Renault would like an engine freeze for the next two seasons

Renault believes that freezing engines for the next two years would prevent current engine manufacturers from having to develop two generations of engines simultaneously. Additionally, it would remove a hypothetical advantage for potential new manufacturers by allowing them to focus all their time and resources exclusively on their 2021 regulation engine.

While the details of the new regulations should be revealed on the sidelines of the Bahrain Grand Prix, Renault director Cyril Abiteboul advocates a logical and fair freeze on the development of current engines.

The French manager then clarifies his thoughts: « There are two aspects to our message and position at Renault; firstly, before engaging in regulation, we need to understand the situation as a whole. And secondly, we do not think it is acceptable or sustainable to have to work on two engines at the same time, for the simple reason that if there were a new entrant, which we wish for, they would have the fantastic advantage of being able to focus on the future, and not have to worry about the present and the customers. »

Red Bull’s motorsport consultant and head of the junior team, Helmut Marko, is somewhat aligned with their engine supplier. The Austrian goes even further by suggesting that the FIA should ensure a convergence of performance across different engines by the time the new regulations are introduced: « If a new engine supplier comes in, then we should freeze the engines in their current configurations. And there should be a rule that each engine should be within 3% of the others. We could then continue until 2020. Nobody would need to develop the engines, it would be the right path to follow. »

This policy of freezing power unit developments would not be new in Formula 1, as it has already been introduced in the recent past. During the transition from V10 to V8 engines in 2007, engine specifications were locked until the end of the atmospheric era at the end of 2013. The same approach was implemented in 2014 for the start of hybrid regulations, before the freeze was eased in 2015 with the introduction of development tokens. These tokens allowed for a limited percentage of possible modifications to the engine.

The director of the Red Bull team, Christian Horner, who uses a Renault engine re-badged as Tag Heuer, thinks that an equivalent of the balance of performance used in the GT category in WEC could be introduced regarding engines: « In an ideal world, if you want manufacturers to get involved in a new engine for 2021, and they don’t have to bear significant development costs until then, a sort of balance of performance should be implemented, ideally through fuel flow. That could be a reasonable path. »

The Briton imagines that this could even allow certain engine manufacturers to maintain a small advantage: In this way, those who have done a better job would retain an advantage because they would use less fuel and start the race with a lighter car. But the power could create more interesting races.