Costs are to be slashed further than ever before with an FIA plan to make F1 even more cost-effective by 2010. These build on limits imposed in 2009, and if introduced would cut budgets to around 50 million Euros, which isn't very much at all.
The further changes are part of the continued air of desperation from the FIA designed to try and confirm manufacturer numbers in the sport, following the withdrawal of Honda and whispers of Toyota facing a make-or-break season next year. Despite the impotent Formula One Teams' Association agreeing a number of measures back at the start of January, which included a ban on in-season testing and cheaper costs for privateer engine supplies, the FIA are keen to extend the trend of cost-cutting to new extremes.
The FIA's plan, according to reports in the Financial Times, will seek to define "competitive" and "non-competitive" areas of design and engineering in the sport, placing KERS and other cutting-edge technologies in the former category, but moving a greater number of generic car parts such as gearboxes, wheels and brakes into the latter category.
The plan, which would see any technology developed by manufacturers made available to privateers at a set price, will be seen as controversial by many involved with the sport, due to the vast increase in the number of "spec parts" that this would create. Despite these reservations, the FIA are confident they can "maintain the 'technical awe' of F1" with the list of competitive elements in the plan, although this sounds about as brilliant as trying to maintain a 'sexual awe' by roughly fondling a watermelon.
Nevertheless, FIA consultant Tony Purnell (he of the unforgivably naff 'sprint race on a Saturday' plan a few years ago) maintains that this new dividing line will help the FIA to open up and shrink the number of areas of money-chewing development for the teams depending on economic circumstances. "When we see that things are picking up...then we can start reintroducing a wider technical competition," he shouted from a rooftop, "But we'll keep to a central philosophy that engineers work on things that are relevant to society, like fuel economy and efficiency."
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