relatively low in the past for engines as well.

    There’s also one very important question to ask: who would make the standard parts? Surely they cannot let any one team on the grid design the parts for risk of it becoming an unfair advantage. Having an outsider develop the parts might be disastrous for quality and reliability reasons. It’s not a winning proposition for the fans or the teams.

  12. The other thing to remember is that the current pu manufacturers business models is built on charging customers a certain amount. They each have contracts to supply pu to teams at £X. The FIA can’t force PU manufacturers to rip up their contracts and their business models.
    If the FIA actually want these changes then they have to give the teams notice of at least 2 years.
    It would be good to get a competitive PU produced by an independent manufacturer but who in their right mind would invest the sort of money that’s required when the FIA keep suggesting that they might change the PU rules?

  13. The problem for Ferrari & other manufacturer’s with this cost cap is that if there forced to supply engine’s at a rate below what its costing them to produce & develop them then there making a loss on every unit sold & that will not only affect R&D programs but also could potentially discourage more manufacturer’s from joining.

    Look at Indycar for example, The price of there engines is capped & both Honda & Chevrolet are losing a fortune on each engine they sell to the point where there practically begging Indycar officials to find more manufacturer’s so that it lessens the number of teams they need to supply. The problem there been that the cap is putting new manufacturer’s off entering & has done the same for independent engine builders like Cosworth who couldn’t afford the loss that would be made.
    The cap was agreed at a time when it looked like there would be at least 3 engine manufacturer’s (Honda, Chevrolet & Lotus) with the prospect of a 4th (Cosworth) joining later. The Lotus engine ended up been a joke & all the Lotus powered teams jumped to Honda/Chevrolet so there now having to supply more teams than originally expected so there losing more money than anticipated & this also put Cosworth off because they can’t afford to make the sort of losses they would be making under the cap.

    The only way a cap would work is if the FIA & FOM subsidized the cost as they did with the V8’s, But Bernie’s hatred of the current engines means he’s unwilling to do that & the FIA can’t do it alone.

  14. Ferrari is the backbone of F1. Can’t imagine F1 without them. Right or wrong to veto doesn’t matter, if F1 without Ferrari.

  15. If Ferrari veto this then surely the FIA and bernie know they will veto teams using different engines that bernie will make more powerful than the hyprid engines. You cant expect the manufacturers to sell the engines for less than it costs to make them. Bernie is only worried about this now because he’d rather give smaller teams cheap engines so The CVC and bernie don’t have to give the smaller teams more money out of their pockets. Why do I get the feeling these new cheap engines will be made to be more powerful than Ferrari and Mercedes and redbull will probably be the only team who gets them. Do The FIA and bernie really think Ferrari, Mercedes, renault and honda will stick around for that

  16. How can a team exercise a Veto with the commercial rights holder and there’s nothing the FiA can do about it?
    What an absolute shambles!

    1. Uh…check the deal Todt’s FIA made with Bernie – FIA got $200M in 2013 to hand over rule-maker powers to Bernie and his ‘democratic’ F1 Strategy Group – a group that would make the ‘technical’ decisions – but even those powers are superseded by the non-Concorde deals Bernie made with each team to break up FOTA in 2009 (Ferrari negotiated veto powers). Bernie’s kill-FOTA shenanigans have had a few unintended consequences.

      The FIA isn’t the F1 governing power it pretends to be.

  17. Neil (@neilosjames)
    27th October 2015, 2:49

    I strongly dislike the veto, but I can’t help but see the funny side of something Todt played a part in acquiring when he was at Ferrari coming back to bite him on the backside all these years later.

  18. Arrivabene might seem like a good guy but he is as pragmatic as any other businessman and will go to any length to protect Ferrari’s interests. So the team’s stance on engine prices does not surprise me at all.

    However, the FIA has to do something about the current power units. They are too expensive and the rules are not attractive enough for manufacturers and that needs to change. F1 might not need Red Bull but it needs a grid that is full of healthy teams and if the engines are too expensive and there are not enough viable alternatives, then these teams will simply not be there.

    So the FIA’s cautious first attempts to change the current situation are a step in the right direction but a lot will need to be done to really make the concept work. For sure, it is easy to write off the idea of two different engine formulas in F1 but the WEC has proved that it can work if it is done the right way.

    1. For sure, it is easy to write off the idea of two different engine formulas in F1 but the WEC has proved that it can work if it is done the right way.

      WEC is a different situation though because Sportscar racing has traditionally been about multiple classes each running to different rule sets.

      F1 has always been about a single set of regulations so moving along with the idea of creating a 2nd set of regulations for some teams to run to is fundamentally changing F1 to something it’s never been, Something teams have in the past unanimously voted against multiple times & something one of the recent fan survey’s showed 70% of fans who took part don’t want to see happen.

      1. @gt-racer, exactly – within the LMP1-H class, the ACO only has to worry about balancing the performance of three teams (I do not count Nissan given they have barely participated this season and were never formally part of the Balance of Performance equation).

        Even then, it is debatable whether the Balance of Performance regulations have actually worked this season – Porsche has had a major performance advantage this season, which has lead to some rather blatant handicapping by the ACO for 2016 (the planned limits on the use and power output of the hybrid recovery systems at Le Mans in 2016, which is aimed squarely at removing the power advantage Porsche has had this season). Out of the manufacturer entrants, Toyota gave up months ago and are not trying to compete, whilst Audi seems to be shifting their focus to 2016 instead – Nissan, meanwhile, where so crippled by the ACO’s ban on in season development that they decided to pull out altogether.

  19. Agree with Ferrari on this one.
    If the cost of engines is capped, and Ferrari and Mercedes end up making a loss on sale of every customer engine, guess what they will do. They will just stop making customer engines. Because, that is the right business decision.

    The grid size will suddenly reduce to just 3 teams.

  20. Their veto power is one of the major reasons why I’m no fan of Ferrari. Grow up Formula 1/FIA, get rid of this ridiculous veto power, because with it, you’re making yourselves look foolish.

  21. petebaldwin (@)
    27th October 2015, 10:38

    But surely, Mercedes and Ferrari have already spent the money on development? If they’d brought a cost cap in at the start, that’s what the engines would have been designed to. Instead, you’re asking Ferrari to invest millions in an engine and then sell it off to another team for next to nothing. Why would they want to do that?

    If you were told to design a sofa that you were going to sell for £50,000, it would be very different to one you’d design if you were going to sell it for £500! If you designed one to sell for £50,000 one with hand carved swans covered in gold leaf on the arms and then someone said “there are some less well off people in the world who can’t afford this sofa. How about you agree to sell it for £500?” you’d say no.

    But what else would you expect from the complete utter omnishambles that is the (mis)management of F1.

  22. Rather disappointed in Ferrari if I’m honest – just as they were beginning to shrug off that whiff of self-important arrogance it sneaks back in.

    Goes without saying they should never be allowed a veto in the first place, let alone use it to stop attempts to lower costs. Component standardisation would theoretically lower the construction costs and complexity of the engine so the only money they’d be losing is whatever exorbitant costs they charge for the unit. To me it’s just powerful teams attempting to solidify their position.

    I find myself really going off the ‘manufacturer’ teams of late.

  23. OK, I agree that no one team should have a veto power over the rules, but that’s what Ferrari got, and in this case, I can’t really blame them…too much. My thoughts on this:

    1) If they vetod the cost cap, what’s to stop them from vetoing the second type of engine? Or are Todt and Bernie counting on that to then make Ferrari the villain and try to remove their veto power through a lawsuit or something?

    2) I saw somewhere that the proposed cap was 12-15 million (not sure if that’s pounds or dollars or whatever). Did Ferrari offer a different amount that they would be satisfied with but this was rejected and not reported?

    3) Yes, an engine cost cap would reduce the costs for several teams, but it would actually INCREASE, quite significantly, the costs of the three/four teams that are engine manufacturers. I don’t see how that’s exactly fair, either.

    4) The problem with this story, and all of the nonsense surrounding Red Bull is that we don’t have the full story, nor do we have all of the information. All we have is a “he said this…/she said that…/someone told me he overheard someone telling another person…” and that is no way to have an informed debate. I, for one, don’t believe pretty much anything that comes from Bernie or any of the team principles unless multiple people say the same thing.

    According to Bernie, Red Bull practically had an engine contract with Mercedes, but Lauda says they never called back so Mercedes moved on. Horner says Ferrari will only supply year-old engines, Ferrari has said nothing (that I can find) about any of this. It’s all a crap-shoot on who and what to actually believe.

    1. It does not make sense to force the engine manufacturers to sell their engines for a set price if that price does not cover the cost of producing the engine. I am not sure if it does or not…
      I don’t think Formula 1 will ever have a Hard Cap, but maybe they should introduce a luxury tax like in the NBA or MLB. If teams spent more then a set amount each pound/euro/dollar spent will costs them an extra %. This money could be distributed to other teams and help them with their budget.
      Example: Luxury Tax threshold at 300 million and the tax 5% If the big 4 each spent 400 million it will generate 100*4*.05 = 20 million to be distributed to the other teams.
      Besides that they should open up the engine regulations and just say build an engine that can get you the fastest around a racetrack not using more than 100kg in fuel.. let those geniuses come up with the best engine.

  24. Have to agree that the Ferrari veto is a bad thing, but in this case the FIA and FOM trying to bully Mercedes and Ferrari into something they don’t want to do is much worse.

    Why do the FIA and FOM need to do Red Bulls bidding anyway? I’d say the fact that time and time again they let themselves be lobbied by Red Bull to do their bidding is also far worse than Ferrari’s use of their veto.

    They were the ones who cancelled their contract with Renault. Mercedes and Ferrari paid hundreds of millions for their engines. Let Red Bull put down that kind of money. They do so already anyway, but they now get to spend it on their aero. Spend a few hundred million on your engine then.

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