Formula One Racing: One engine per week ruling could shift power balance

Imagine this: Michael and Ralf Schumacher, David Coulthard and Juan Pablo Montoya all blew their engine during practice, qualifying or warming-up for this weekend's Grand Prix, so they must start ten places back from the grid position they qualified in.

Sure it's going to be an exciting race, but I think Eddie Irvine is right: this is close to be a manufactured race to keep the TV audience watching. "Formula One is a sport, it's not Hollywood," the Jaguar driver said last week, "We have got to make the spectacle as good as possible, but we cannot manufacture the spectacle."

The one-engine-per-week rule is the latest by the FIA and the World Motor Sport Council to reduce cost of competing in F1, but also -- even though they don't say it -- to level the field, or at least make the races more exciting as Irvine said.

Of course, as with any new rule, it will have defenders and detractors. Between them Patrick Head, Technical Director of the BMW-Williams team, has been the toughest speaking about it. Head insists the rule hasn't been well thought out, because a lot of money will be spent to build more reliable engines, and FIA's President, Max Mosley, had promised in the Malaysian GP to keep the engine regulations stable until 2007. "I'm just extremely disappointed about the mechanism by which these new proposals came about," Head said, "Maybe BMW wouldn't produce an engine that would do 500-600 miles, maybe they would produce one that does 300 miles, and we do 50 in practice, 10 laps on Saturday morning and eight laps the afternoon. The question is: is that good for F1?"

On the other hand, Eddie Jordan and David Richards, team bosses of Jordan and British American Racing, have welcomed the decision saying it might actually benefit their teams. Both are using a Honda engine, which is being overpowered by BMW and Ferrari by as far as 100 bhp.

We still can't know for sure who will benefit with the new ruling and who will lose. The point is that every time there is a big rule change like this, anywhere, everyone will have to start from zero. That is where the struggling Hondas and the other richest teams might have an edge, because they can pour more money into research and development.

The one-engine-per-weekend rule is similar to the one the DTM (German touring series) uses, and is supported by the FIA saying this will reduce cost to teams. Most of them now use a lighter one for qualifying procedures, which greatly increases the costs, which once again gives the advantage to the wealthier teams.

Nevertheless, I think there are other ways to cut engine costs, such as obligating the teams to use the same engine for racing and qualifying, as well as using the same car like the IRL does. If you crash the car you put into the grid, you have to start from the back.

As this rule is still not completely written, the use of a spare car would count as a new engine.

More artificial racing

Another strange decision is the one to give race stewards the power to penalize bad or reckless driving, with as hard a penalty as blowing an engine in 2004. This gives them power they never even thought of having, and it comes just after their penalty call on Montoya in Malaysia, which is under heavy questioning. The good thing is they will be able to review the video tape of the race later to make a final decision.

Finally, the resolution of making the HANS Device compulsory for every Formula One driver starting next season is a very good move into improving racer's safety.