Full Throttle

Thanks Bernie, but no thanks:

Formula One supremo Bernie “The Gnome” Ecclestone is pushing for the sport to introduce a standard engine as soon as 2010.

Amid a renewed drive to drastically reduce costs, with FIA president Max Mosley warning the sport must act now if it is to survive beyond next year (NEXT YEAR?! Talk about overblown hyperbole! - ed), Ecclestone suggests the use of a single specification of engine is the best way forward.

Speaking to The Times, Ecclestone said: “The thing I am most excited about is pushing and pushing and pushing the homologated engine idea.

“The new engine will be equalised and there will only be two engine changes a year, so costs are going to dramatically come down, and I mean dramatically.”

According to The Times, teams would use just two engines per car each season.

Each power unit would be built to a standard specification by manufacturers, who would also be able to badge it with their own name (Oh gee, lets teach lying in the highest form of the sport - ed).

Independent teams would have access to the engines through an independent contractor. Ahem… let’s ask A1GP’s Pete da Silva & Chairman Tony Teixeira how that’s worked for them:

Oops, better not, it hasn’t not by a long shot.

IN OTHER NEWS YOU CAN LOSE:

As a general rule I would agree any efforts on Formula One’s part to mitigate it’s effect on the environment is a laudable exercise.

However, some things strike me as nothing more than political correctness gone mad. The Bridgestone “green-grooved” F1 tire pictured left is an example.

They will be in use at this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix to promote a campaign by the sport’s governing body (FIA[sco]) to reduce the impact of motoring on the environment.

“We hope the launch of the ‘Make Cars Green’ tyre will draw public attention to the many environmental initiatives in and around Formula One,” Bridgestone chief executive Shoshi Arakawa told a news conference today.

You hope.

Momma used to tell me, “hope in one hand and sh*t in the other and see which one fills up first.”

F1 Honda had a “hope” when they adorned their car entirely in Google Map livery last year. That livery disappeared this year in lieu of the typical commercial sponsorship logos. So much for them “being green,” unless it’s Greenbacks you’re talking about. To say nothing of the Honda campaign doing anything to advance the EU down the road to a cleaner environment, they continually fail to meet their own emission standard goals.

MEANWHILE, I must have been asleep during the last GP round in Singapore. It’s the only plausible explanation I can find that explains missing The Controversy.

It seems Red Bull tried to explain away the team’s performance in F1’s first night race on the local transit system.

Team principal Christian Horner told Britain’s Autosport magazine last week that it appeared a sudden electrical surge at turn 13 was responsible for the Australian driver’s gearbox trying to select two gears at once and breaking on lap 30.

Transit system operator SMRT took Horner’s [conspiracy] theory and tossed in the dustbin of history alongside Bigfoot, Area 51 and the grassy knoll.

“There is no MRT track beneath Turn 13,” a spokesman told local media. “The nearest MRT tunnel is about 200 metres away, with a depth of about 10 metres.

Nice try Horner, but as a safeguard maybe you should have Mark Webber’s, ahem… manhood checked. Just in case. One can never trust transit bureaucrats and Webber may have gotten a slight “tingle,” if you get my drift.

Related articles:

• Formula One tires go green in Japan
• Mosley, chairman discuss F1 future amid crisis
• Max Mosley issues stark warning over F1 spending