2014 engine regulations was like scoring an 'own-goal': McLaren CEO Whitmarsh

With the proposed dramatic increase of engine prices the coming year, as a result of the new 1.6 litre V6 turbo engines, McLaren has already announced that it is planning to switch to Honda engines in 2015.

Thanks to the new regulations, a number of smaller teams as well, are desperately trying to replace their engine supplier with a company that will sell those deals at lower prices.

Martin Whitmarsh has stated that he believes that it was a mistake on the parts of the Formula one co-ordinators to implement such a rule with regards to the 2014 engine regulations. He has expressed that the sport has “scored a bit of an own goal”, which is in by no way a favour to itself.

“Frankly I think it’s too late,” Whitmarsh said. “We missed an opportunity and the fact is the manufacturers have and are spending a lot of money developing these engines. They’ve got a lot of technical freedom and engineers will try to exploit that. Engineers wrote the rules and they’re now exploiting them but in order to do so it’s costing a lot of money.”

Whitmarsh also pointed out that the main problem was the lack of restriction for the engine manufacturers when developing new power units. He was quoted as having said: “We let the engineers of manufacturers write a set of regulations that they’d enjoy, I’m sure they’re enjoying them but there’s a very substantial financial cost which is something that perhaps now people realise in the long term – although I’ve been going on about it – isn’t such a big stress for McLaren but is going to be a big stress I think for some other teams.”