Horner fears F1 engine rules talks will change 'nothing'

Red Bull boss Christian Horner fears that 'nothing' will be achieved in changing Formula 1's engine rules for 2018, despite hopes of reduced costs and a narrowing of the performance gap.

Press conference: Frederic Vasseur, Renault Sport F1 Team Racing Director, Yusuke Hasegawa, Head of Honda F1 Programme, Eric Boullier, McLaren Racing Director, Eric Boullier, McLaren Racing Director, Maurizio Arrivabene, Ferrari Team Principal, Toto Wolff, Mercedes GP Executive Director and Christian Horner, Red Bull Racing Team Principal

Christian Horner, Red Bull Racing Team Principal with Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull Racing

Bernie Ecclestone, Jean Todt, FIA President and Christian Horner, Red Bull Racing Team Principal

Toto Wolff, Mercedes GP Executive Director

Christian Horner, Red Bull Racing Team Principal and Robert Fernley, Sahara Force India F1 Team Deputy Team Principal

Christian Horner, Red Bull Racing Team Principal with Gerhard Berger and Dr Helmut Marko, Red Bull Motorsport Consultant

F1's engine manufacturers have been working for several months now on tweaks to the rules that will reduce costs for customers, and ensure that performances of the different power units converge.

However, despite talks on the matter set to continue at this month's F1 Strategy Group meeting, Horner is highly sceptical of there ever being an agreement to change things.

"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," he said in China.

"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."

"Difficult to make everybody happy" - Wolff

Despite Horner's scepticism, Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff said that there were still efforts being made to find a deal that would keep everyone happy.

"We have been given the task in coming up with solutions so that no team is left without an engine," he explained. "I think all the engine manufacturers have acknowledged that, so we try to cover that.

"There is an aspect of price reduction, which is important to most of the teams, and we tried to cover that in the framework agreement.

"Obviously it's very difficult to make everybody happy. Christian isn't so happy. But I think we need to come up with a solution until the end of April. We need to ratify those regulations and at the moment everybody is working very hard to at least find the smallest common denominator."