This week's Grapevine brings you information fresh from the paddock on: The Quest for Cash Continues Piling on the Pounds

The Quest for Cash Continues

One of the advantages of the off-season is the teams finally have a chance to put in more running time on the track than they strictly need for testing new components - which is the ideal opportunity to put new talent in the car.

Even as the teams evaluate a driver's speed and feedback on track, their marketing departments are looking to establish how much they would be worth to their budget, if they were in a testing or driving role. Being in a position to put fast young drivers with established names in the car - like Nelson Piquet jr. and Nico Rosberg. There were a few teams along the paddock who were interested to see how these two would deal with the test - despite the fact that Rosberg had previously earned himself a test, after winning the Formula BMW title last year. Each driver, courtesy of their father, has a name that can command a certain amount of respect from sponsors.

Having a World Champion for a father doesn't automatically qualify a driver for a seat in Formula One - as Tomas Scheckter, who lost his seat at Jaguar can attest. Whilst there is no denying Scheckter's outright speed, his current role racing for Chip Ganassi Racing in IRL has not been without some controversy, either, as his on-track antics have led him in to trouble on more than one occasion. However, for those who do make the grade, the potential is enormous: Damon Hill and Jacque Villeneuve both arrived in the sport with a front running team. In each case, Williams capitalised on their names as much as their talents to pull in good money from sponsors - and rewarded them with cars that would win titles.

Remaining on theme, long before Williams' test of the Chinese driver Tung Ho-Pin was confirmed, it had been established that the team could hope to bring in between one and four million dollars in sponsorship from Holland (where he was born) and China, just for running him as a test driver. The potential with him in an actual race seat is phenomenal - as China's first Formula One racing driver, he would conservatively be expected to bring in over ten million, with an upper bound on expectations in the region of more than double that. The money is so good that, assuming he doesn't prove himself a waste of space in the car, it is worth paying the youngster to be on the books on the off-chance that in a year or two, he will be good enough to test. If nothing else, Williams would quite happily pass him off on a backmarker as a money spinner, in return for a significant fee.

Then again, being a half way useful driver, even the first from a continent that is full of sponsorship opportunity, is no guarantee of a test seat, let alone a racing role. Despite some exciting performances on track, being the first Indian to test a Formula One car - he tested for Jaguar and Jordan in 2001 - did not earn Narain Karthikeyan much luck. His talent was not the deciding factor, either, but the issue that he brought no personal sponsorship, and neither team had sufficient presence in the Indian sub-continent to leverage his presence. With no Grand Prix in India, being a talented driver alone was just not going to generate enough income to make it worth putting him in the seat.

Eddie Jordan is not entirely impressed with Williams moving in on the China market. Of course, it is no surprise that the Formula BMW winner is getting his first outing in a BMW-powered car, but the Irishman has been investing heavily in aligning Chinese sponsorship with his team. It is a little mentioned issue that Jordan's whole CCTV sponsorship deal failed to come out as planned, leaving the team to run the logos for a pittance. Rather than leave the space blank, it was considered more important to work on the China tie, looking for income in future years from other sponsors who might consider the team a good match. All that they really wanted was a Chinese driver to generate plenty of cash, which must beg the question, would they be prepared to find Williams asking price in order to run Ho-Pin, or would they find another driver of their own?

Piling on the Pounds

One of the interesting things about changing the engine regulations - even if that change is hidden behind a longevity clause - is waiting to see what the individual manufacturers do to accommodate the new requirements, before seeing who foresaw the best trade-off.

Just about all the teams have promised that next year's engine, despite running more than three times the distance of its predecessor, is going to be generating the same power output, or even exceeding it - though how they intend to accomplish this feat is where the engine designers earn their wages.

Taking Renault as the most obvious example, they decided their 2003 engine, despite driving them to a race win, was simply inadequate for the tasks, so they have thrown it away entirely, and started out with a more traditional design. The most obvious benefit of this approach is that they are able to discard an engine that by all accounts finished the season 50bhp down on BMW's unit, and replace it with one that will only be 25bhp down. This is not as clever as it sounds - the new engine is based on a traditional 72-degree V, raising the centre of gravity by about three centimetres, and could weigh as much as twenty-five percent more than the one it replaces. Clearly this is not good news for the chassis designer, who now has to work out how to put this lump into the package so that it still balances.

Mercedes have also been vocal with their claims that the new engine will show the same power as the old, though again there is an element of disingenuity involved. Sure, the new power curve runs ahead of the old one, but the peak power generated is lower - because the upper rev limit has been lowered. Theoretically, if the engine was permitted to run to the same levels, it would surpass its predecessor, but the longevity would be severely compromised. Mind you, the price of this new engine has not been high otherwise: it carries only slightly larger tolerances than the old, but appears to be capable of running very reliably. It seems, the reasons for the improved reliability are that the power curve has been smoothed, and with the gear transitions taking place at around 1000rpm less than last year, the strain through the transmission has been significantly reduced.

Far less vocal, though just as focussed, BMW and Ferrari are also pursuing their planned objectives for the new season, with Ferrari expecting to maintain their exceptional reliability record, whilst confirming they have just about closed the power gap on their German rivals. It probably shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, but unofficial estimates from both teams see their engines should be capable of developing power over 900 bhp next season, with very similar economy figures. Ferrari's engine weighs slightly more, but has easier dimensions for packaging, whilst Williams are expecting to offer their drivers a bigger qualifying 'boost' at a greater risk of reliability issues later on. However, their development plans for the season appear, at this stage, to diverge. Whilst Ferrari appear intent of targeting power gains first, weight loss second, and fuel economy last as the season progresses, Williams have requested BMW focus on the same targets with reversed priorities, as they expect see greater time savings over a race distance from carrying less fuel than from boosting the power of the engine.

Of course, all the teams have put reliability at the top of their list of requirements!