F1 team bosses are unable to come up with an alternative to grid penalty for additional power units beside allowable, three.
Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton who are fighting for title this year has taken fourth power unit of the season. Additional power unit comes with grid penalty, which could affect the championship battle if one of them needed another engine.
Toto Wolff, Mercedes boss, reasoned that it would be hard to bring a system that only punishes only the team and not the driver.
“I think the penalty system on power units is pretty robust,” he said.
“Because what we need to avoid is that we are building power units in a way that they perform at peak performance for only a few races.
“And if you change regulations, and you say okay, there is no grid penalty for the driver but just constructor points. It will still mean that teams, if you’re in a fight for a driver championship, will just throw engines at that car.
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“I think if we come up with good solutions definitely it is worth looking at. It’s confusing for the new fans why, out of the driver’s responsibility, an engine penalty puts him at the back of the grid, or 10 or five places away. And that’s clearly not great, but I haven’t got the solutions.”
Andreas Seidl, McLaren F1 team principal, opposed the idea of increasing the allowable limit.
“I obviously get the point that it is not ideal having all these penalties,” he said.
“But to be honest, I do not really see a straightforward solution to that. Because for example if you will decide let’s go to four engines instead of three. We will end up all with five engines, because we would just crank up the engines.”
“In the end, it just shows that all the manufacturers teams are pushing each other so hard. We all push the technology we’re using to the absolute limit or beyond. And that’s what ends then in issues or problems. So we simply have to accept that at the moment, and get on with it.”
Christian Horner, Red Bull F1 team principal, thinks that current allowable engine limit is low. His team will become an engine manufacturer after it takes-over Honda power unit project in 2022.
“I’ve never been a fan of two engines or three engines,” Horner added. “For me you end up using four pretty much in a season anyway. So it’s something we need to look out for the future.
“I mean, there’s talk of going down to two engines, which I think would be a mistake. So it needs to be a sensible balance.”
