F1 will not use standard KERS system
20/10/2008  Ahead of Tuesday's meeting with representatives of FOTA - the Formula One Teams Association - FIA President Max Mosley has said that he is not seeking a standard KERS unit for the sport, instead insisting, mindful of its potential use on road vehicles as part of his environmental initiative, that he wants the revolutionary system to be one area where the teams are in competition with one another.
"KERS will be essential on all road-going vehicles in the future, irrespective of their means of primary propulsion," Mosley told Reuters. "The FIA therefore intends to keep KERS as a performance differentiator in Formula One and, indeed, increase its importance in 2011. "This will give Formula One far more relevance and credibility than the use of vastly expensive racing engines or extremely light and sophisticated gearboxes, both of which are almost entirely irrelevant to modern road transport. "To standardise a new technology which is directly relevant to the biggest single problem confronting road transport - energy efficiency - while allowing continued development in wholly irrelevant areas such as Formula One aerodynamics, is not rational," Mosley continued. "Further thought would seem to be desirable. "Technologies like KERS, as well as the recovery and re-use of exhaust energy and heat, should be the future performance differentiators in Formula One, not old or useless technologies such as ultra-high speed engines or Formula One-specific aerodynamics." As part of its environmental initiative, not to mention its cost-cutting drive, the FIA is seeking help from the manufacturers and teams that compete in Formula One, warning that if they will not come up with ideas he will do it for them. As a warning, on Friday the FIA announced that it was inviting tenders for a supplier of a standard engine and transmission to be used from 2010, a move which not only caused many within the paddock by surprise, but filled some with horror. "A standard engine is something we don't really like," admitted BMW boss Mario Theissen at the weekend. "I think there are other measures to make sure that costs go down." |
