Recently F1’s Strategy Group started a push to bring in new 1,000 horsepower turbo engines to the sport. The anticipated benefits of this move include making the cars more spectacular to watch as well as more challenging to drive.
Speaking at a media event this week Red Bull boss Christian Horner confirmed that the push has his support: “I think it’s fantastic to be contemplating 1000hp cars,” he told Grand Prix Times, “we want to make the cars harder to drive, more spectacular and the prospect of a 1,000hp Grand Prix car is eye-watering.”
Horner too felt that making the change is possible: “Anything can change is there’s a willingness to do it. It all depends on the teams, the governing body and the promoter taking a rational decision saying ‘is this right for the sport?’
“We need to evolve, we need to improve, you can never be complacent in any business. We have headroom at the moment that we can make the cars go quicker.
“We need to make the cars harder to drive so that the difference in drivers becomes more apparent. At the moment the difference in drivers is marginal because…at a certain level it’s difficult to have too much of a variance between the drivers because the cars are relatively simple to drive, because they’ve become so good.”
Horner did sound one note of caution on the potential costs however, something which is likely to cause some disconcert amongst the smaller teams and Mercedes, but Horner is hopeful of a solution.
“I think what we do need to be responsible with though is on the cost, because the burden of cost on the manufacturers is already enormous under the current engine rules,” he explained. “I think what we need to be very careful about is whatever rules that are agreed going forward take into consideration that fact. Maybe there’s elements of the engine that can be standardised.”
Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo meanwhile held similarly positive views on the potential new engines: “I think [in] every motor sport you ask the guy would you like to go 50km/h faster, they’re going to say yes,” said the Australian.
“We’re all obviously up for going faster and having more power. It creates adrenaline, and that’s a big part of why we all do it.”
He added: “And maybe it could separate a bit more the guys with a bit more commitment than others!”
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