Abiteboul sees struggle ahead for consensus on 2021 engine rules

Renault's Cyril Abiteboul believes Formula 1 will face a serious struggle to reach a consensus among teams on engine regulations for 2021.

Formula One Group sporting manager Ross Brawn is hard at work trying to design the path of the future for F1.

While many agree on the current engine formula's weaknesses, designing a platform for the future which embodies performance, road-car relevancy and cost-effectiveness is a daunting task.

"You need to satisfy car makers who are financing the sport in the current model," the Renault Sport boss told Motorsport.com.

"Maybe a different model could be found where car makers are not so important for the business model of the sport, but it's not currently the case.

"You need also to satisfy the fans, you need to satisfy the customer teams, so that question is not an easy one to resolve.

"I think there can be some consensus found on the diagnosi, what's good, and what's bad with the current formula," he continued.

"I think a solution will be more difficult to find, not just because of political reasons, or because of competitive advantage, although there will always be a little bit of that with people that are currently at the top who will try to protect the advantage that they built, and that's fair enough."

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Abiteboul believes hybrid technology is here to stay, while budget contraints will at some point have to be taken into consideration.

"Electrification is never going to go away," he insisted, "that's for sure, so we need electrification, we need hybrid.

"We need possibly more in the mix between ICE and hybrid, but, having said that, we cannot do that to the detriment of the show.

"We need noise, we need F1 to be blasting for the fans, and we don't deliver that at the moment.

"It's also too expensive for the car makers, it's too expensive for the customers. So a budget cap will help, all of that we agree.

"But where do we go next? That will be the challenge," he admits.

"But it's a challenge that is a common challenge. So with a common challenge I'm hopeful that with all the brains that we have in this paddock, we'll be able to find solutions."

Brains are one thing Cyril, but egos are another...

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