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Ecclestone willing to scrap engine agreement
Formula 1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone has warned that he will push to scrap an engine agreement between manufacturers if engine performance is not equalised.
Jonathan Noble
Edited: May 2, 2016, 5:26 PM
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A deal agreed between teams, the FIA and Ecclestone last week to change engine rules outlined plans to reduce costs and guarantee teams a supply, in exchange for ensuring there was power convergence.
Sources have revealed that the idea is to have engine power regulated in 2017 so that the power units are no more than 0.3 seconds apart around the Barcelona track.
When asked if he was happy with the engine rules that had been agreed in an e-vote last week, Ecclestone said: "I didn't mind which way it went. It doesn't make any difference to us. The only thing we want is for the engines to be equal."
Pushed on if he thought that such a scenario was actually going to be workable, Ecclestone said: "Let's wait and see...if not then that will all be torn up and we will start again with a new set of regulations where the engines might be easier.
"The normally aspirated engines we had were more or less equal. They had all reached the maximum. It is just a question of bolting on some hybrid stuff that works and that is where the problem will start."
Independent engine gone
Last year, amid fears about rising engine costs and Red Bull's struggles to find an engine, Ecclestone and FIA had looked at the possibility of an independent power unit supplier.
But despite scouting for candidates, the high costs of developing a power unit have scuppered that idea. Ecclestone said that for now such an alternative was off the table.
"It would be nice, but nobody in the world would ever build an engine for these regulations," he said. "You would be out of business before you started."
However, he also fired a message to Ferrari and Mercedes by saying the recent engine mess in F1 was the result of their refusal to supply Red Bull for this season.
"We wouldn't have any problems trying to change anything had Mercedes or Ferrari agreed to supply Red Bull with an engine," he said.
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