Spyker-MF1’s decision to sign a customer Ferrari engine contract for 2007 means that Cosworth is certain to exit F1 at the end of the year.
”It is the end of Cosworth in formula one for 2007,” a visibly disappointed Cosowrth director Bernard Ferguson admitted in Shanghai, ”but it is not the end of Cosworth.”
He told reporters that, after losing current partner Williams to a semi-works Toyota supply, Cosworth then could not meet Dutch car maker’s Spyker desire – ultimately fulfilled by Ferrari – for a broad engine deal that extended to road cars.
Ferguson was quoted in the New York Times on Sunday as complaining that the question of engines has been playing ‘far too important a role’ in the sport.
Northampton-based Cosworth is the last independent engine maker on the grid.
He said of his comments: ”Formula one engine manufacturers are spending anything between the small amount that we spend and $250m a year developing engines, and over that period perhaps they improve by 2 or 3 per cent.
”When everybody has spent it and everybody has improved 2 or 3 percent, they’re all pretty much back where they started from.”
GMMF1
DailyF1News.com
