Piero Ferrari, Vice President of the company that bears his name, has spoken of his concern at the introduction of Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS), claiming that it will not improve the quality of the racing and will raise costs.

Only last week, the FIA issued its proposals for KERS, which is due to be introduced next season. Energy 'drawn' under braking will be stored and then used by drivers by means of a power boost - or push-to-pass - button. Although initially costs will increase, as teams develop their systems, the FIA claims that in the long run KERS will form a key part of its cost cutting strategy. Furthermore, the FIA claims, the power boost will see more overtaking and thereby better racing. Not so says Ferrari.

"We should reflect on some of the technical and sporting decisions taken in Formula One lately," he said in an interview with Autosprint. "Engines were frozen with the result being that all of them now run at 19,000 rpm. Consequently, there's no difference in power or revs, and therefore there's no way you can take advantage of over-revving to try to overtake.

"We should have done something similar to what NASCAR has done," he continued, "to set some limits in the regulations, while allowing for research and redesign. The way the regulations are at present, we can't re-design a single part to improve it. It's excessive. Ferrari have great engine guys twiddling their thumbs.

"By contrast, they make us spend time and money on KERS, for which we can't evaluate the costs precisely because it's a new technology. It's also based on knowledge unknown to traditional engine men, like high-capacity batteries and high-performance electrical engines, for which you need specialized engineers from outside the motoring world. To acquire that know-how will cause high levels of spending over the coming years, it's not the best solution to reduce costs.

"Engine recovery is fine," he added, "but not this way. Too many different systems to recover energy have been permitted. They need to be limited, otherwise costs could go sky-high, with the risk of having to cut spending drastically in other areas, as was done with engines, revs, and electronics.

"This way we risk transforming an F1 car into a GP2 car, and that must not happen."