FIA needs to stand up for advanced powertrains in F1

Joe feels that the FIA needs to stand up for and promote the technologically advanced power units being used in F1, or risk driving manufacturers away.

The last few days have not been a great time for Formula 1. The sport is ending what has been a long and tough season – and people are perhaps not at their best. They’re quibbling over the rules, and the race in Interlagos was, sadly, rather dull and pretty much the same as the Mexican GP – where Lewis Hamilton shadowed Nico Rosberg all the way, but wasn’t able to make a move. The teams are fighting over whether or not the sport should introduce a parallel engine regulation. This is stupid, and if it goes through will drive away manufacturers and reduce the attraction of the sport. Equivalency formulas are always open to abuse, and it would be fundamentally wrong for Red Bull to have a 2.2-litre twin-turbo engine that is able to beat the 1.6-litre hybrid turbos – on which such huge sums of money have been spent.

The FIA should stop this, because its strategy (a good one at that) was to make the sport relevant to the world. The federation completely wasted the opportunity to show the world just how brilliant these engines actually are, and, in the vacuum that was created as a result, Bernie Ecclestone and the supporters of show-business over technology were able to raise questions about noise and spectacle. The fact that the FIA has gone along with this is a clear indication of the weakness of the governing body – which has been very clear since the creation of the F1 Strategy Group.

With Mercedes and Ferrari supplying the majority of the teams, and Ferrari having a veto, the power of the FIA and the Formula One group has been neutered. It would be wise for both Mercedes and Ferrari to reduce the cost of the engines for their customers – to take the wind out of the sails of the push towards an alternative engine and an equivalency formula. And while it seems that Mercedes might be willing to compromise, Ferrari appears to be throwing its weight around instead. This seems to be largely due to the fact that Sergio Marchionne doesn’t really understand much about the way F1 operates, and may eventually find himself walking into a proverbial bullet.

It doesn’t help that FIA President Jean Todt’s ambition to be a big star in the world of road safety led the sport into an awful mess in Brazil, because he didn’t seem to understand that holding a minute of silence for road accident victims was not the right thing to do in the days after the horrendous attacks on Paris.

Most people in F1 were sensitive enough to strike the right note, with compassionate messages of condolence and support to the French nation and the families of those killed and injured in the attacks. Todt, however, unwisely saw an opportunity to promote his road safety agenda. He told French TV: “Do you realise that the number of people killed in road accidents is far bigger than the number of people who died in Paris yesterday.” This may be true, but it was completely the wrong moment to make such a comparison, and the lack of any compassion instantly had the F1 community up in arms – not wanting to be associated with such crass and ill-timed views.

The FIA realised that a disastrous mistake had been made, and so hurried out a message saying: “The FIA and its 236 affiliated members in more than 140 countries globally share the grief of the families of the victims of the terrorist attacks which occurred in Paris.” The FIA did express solidarity to those affected, but it was too little too late and Todt went on pushing for the one minute of silence for road accident victims until forced to rethink this move. Combining the two was a clumsy compromise, but it avoided F1 being seen as completely insensitive and uncaring.

Todt, however, came out of the affair with his credibility as a humanitarian in tatters. How can one campaign about road deaths, implying a deep-rooted sense of caring for humankind, and yet seem to offer no compassion for the victims of a vicious terrorist attack? The inevitable conclusion from Todt’s bizarre behaviour is that humanitarianism is obviously not the motivation behind his activities!

Joe Saward has been covering Formula 1 full-time for 27 years. He has not missed a race since 1988.