F1: Sauber wary of 2017 engine funding

Sauber boss Monisha Kaltenborn has called on manufacturers to cut the cost of Formula 1 power units and not take advantage of its customers, should the regulations change in 2017.

F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone said last week that F1 needed to "urgently" return to its V8 engines and ditch the current V6 formula, but he later said he would accept keeping the current power units provided costs could be controlled.

As talks progress over plans for a revolutionary overhaul of Formula 1 cars with 1000hp engines for 2017, manufacturers want to stick with V6s. The current spec of power units can cost customer teams as much as $27m per year, which for some further down the grid is a significant part of their budget.

"As a customer team, for us the most important factor on engines is what the cost is," Kaltenborn, whose team is a customer of Ferrari, told AUTOSPORT. "The engines used to be such a big cost driver and we managed to move away from that for many years. But unfortunately now we are back to where we were – which is not a very sensible thing."

She also believes that it is wrong for customer teams to pay the price for engine development that the manufacturers are going to do anyway for their works teams.

"While we fully understand as a customer that a manufacturer needs to showcase their core technology and latest technology, it should be at an affordable level," Kaltenborn added. "I don't think we should be used to finance their R&D, because they will produce that engine anyway. You will never see a Mercedes using a Ferrari engine or the other way round."

Originally on Autosport.com