Toro Rosso with Renault in 2014 and Sahara Force India with Ferrari?

In 2014, the FIA decided to revise the regulations regarding engines; the V8s would make way for 1.6L Turbo V6s. The development of a new engine incurs a cost for the engine manufacturers present in F1, Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault, and Cosworth – the latter not being certain about continuing in F1 beyond 2013.

Auto Motor und Sport estimates the investment made by the three engine manufacturers that could supply V6 engines to the 12 teams on the grid—Mercedes, Ferrari, and Renault—at 90 million euros. Considering this investment, the price paid by the teams to obtain engines could increase.

The engines should be sold for around 8 million euros per year, but there could even be significant differences regarding the KERS according to the German publication. Thus, Ferrari would offer theirs at 1 million euros compared to 6 million for Mercedes’.

Smaller teams and those in the middle of the grid might therefore be tempted to look elsewhere in case of a significant price increase and according to *Auto Motor und Sport*, this could be the case for Scuderia Toro Rosso, whose cars could be equipped with Renault V6 Turbo engines starting in 2014 – like their big sisters at Red Bull Racing, which would allow for reduced production costs of the rear axle, including transmission, KERS, and hydraulics.

Another team could change its engine supplier according to the German newspaper, namely the Sahara Force India team, currently powered by Mercedes. The Indian team could return to a Ferrari engine, which it was equipped with in 2008 before switching to the star brand. This association should thus end the McLaren/Force India partnership, but a new partnership could be formed with Ferrari for the Silverstone team, which might allow the Maranello team to place a young driver within Vijay Mallya’s team, perhaps Jules Bianchi…