Days of discussions and meetings have resulted in an agreement to reduce cost of engines for the teams by the engine manufactures, confirmed FIA. There are four manufacturers currently – Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault and Honda. They provide all the engines that power 2 cars each of 11 teams on the grid.
This discussion of reducing costs has been on the agenda for quite some time however, the manufacturers were not willing to bring the costs down due to the frequent change in the engine types. New engine development costs are increasing and to curb them the manufactures and the Formula One management has agreed to sport sticking with the existing V6 turbo hybrid engines till 2020.
In a bid to restrict cost further, the drivers will be limited to three gearboxes per season instead of the five that is stipulated now. This also means that there would be no migration to alternative engines as being proposed by Formula One management in their earlier meets.
These changes are still being worked out and the details once finalised will give us the complete picture as to what the future would hold. These suggested changes are poised to come into effect in the 2018 season. This news comes as a positive for all the teams as they prepare for the beginning of testing session for 2016 season.
The first session is scheduled for the teams on the last weekend of January 25th – 26th. This would be a wet-weather running for the teams. The main testing season is to be held in Barcelona, first session scheduled at the end of February while the second in the beginning of March.
Tags: Engines, F1, Ferrari, FIA, Formula One, Honda, Mercedes, Motorsport, Motorsports, Renault