By Parminio
March 14 2005

BAR decided on the next to the last lap at Australia to bring in both cars and not finish the race. The reason: They can change their engines in both cars and NOT suffer a penalty. BAR decided on the next to the last lap at Australia to bring in both cars and not finish the race. The reason: They can change their engines in both cars and NOT suffer a penalty.

This has raised some serious questions by the fans of every team fan on the internet. There was a couple of days that Ferrari were going to change the engine in Michael Schumachers Ferrari as well, but they opted not to in favor of being able to run a new engine at Bahrain.

This rule that engines MUST last two full Grand Prix weekends has been effectively shot down after the first race of the season. The rule was put in place as one of the cost cutting measures that the teams allegedly needed. Fact is, so far it has done nothing to curtail the wholesale replacement of engines. Not only has it done that, it has knocked a big dent in qualifying as well.

With the oddball weather conditions that occured at Australia, Massa and Schumacher found themselves back-stroking their way around the circuit with neither being able to set a remotely competitive time. Why bother running the second qualifying? They had no chance to improve themselves. Not only that, why not go ahead and change the engine? If they change the engine before the start of the race, they get a 10 possition penalty. No problem there, as they're already at the back of the grid with no hope of improving...so what's the point? Add Sato to that mix, as he total lost his BAR on his out lap.

That's 3 engines.

Then of course, the rule states that if you make it past the half way mark of the Grand Prix, and fail to finish, you can change your engine without penalty for the next race.

BAR pulled in on the next to the last lap for just that reason. They were not in the points, and had no hope of getting into the points, so they just pull in and get new engines for the next race and it's "all good".

That's 2 more engines.

So in effect, what we have after the first Grand Prix is 4 drivers of three teams going through multiple engines before we even get to the second race of the season. What effect will this have later on? Nobody knows. But the scenario that is developing is more than a bit scary. Here's the hypothetical:

McLaren are running 9th and 10th just out of the points and are trailing Ferrari in the Constructors Championship by 4 points. They can opt to pull in on the next to the last lap, get fresh engines for the next race and go against Ferrari in the next race while Ferrari are running a one race old engine. Now, what happens if McLaren get a 1-2 finish that next race and overhaul Ferrari in the Constructors Championship?

Is it fair? No.
Is it legal? So far, yes.

They made the two engine rule to cut cost. It's been beaten to death already and we've not even made it to the second race. Speaking of which, here's what we'll have at Malaysia:

Massa: 2nd Engine
Schumacher: 2nd Engine
Sato: 3rd Engine
Button: 2nd Engine

And that's just the ones we know of at this point. It doesn't appear that the teams are going to save any money on engines...and this is bound to get worse as the year goes on.