Bernie Ecclestone has thrown his support behind Red Bull’s Christian Horner who is calling for the sport to switch back to V8 or V10 engines in 2016.
The 84-year-old addressed the media this week and told them that he believes going back to the old engines with some form of energy recovery system would be good for the sport and the teams.
“We can all put our money together and have a wager that Mercedes will win the championship next year which is not really the sort of thing we are looking for,” said Ecclestone.
“I have been proposing and am going to propose that we go back to a normally aspirated engine with some hybrid bits built into it.
“People have built these racing engines and anyone that is currently building the engines we currently have, it would be a bit of a dream for them to build a normally aspirated engine and develop it to about 1000 horsepower which is what I believe we want.
“The manufacturers will have to call it a ‘McLaren hybrid’, ‘Ferrari hybrid’ or a ‘Williams hybrid’ so that it will get across the message,” heexplained. “They are hybrids now but nobody tells anybody. It’s the best-kept secret actually. What this engine is for. What was it designed for and what have we achieved? It is a fantastic bit of engineering.”
In fact, Mercedes are the only team marketing the energy recovery aspect after renaming their car the W05 Hybrid. They are also the only manufacturer pushing to retain the current V6 power unit and could leave the sport if a change is imposed, but that doesn’t concern Ecclestone much.
“I think they will do that [leave] whenever it suits them anyway because we have noticed in the past the manufacturers do that but I would be surprised if they did.”
The matter is due to be brought up at the next Strategy Group meeting where it will be voted on. Ecclestone revealed that only four teams need to back the proposal to give it a majority of the vote.
“Well we [FOM] have six votes so if we have four teams want to do that that’s ten. There’s 18 votes so that’s the majority.”
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