Engine development costs, why all the moaning?

[RemarkLima]

In so many threads, people keep harping on about how much the new engines cost to develop, how many millions of contractors were at Mercedes etc...

One thing that appears to be glossed over, to my mind, is that most of those costs were in man hours, therefore a lot of people earnt decent money doing a highly skilled job... This is a good thing. A fair chunk will continue to earn good money and many more will have some great experience on their cv, again this is a good thing.

It's increased the costs for supply, but if that's the cost then c'est la vie, marussia and Caterham couldn't swallow it but everyone else is getting along... Some close to the wall but they seemed to be in the same position in the v8 era as well.

So why all the moaning about costs? Ultimately I see it as a good thing for many people.

[RemarkLima]

Derek Smith said:

The problem for the smaller teams, including those which folded, is that they came into the sport, or decided to stay, on the promise of budget control. As soon as they were in, the costs escalated. They built and raced incredibly advanced, powerful, efficient and reliable F1 cars at a fraction of the leading teams' budgets and managed to populate the back of the grid.

Engine costs or not, they would have still folded as the cost cap never happened, marussia decided to not build cars and therefore didn't need a F1 team and TF would have sold Caterham regardless, as even with the v8 engines they were still at the back of the grid.

So, the continued development, the continued investment and therefore employment is "a good thing" right?

Or should we all aspire to be bankers and insurance brokers?

[RemarkLima]

So in summary, the teams moaning about the engine costs are just sour grapes... I can understand as they want to win and with complain about everything not in their favour.

But it still doesn't explain why all the public moan about the development costs, lots of threads on here with people saying that the new PU's costs 100 billion, blah blah blah... But as said, 90% of that expense will be in wages and subcontracts (who pay wages etc..) so surely that some of the vast wealth of F1 is spent on people is "a good thing"? Surely, long may it continue?

[RemarkLima]

London424 said:

Well as a company you don't want to be spending money...even if it's on people if you aren't getting a return. They aren't a charity!

But they are getting a return, the teams have to buy the engines and costs will drop over the years, and the positive marketing, at least for Mercedes is massive.

The relevance factor is a big one, and not even Renault have talked about switching back / switching to a different format, they're committed and it must tie in with the group strategy.

Hence, it's all good right? Companies have to invest and spend otherwise we'd still be in model T's!

[RemarkLima]

Renault were saying engine costs were going to drop year on year... And Mercedes, who invested the most, had the cheapest engines!

The regs will not change, the engine manufacturers will make sure to that!

But for the teams to complain that it's too expensive does strike me that it's like complaining that you're £500 bottle of champagne is a touch too expensive... If you're in to that kind of club, expect to spend some cash ;-) especially with no RRA ever happening, nor likely to!