Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsTechnical

Horner expects time to run out on power unit regulations

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Red Bull team principal Christian Horner expects time to run out when it comes to planned changes to power unit regulations.

The FIA outlined a number of changes it wanted to see regarding the current V6 turbo power units, threatening to introduce an alternative regulation which could be supplied by an independent manufacturer if the requests were not met. While FIA president Jean Todt did not voice any concerns over the 2017 power unit regulations when addressing the media in Bahrain, Horner believes no progress has been made.

"I think it’s a complex situation, but fundamentally there were four criteria that were requested by the governing body to be met to ensure stability moving forward," Horner said. "Those four criteria were: a significant reduction in cost to €12 million, the availability of supply or the guarantee of supply, power convergence to within a relatively small bandwidth and to address the noise.

"As we sit here now we are not anywhere near having met any of those criteria and I think unfortunately what will happen, as is often the case with these things, time will run out at the end of the month and nothing will be achieved and nothing will change.

"There is one more attempt in the Strategy meeting and the Commission meeting at the end of the month to discuss and table the concerns and where we're at, but failing that regulations will inevitably stay as they are."

The 2017 technical regulations have to be finalised by April 30.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.