To the delight of some and the displeasure of others, the FIA last week announced radical changes to the regulations starting in 2004, most notably the one engine rule, that will allow a driver to use only one engine per Grand Prix weekend. Will Gray analyses the pros and cons of a rule which is set to change the face of F1 in the years to come

The decision to allow just one engine per car at each Grand Prix from 2004 could be seen as a triumph for Formula One's governing body. The new regulations should ensure more action on the track and they will certainly cut costs, but upon further investigation it is soon apparent that the measures may not be as good as they seem.

Calls had been made for the FIA to bring in engine changes for the 2003 season to ensure costs were cut immediately. With sponsors shying away from the scene and many teams feeling the pinch in budgets it seemed crucial that changes were introduced as rapidly as possible.

But as pointed out by Cosworth boss Nick Hayes in a previous Atlas F1 article, demands on engine manufacturers to alter their designs to cope with such a significant change in philosophy were virtually impossible to meet because the modifications could not be implemented over such a short period of time.

The crucial money-saving changes were the main reason for the long meetings that began in the sweltering Malaysian paddock and culminated in the World Council meeting in Paris on the Tuesday after the Sepang race, but the decisions made only go part of the way towards achieving the initial goals.

Firstly, with the FIA choosing to hold on for a year and introduce the sweeping changes into Grand Prix racing in 2004, they have failed to get to grips with cost cutting at the very time when Formula One needs it.

Granted, many of the big teams have budgets sewn up years in advance, but the smaller teams are not as fortunate and they are the ones the FIA is trying to help by cutting the costs for engine manufacturers and hoping those cost cuts will roll down the price teams have to pay for their supply.

However, as Minardi boss Paul Stoddart pointed out after the FIA made their rule change decision, there are not many teams left on the grid that are actually paying for their engines. Even his minnow team do not have to lash out any cash for their Asiatech supply, so the new change will actually do little to help them financially as a team after all.

Only two teams - Sauber, who run Petronas-badged Ferrari engines, and Arrows, who buy their powerplants from Cosworth - have to pay for their engine supply. They are certainly not the only non-manufacturer teams that are looking carefully at their balance sheets, but they are the only ones the changes will help financially.

According to estimates, a top engine deal, including back-up support and enough units to run at Grands Prix and in testing, is worth between $80 million and $100 million (US Dollars), and as the FIA have quite correctly concluded, this would be dramatically cut if the number of required units are reduced.

Currently teams use up to six engines per Grand Prix, two for each car including the spare, and the life of a powerplant is around 300km - a race distance and a bit. To use just one engine all weekend would require significant changes to ensure it could last around two and a half times the distance currently required.

That will mean a significant re-design of the engine units will be required and that in itself will take time and money to achieve - although insiders are yet to conclude how much work will be involved and how much cost will be saved by the changes.

Initial concerns would point to technology advancement but an insider has confirmed it will be possible for engine manufacturers to follow radical philosophies, such as Renault's wide v-angle powerplant, even though the engine is required to last for a much greater distance.

The most interesting thing about the whole decision to run just one engine is the way in which a team, or more crucially a driver, will be punished for the failure of that powerplant at any time during the weekend.

Any time the team has to change an engine, the driver of that car will be forced to drop 10 places on his qualifying position. That means if an engine fails on the first lap of Friday practice the driver is already doomed to a grid position outside the top ten come race day. But what that will do is create some interesting tactics from teams throughout the grid.

A lowly team, such as Minardi, will not suffer as much as a team like Ferrari because they already qualify towards the rear of the grid and are often right at the back already. With reduced penalty for an engine failure there may be benefits for such a team to run with engines that are still only strong enough to last a race distance rather than a weekend distance.

In doing so, the weight would be significantly reduced and their cars would have more speed. They could, in theory, change an engine before the race and although they would be dropped to the back of the grid for the race, their reduced weight would allow them to make up positions more easily and run more competitively in the race.

Yes, that is quite a far-stretched theory, but it does bring into question the appropriateness of the penalty suggested and could lead to more unwanted off-track controversy as teams explore the limits of the new regulations.

In reality, engine manufacturers are likely, of course, to be more concerned with ensuring their powerplants are strong enough to go the distance, but even so there are no guarantees that problems will be avoided throughout the weekend.

That means there will be times when the likes of Michael Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya are starting from the middle of the grid after a pre-race engine change, and that will add to the spectacle for sure - you only have to look at the last race in Malaysia to see that.

On the action front, therefore, the news is good and the decision seems to have been greeted with general approval. But cost-wise, more needs to be done for Jordan, BAR and Minardi, who all receive their engines free of charge, to reduce the direct team costs.

Paul Stoddart has already called for the teams to get together and change the testing schedules, and that seems to be the best way of any to make everybody's lives a little easier.

Racing around a deserted track in Barcelona or a rainy Silverstone with sponsors and fans hovering around the garages rarely benefits the team in any way other than obtaining track time, developing reliability and advancing concepts in design and there is little commercial gain to be had.

But the testing debate is in the pipeline, and it is sure to be discussed in more hot and sweaty team manager meetings at Interlagos during this weekend's Brazilian Grand Prix. For now, though, the FIA have done all they can to help the teams. It is now up to the teams to help themselves.