F1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone has warned Red Bull that it will "face legal action" if it carries out its threat "to pull out of next season's competition," according to Joe Mewis of the London DAILY MIRROR. Red Bull has placed the blame on its "disappointing campaign this year" on its Renault engine, citing a "lack of power and pace," which has led to talk that Red Bull may end its partnership with the engine manufacturers. That could see the team "having to pull out of next season's competition" -- a move which Ecclestone "would fight." Ecclestone: "Red Bull would stand up in court and say, 'Yes, we have a commitment, we do, but we haven't got an engine.' My argument would be: 'You signed the contract to compete. You should have made sure when you signed the contract that you had an engine. Your team was supposed to do this.'" Red Bull's contract runs until '20 and although the specific terms of the deal "are not in the public domain, it is rumoured that they would be liable to pay hundreds of millions of dollars" if it is to pull out of the sport (DAILY MIRROR, 10/20).
MOSLEY WEIGHS IN: SKY SPORTS' James Galloway reported former FIA President Max Mosley fears engine manufacturers "now hold the balance of power in F1." Engine politics "have proved the dominant off-track talking point in recent weeks" amid the uncertainty surrounding Red Bull's future in the sport beyond the end of this season. Mosley argued the sport was "in desperate need of the return of an independent engine supplier such as Cosworth" to guard against the manufacturers "taking too much control." Mosley: "The difficulty is that you have to have an independent engine supplier who can do so [supply] on a commercial basis. The great strength of Formula 1 from the late '60s until quite recently was that we had Cosworth, Mecachrome and other people making engines so we weren't in the hands of the manufacturers. The moment you have one or two or even three manufacturers and they are involved at board level so [Mercedes Chair] Mr. Zetsche can talk to [Ferrari Chair] Mr. Marchionne or [Renault Chair] Mr. Ghosn then they control Formula 1, you don't control Formula 1. At that point the need for an independent engine supplier becomes acute" (SKY SPORTS, 10/19).
ECCLESTONE PUSHES FOR V8 ENGINES: In London, Sylt & Hewitt reported Ecclestone will try to force F1's teams to "return to using V8 engines" in '16 even though they were "only dropped last year" in favor of V6 engines. The new "greener" engines "do not consume as much fuel as previous models" but they have been heavily criticized by F1 diehards for "lacking the high-pitched scream of their predecessors" and they have also led to one team, Mercedes, dominating the season. Switching back to the V8s would come at a "huge cost as the sport's manufacturers have invested hundreds of millions of pounds in developing the new engines." The teams would need to give consent to "such a significant change as the engine regulations are fixed" until the end of '20. However, Ecclestone said, "I don't think we should get consent from the teams. I think we should just do it and say to them, 'If you don't like it you can go to arbitration.' We could get the V8s back next year. People can build them in no time so we ought to do it" (INDEPENDENT, 10/19).
EXPENSIVE BET: In London, Kevin Eason reported Ecclestone gambled about £50M ($77.2M) that Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton "could not win back-to-back world championships -- and lost." Ecclestone "laid down a challenge" to Hamilton’s Mercedes team to "replicate the extraordinary success" of Red Bull, which won four world titles in a row. Ecclestone believed that it was a feat "that would not be repeated in this era" and the $80M bounty he put on the table from F1's prize pot "would be safe." Ecclestone: "It was my stupidity really, when I said that if they could achieve what Red Bull achieved, which was two consecutive championships and winning 21 races, then they got paid for it. I was a bit foolish, but I thought Red Bull had done something pretty special and it would be hard for anyone to follow that. But Mercedes did and they will get paid at the end of the year, just as I promised I would." The $80M will bolster the "already huge finances backing the Mercedes squad" and go a long way to paying off the £76.9M ($118.8M) deficit run up as the German carmaker "ramped up efforts to become world champions" (LONDON TIMES, 10/20).
