Whitmarsh against a V8 – V6 Turbo equivalence

Formula 1 must switch from a V8 engine to a V6 Turbo engine starting in 2014, but this transition is complicated and although the engine manufacturers should be ready in time, some teams believe that the cost of this new engine will be too high.

According to several F1 observers, some teams have suggested that while allowing the introduction of the new 1.6L Turbo V6 engine, the V8s could continue to be used within the framework of establishing engine equivalence to achieve similar performance.

Martin Whitmarsh, the President of FOTA and the director of the McLaren team, mentioned, as quoted by the site motorsport-total, that this solution was not the right one according to him: “It’s doable. But personally, I don’t think it’s something very attractive. We had such equivalences in the past, in 1988, we had turbos and more conventional engines when we switched in the other direction (the end of turbo). It wasn’t such a bad memory for McLaren, but it wasn’t a very attractive championship.”

Whitmarsh believes that establishing such an equivalence between V8 and V6 Turbo engines could create a two-tier championship. However, there could be exceptions, as was the case in 2006 when F1 transitioned from V10 to V8 engines – Toro Rosso was allowed to use restricted V10s to reduce the costs of switching from a V10 to a V8, given the financial situation of the team, which was called Minardi until 2005.

Martin Whitmarsh also commented on the suspension of the PURE project, explaining that it was not a surprise for him because he never considered this project credible.

Like Norbert Haug, he believes that there might only be three engine manufacturers in 2014, which would require current manufacturers to supply more engines, especially to smaller teams like HRT and Marussia, as they use a Cosworth engine. Even if there are 12 teams to supply, this shouldn’t be a problem according to him: “From what I know, Renault would like to power up to seven teams.”