Ross Brawn, The Formula One Group's managing director of sport believes F1's future must retain the presence of car manufacturers.
As he embarks on his mission to define the Formula 1 of tomorrow, part of which is determining future engine rules, Brawn insists that manufacturers are now imbedded in the sport's DNA and contribute to its aura.
The current era of the hybrid, turbo power unit was in large part decided by F1's manufacturers, under the guidance of the FIA, to foster a relevancy with the automobile industry's quest for energy efficiency.
While Brawn foresees changes on the horizon, his thinks a return to a normally aspirated engine rule would run the risk of talking manufacturers out of the sport.
"On one end of the scale, the simplest thing would be to go back to a normally aspirated engine of a large capacity, forget all the other stuff, nice and noisy, cheap, etc..," Brawn told Sky Sports.
"But the consequence of that is we don't engage with manufacturers as well. I think the sport will be worse for it.
"The manufacturers add to the magic of Formula 1. Ferrari, Mercedes, Honda, Renault, I think it's still all part of the magic of Formula 1."
Brawn insisted that the engine of the future must embrace converging objectives which take into account manufacturers' requisites but also the demands of the sport's fan-base.
And he will be hard at work in the coming months and year seeking the right recipe for tomorrow.
"Where I am trying to get to is, is there a solution which can still achieve all the objectives, and that's where we come in because meetings are starting now with the engine manufacturers and with the FIA.
"If we look at all those objectives, is there a solution that we can achieve them all? Could we still engage the manufacturers, could we still have a noisy engine, could we still have an engine which is still relevant for the manufacturers?
"I don't know the answer to that but I'm going to try, because that would be the perfect solution that we could achieve all those.
"We don't just want to say 'Right, forget everything that's been done, chuck an old engine in..'."
"That would be a shame because maybe there is a solution that we can find with cooperation between all the various groups."
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