Formula 1’s engine development landscape is divided into two separate camps. Those who build engines and those who buy them.
Sauber, of course, are using a Ferrari engine for this year and in terms of performance, they seem pretty pleased. And they should be, with 15 points from their first four races. They currently sit 5th in the constructors standings, 7 points head of Lotus and just 4 points shy of Red Bull.
Kaltenborn told Autosport that “As a customer team, for us the most important factor on engines is what the cost is. 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.”
While we can agree with that, we’re not sure we agree with the next issue she raises, saying that it’s wrong for customer teams to pay for engine development since the manufacturer is going to cover those expenses anyway because of their Works teams.
“I don’t think we should be used to finance their R&D because they will produce that engine anyway,” added Kaltenborn. While we understand why she’s saying it and we could even make the case of it, the reality is that for engine manufacturers such as Ferrari, Mercedes, Renault and now Honda, charging customers for R&D is just good business.
Yes, Ferrari has no choice but to invest in R&D for the sake of their own team, and yes that money could be going somewhere else. But if you, as Sauber, want to benefit from the latest technology, just like the Ferrari Works team, then you should probably contribute to the entire project.
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