Just having its name on the side isn't enough differentiation for Toyota, Howett warns. (LAT photo) » More Photos

Q: The plan that’s being discussed at the moment between the teams with the FIA to have a spec engine, a spec drive train to bring the costs down. How does the technology of getting a performance differentiated by how much power you can get out of a fixed unit of fuel, how does that sit with having a spec engine?

John Howett: “I don’t think there has been any discussion between the FIA and teams of a spec engine. There’s a lot of speculation and there’s been, I think, some allusions in the press releases towards that. I think a lot of the manufacturers are concerned about having a spec engine, because one of the core interests is at least having some differentiation in the power unit. Also, you have to look at probably the current cost of the engine could be replaced by the cost of KERS. If you look at road car technology, a lot of the current and ecological developments are coming from the engine, not necessarily only – shall we say – a hybrid add-on. So direct fuel injection, multiple injectors per cylinder, lightweight materials, a lot of which are banned from Formula 1. So I think we need to have a serious discussion without politics between the professionals to try to find a compromise which supports the small teams and actually gives the right result for the manufacturers, and I think that can be achieved.”

Q: Bernie Ecclestone has said this week that he wants a standard engine in Formula 1, and he’s talking about massive cost-cutting of up to 95 percent in drive train costs. What’s evident from what all three of you have said here today is the huge difference in view. You’re talking about incremental change, short-term measures, importance of not making knee-jerk reactions, but he is talking about absolutely huge changes in the philosophy of engines and the cost. Is he talking nonsense, because it sounds like you have got a totally different view of how the future’s going to develop?

John Howett: “I could say controversially that the negotiating stance historically in Formula 1 has been to put an extreme proposal on the table and then that encourages the teams to move in a direction, so we may just be, at the moment, purely in a negotiating tactic. I don’t know. I haven’t heard from Bernie directly, what his ideas are, but I think we run the engine departments and we know the exact figures of what we’re paying and where our resources are being used, so we must be better able to actually have a professional discussion on the right solution.”

Q: Isn’t it eventually going to come down to how much of an engine you have to build to be able to say it’s a Toyota, as opposed to just a standard engine? Isn’t that essentially what it’s going to come down to? Because he wants you to have a standard engine with a bit of face-saving stuff, so you can say it’s a Toyota.

John Howett: “Then we have to decide whether Formula 1 is the right environment for various manufacturers to remain in, and I think that’s the discussion we need to have and whether it’s the right core value that the fans wish to have and that you as the press wish to have. So there is, I think, an important facet in maintaining Formula 1 as the pinnacle of motorsport and how to achieve that will be the balance. I’m not rejecting cost-cutting at all. I just think we need to do it in a professional and correct way.”

Mario Thiessen: “Total support.”

Nick Fry: “Yeah, I support exactly what John says and without being semantic about it, I think we do have to define our terms. I think most of us are not happy at all with the idea of a standard engine, which we would define as an engine, maybe even designed and made by someone else, similar to the old Cosworth DFV. That’s not something that Honda, and it sounds like, Toyota and BMW would particularly support. In our case we are the largest manufacturer of internal combustion engines in the world, it’s the core of the company. But on the other hand, a specification engine or a prescriptive engine, where the design was very, very tight, the materials were very tightly controlled, it was maybe a four-cylinder engine which was much cheaper but we had the ability to put our brand identity on it in that we were designing it, we were making the thing, then that’s a very different proposition and I think you would be able to reduce the costs very significantly by doing that. So I think the end result may not be massively different, but the thinking behind it is very, very different.”


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