Force India Will Race In Austin

[cosworth151]

There have been reports that Force India team needed to make an urgent engine payment to supplier Mercedes on Monday or risk joining Caterham and Marussia on the sidelines in Austin. Germany's Auto Motor und Sport now reports that Force India has paid the final engine installment to the German marque.

Another report from the British newspaper The Guardian paints a bleak portrait of F1 under the headline “US sounds warning to Formula One, a sport teetering on the brink of crisis.” The report also says that Sauber, Lotus and Williams are all hemorrhaging money.

http://autoweek.com/article/formula-one/financially-strapped-force-india-plans-race-formula-one-us-grand-prix

[Scott]

That's nuts.  The sport as it is won't sustain itself.

[Irisado]

Engine bills need to be cut.  Not via the ludicrous penalty and reliability rewarding system that has been in place for the last few years (it hasn't worked, and makes the racing dull), but by actually forcing the manufacturers to offer engines at a reasonable price, which they have consistently refused to do.

It's either that, of the FIA funds Cosworth to make cut price, but competitive, engines for the independent teams.  Perhaps these engines could be different in some way too.  I'm not sure how, but something along the lines of the old Super Tourer (manufacturer) and NTC (independent) British Touring Car engine system that was employed to keep independents in business in the British Touring Car championship in recent years.

[cosworth151]

It's all down to the politically correct, maxi priced mini motors. As Patrick Head said earlier this season,  "I think the engines are fascinating pieces of kit, but I think they are far too expensive for what they are supposed to be doing. "You could produce 800 BHP for €2m ($2.7m) a team each year. I think the teams are having to pay about 10 times that amount. It's a very expensive way of powering Formula One cars."

http://www.sport.net/head-bemoans-cost-of-f1-engines_195348

[Scott]

No kidding.  Simple answer is to get the minimum weights happening.  Make the engine a minimum weight, make the gearbox a minimum weight, the chassis, the wheels - break down the whole car and come up with minimum weights that prevent teams and manufacturer's from spending millions developing featherlight components.  Forcing the teams to develop feather weight engines that have to last 5 races is about the stupidest way of saving money that there is.  Casting the engine and building it up costs nothing compared to the R&D money put into the initial design, which is what everyone is paying so much for.

[Jericoke]

No kidding.  Simple answer is to get the minimum weights happening.  Make the engine a minimum weight, make the gearbox a minimum weight, the chassis, the wheels - break down the whole car and come up with minimum weights that prevent teams and manufacturer's from spending millions developing featherlight components.  Forcing the teams to develop feather weight engines that have to last 5 races is about the stupidest way of saving money that there is.  Casting the engine and building it up costs nothing compared to the R&D money put into the initial design, which is what everyone is paying so much for.

I have to say I do like the idea of an F1 car having a fixed amount of fuel for the race.  Given that modern technology can produce basically any amount of power you want, that's not really the challenge any more.  The challenge is to produce enough speed with the minimum amount of energy.  A V8 generally uses more gas than a Turbo-4.  But does it have to?  Maybe there's a solution out there.

[Alianora La Canta]

The engines are a minimum weight, and I some of the other components (though not gearboxes) are too. The manufacturers then use the most expensive materials to make the functional parts light as possible, then the most expensive materials to make the whole thing heavy and high-enough-centre-of-gravity enough.