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Mercedes is not sure it will dominate formula one for a third consecutive season in 2016. That is the claim of Andy Cowell, the engine boss at the German team who told reporters that Mercedes has improved its already field-leading 'power unit' over the winter. "We have constantly developed in the past two years and made many steps forward," he is quoted by the German broadcaster RTL. "I do not see this changing."
Cowell reportedly revealed that the 2016 Mercedes will have over 900 horse power, but he is also expecting the competition to have improved as well. Ferrari is singled out as the main competitor. "Everybody here is going 'I wonder how we're going to do?' Nobody here is assuming we are going to win, everybody here is assuming that we're going to get beaten by Ferrari, and Honda are a big threat," Cowell said.
"Renault's determination as well, as they've shown by being a lot more involved now in formula one. There are going to be some great stories to talk about," he added. Red Bull's Adrian Newey, however, has warned that even the scrapping of the 'token' system for 2017 could make things worse, as the biggest spenders potentially widen the gap between the engine makers.
But the engine makers each have 32 tokens for 2016 and reportedly much more freedom the year after, prompting Cowell to say: "We don't want anyone to say that they can't catch up because the regulations don't allow it." (GMM)
Grand Prix of Belgium
C. Sainz jr
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Replies (2)
Login to replyPompey
Posts: 84
It's going to be great watching how all these claims and forecasts pan out.
khasmir
Posts: 893
PR bullcrap? This year we might see the Honda PU that we should have seen last year but I still expect a significant gap to Merc. To really shake the cards, there will have to be major rule changes for the PU specs. Just freeing up the development is not going to help much. They still have the same amount of tokens and even without any limitations they still have a huge budget. I don't see Merc getting it so wrong they would lose all of their advantage so quickly.
To close the gap, Honda and Renault will have to put a lot of money and resources into this project, even more than Merc.
TBH, they can afford it since F1 is worth billions in marketing value and this is a precious commodity these days.