Piero Ferrari, vice president of Ferrari, is not keen on KERS – Ferrari believes that the Kinetic Energy Recovery System will only increase costs thanks to research costs, and will do little to aid overtaking in the sport.
“We should reflect on many of the technical and sporting decisions taken in Formula One lately,” he said in an interview with Autosprint magazine.
“Engines were frozen and as a result, all of them now run at 19,000 revolutions, so there’s no difference in power nor revs, and therefore there’s no way you can take advantage of a possible over-revving to try to overtake.
“We should have done something similar to what NASCAR has done – to set some limits in the regulations, whilst allowing for research and redesign. The way the regulations are right now, we can’t redesign a single part to improve it. It’s excessive. Ferrari have great engine guys twiddling their thumbs.
“By contrast, they make us spend time and money designing the KERS, for which we can’t evaluate the exact costs because it’s a new technology.
“It’s also based on knowledge unknown to traditional engine guys, like high-capacity batteries and high-performance electrical engines, for which you need specialized engineers from outside the motoring world.
“To get that know-how will cause high levels of spending over the years – it’s not the best solution to reduce costs.
“Engine recovery is fine, but not this way. Too many different systems to recover energy have been permitted. They need to be limited otherwise costs could go sky-high, with the risk of having to drastically cut down on other areas to limit spending, as was done with engines, revs, and electronics.
“This way we risk to transform an F1 car into a GP2 car, and that must not be allowed to happen.”
KERS will be introduced into F1 from 2009 onwards in three phases. Next season, drivers will be able to draw 60kW of energy from one of their axles in the form of a button which is meant to be used to increase overtaking chances.
