Teams And Ecclestone Agree That Hybrids Are Killing Formula One

Former team boss Flavio Briatore has made clear his dislike of the current breed of F1 engines, and says that the rules have to change.

Briatore has been advising Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn on the French company's F1 future.

The Italian also remains close to Bernie Ecclestone, who also believes the current engine formula is a failure.

"The world is changing now," said Briatore in an interview with Sky. "You have these new engines. New engines, new problem.

"The engines create this situation, completely destabilising F1 at this moment. I hope Renault, if Renault come back in F1 [as a team], have the finance to support the engine programme.

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TheSteve - 10/12/2015 2:41:43 PM

+1 Boost

A good question to ask: What's the objective with respect to engines? Must be gasoline powered? Must be reciprocating? Must be normally aspirated, or turbocharged, but only up to a specified PSI?

If the objective is to see who can come up with the best design, and "best" means able to win a race with a specific body type (e.g., F1 rules), then why limit the designers' and manufacturers' creativity? Ditto with drivetrains. If one brand keeps winning, that means they're clearly superior to the others and the other guys better play catch-up or leap-frog if they hope to ever win the race. That's what competition is all about... if your objective is innovation.

On the other hand, if you want uniformity, then NASCAR is a great example of a bunch of nearly identical cars, and the primary differentiators are drivers and pit-strategy. You get an entirely different type of race.

I'm not saying either is better. I am saying F1 rule makers need to decide what the race's *objective* is before talking about rules.