Jean Francois Caubet, general manager of the Renault Sport F1 unit, which is now solely an engine supplier in F1, after the marque sold its stake in the F1 team to Genii Capital and Lotus, in French magazine Auto Hebdo this week, praised the announcement by the FIA of the new 2013 engine based on a small capacity turbo engine with KERS.
He said “The 2013 engine opens up the game, the FIA dossier is clear; if we have technological innovations it’s up to us to introduce them. The competition is totally open. We will limit costs with precise rules; materials, number of engines per season, rev limit etc. But we are free in terms of technology. It’s a clean sheet of paper for everyone and may the best one win! 1600cc, twin turbo, direct injection, big KERS, 600 horsepower in the engine and another 150 in the KERS boos and controlled fuel consumption. ”
Caubet believes that after several years of frozen engine specifications in the interests of cost saving, the new engine rules will give the chance -at least initially – for the engine to be the differentiator in performance, “There are three groups of manufacturers,” he said. ” The French, including Renault; the Germans including Mercedes. It’s too soon for BMW to return and then there is VW which is hesitating.
Why because from 2013 the engine could be the difference between winning and losing/ The risk is there. The third group? It is the Japanese – they have all been there at the meetings and I’ve been surprised by their interest in the new engine. Of course talking is free, but I sense that they’ve evolved their thinking.. the Europeans are there, it’s new technology…we can’t afford not to be there too.” Honda are thinking very seriously about it.
