The idea of limiting teams to one engine per driver over a Grand Prix weekend is not a new one. Nor is the 'cost saving' excuse used to introduce it. Roger Horton looks back at similar events that took place nearly a decade ago, and also reviews the agenda everyone has in supporting or rejecting this radical change

If fans want a preview of how Grand Prix racing might look in 2004, when the new rules permitting only one engine per car/per weekend come into force, then they need only think back to the recent Malaysian Grand Prix.

At the end of lap one Juan Pablo Montoya was eleventh and World Champion Michael Schumacher was last, and their climb back through the field is just the sort of excitement the new rules are supposed to generate. The only difference was that in Malaysia it happened through a combination of racing incidents, and in the future it will be by design.

The new rules have already been slammed as being too 'NASCAR-like' by the purists, an intrusion into the no-holds-barred competition ethic that has always set F1 apart from all other series. The problem for the purists is that they're a minority and it's been that way since F1 went commercial in the Eighties: their numbers can be counted in the thousands whilst the TV viewers are counted in the millions, and for Mr Joe Public the story concerning the rule changes is currently a non-event.

It probably won't register with the casual fan until one day he turns on his TV and finds that his favourite driver is not on pole as his Sunday paper had reported, but is back in the mid field for reasons he will find hard to understand. Whether he then switches his television off or continues watching will largely determine the long-term future of the engine restriction rule.

The new engine rules are, however, only part of a package of measures ostensibly suggested by FIA president Max Mosley to cut costs, and only the one engine proposal actually made it before the World Council for a vote; the proposal for engine manufacturers to supply two teams, and the idea of two-day race weekends never reached the voting stage. So the new rules package is very much work in progress at the moment and much could change before the start of the 2004 season.

Just why did the majority of the teams vote in favour of changing the rules as suggested by the FIA, especially as the notion that it will actually save them any money is known to be highly dubious? The answer is not immediately clear, but no doubt the real trade offs that were made among the teams will become clearer as more details of the discussions leak out.

Earlier on, Williams technical director Patrick Head accused Mosley of Machiavellian tactics of 'divide and rule' as regards the way the new rules were being forced through, further saying that the whole charade was about politics and accused Mosley of manipulation.

This, of course, is hardly news. F1 is in a constant state of manipulation and the Grand Prix circus has been down this particular road before, so there are lots of clues from the past to give us pointers to what we can expect in the coming months.

Back in 1993, Formula One was in some trouble - or so the powers brokers in the sport believed. The year before, Nigel Mansell had just wrapped up the World Drivers' Championship title by the tenth round of the season (are any bells starting to ring here?) and many of the races were boring and predictable. He then went off, as the reigning World Champion, to play in Indy Car racing (as it was then known) and there was genuine concerns that F1's dominant position in world racing was under threat.

In 1992, Williams Grand Prix Engineering had made - through their technical brilliance and with Renault power - just about all the opposition look second rate; but then Frank Williams, or someone in his office, made a fatal mistake. They missed, by just one day, the deadline for submitting their entry to compete in the 1993 Championship, and the rules stated that their entry could now only be accepted by the unanimous agreement of all the other teams.

With this bargaining chip, the teams forced changes to the regulations that effectively banned all the technologies that Williams had mastered, in return for letting them compete in a Championship they had dominated. Out went active suspension, traction control and all the other electronic gizmos that Head's men had perfected. Ironically, all these changes were pushed through as 'cost saving measures', a claim that sounded as hollow then as it does now.

So in the midst of a season that was dominated by intrigue and politics, the FIA (then known as FISA) rammed through much of the changes that are still with us today. They reduced practice times on Fridays with no use of the spare car; restricted the number of tyres to be used over a Grand Prix weekend; and most importantly, they allowed refuelling during a race. Interestingly, a one-engine rule was also written into the regulations several times during the year, but was quietly dropped in the final draft.

It is safe to say that of all the changes enacted before the start of the '94 season, and even for those brought into force by the tragedies at Imola 1994, only refuelling mattered much to Mr Joe Public. In fact, almost every year there are changes to the technical regulations, but provided the cars are fast and noisy, the casual fan doesn't notice, and it is, don't forget, on the whim of the casual fan with regard to his viewing habits that the future of the sport depends.

Recently Formula One Management, the company that is in charge of the commercial running of the sport, released the TV viewing figures for the 2001 season. The total was 54,477,361,661 - 54.47 billion - television viewers, and the figure - which is calculated based on the number of times that any viewer watched any Formula One footage, either during any Grand Prix session or in any other kind of program - was down by some 3.3 billion on the 1999 figure.

This drop may be, as some in F1 claim, due to the extended testing ban introduced in 2001, which lead to over two months of no F1 action to cover. But it may also be a general drop trend in F1 viewership. Prior to 1999, the numbers had been growing strongly - up from just over 45 billion in 1995. So is this a blip, or is it the start of a trend? TV revenue and sponsors' exposure is the sports lifeblood and nothing can ever be allowed to interrupt the flow of money that comes from the millions who tune in every two weeks to watch the races.

If the one engine rule will jazz up the show and rekindle the viewing figures, then that's what we will have. And who is in more need of money - the 'haves' at the front of the grid, or the 'have nots' in the middle? In the end, there are many more losers than winners; the losers had the votes, and only Williams and McLaren in the winners' group voted against the proposal. Ferrari? We will come to Ferrari later, as they were, perhaps, playing a different game.

But falling ratings may not be F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone's only worry. Ecclestone does not often visit fly-away races these days, but he was very much in evidence in Malaysia, and you can be sure that it is his footprint that is on these proposals. Why, when F1 is always portrayed as being a sport of constant and continuing success, would he see the need to fly around the world prior to the World Council meeting in Paris to sort out his errant 'children'?

Part of the longer-term problem that can seriously affect the revenues flowing into Formula One is the deteriorating financial health of many of the big media groups that have over paid massively for the rights to many mainstream sports. The severe drop off in advertising revenues, caused by the current economic slowdown, is also squeezing their profits, and there is no question that the rates that they are prepared to pay in the future will drop.

In the UK, ITV digital is, according to reports in the Financial Times, considering winding itself up rather than honouring its commitment to pay some $440 million to the English Football league. If the money isn't paid, some 30 to 50 lower division football clubs could be forced to close. Even in the Premier League, secure in the first year of a $2.2 billion three-year deal with BSkyB, there is a realisation that the gravy train is over and that players' wages may have to be capped.

In the United States, the media giant News Corp was forced to take a 900 million charge against overpayments made by its subsidiary Fox Sports for sports' rights that included the new and much hyped NASCAR deal. Almost around the globe, the idea that mainstream sport is a sure fire ratings winner and justifies almost any price being paid for it, is yesterday's logic.

So the message to Formula One is clear: you can't count on ever increasing TV revenues as had generally been the case in the past, and even more importantly, F1 must be seen to be acting responsibly and not wasting money. If Premier League footballers can stand having their wages frozen, surely Formula One teams can make do with just one engine for a weekend!

Every so often someone in F1 authority makes a speech calling for the costs of competing in F1 to be reduced. Everyone in the paddock agrees politely and goes right back to what he was doing before, spending whatever money he has to make his cars go faster, or so the theory goes.

The fact is that some teams make much better use of the resources at their disposal than others. Williams is renowned for consistently getting the biggest bang for their bucks. Frank Williams and Patrick Head first spend what they need to make their cars the best they can be, and only then spend what is left on themselves. Others have built their dream house, bought the jet and the yacht, and then spent the rest on making their cars go faster. Some are racers to the core, others rather like the lifestyle. The difference is not too hard to spot.

In Malaysia, McLaren boss Ron Dennis spoke with some passion concerning the way the closed door meetings were progressing, and fired a shot across the bows of some of the team owners pleading poverty.

"I felt that the teams that fell into the categories of 'haves', versus the 'have-nots', reached out a very, very long distance to try and help the so-called 'have-nots'," he said. "To be honest, it becomes a bit difficult when most of them have private jets, large homes and boats, and they are pleading poverty. I am fortunate enough that I can afford those things personally. Not corporately. If I found myself uncompetitive because of not having money, I would sell those things in order to become competitive and it becomes a bit hard when some people are trying to take advantage of the desire to help."

If any of the mid field team bosses really thought the one engine rule would save any money, they weren't saying how. Eddie Jordan's comments, made on his team's website after the decision was announced, pretty much summed what most were saying off the record beforehand.

"This is a good start, anything which makes the show more exciting, whilst containing costs, can only be seen as an advantage for Formula One," Jordan said. "All these measures will make the Grand Prix better for fans." The fact that his current engine supplier is struggling to cope with the demands of the current regulations was not, I am sure, a factor in his thinking at all!

As Dennis remarked in Malaysia, some team owners will attempt to gain a commercial advantage out of the changes, and others will try to get a competitive one. But everyone has an agenda and Jordan's comments make his position pretty clear.

"I don't think the motivation is to save money, or that it will necessarily save money. I just don't think it has been well thought out," said Patrick Head in Malaysia, expressing the view held by Williams and McLaren. He also wondered, somewhat bitterly, what happened to the 'engine stability rule' that was supposed to guarantee the engine makers with unchanged rules through to the end of 2007.

"I mean, if BMW say to us that you can have an engine with X hundred horse power which will do 500 hundred kilometres, or you can have another engine that is X minus 50 hundred horse power that will do 750 kilometres, I know which one we will choose. That would then cause us, and all the other teams too, to say 'ok, we can't do our brake work on Friday, we can't do our other simulation work on Friday because we don't have the miles (in the engine)'.

"So then we would have to spend quite a lot of money on brake dynamometers to simulate what goes on round the track on a four calliper braking system with air phased in and all the energy and inertia inputs and all the rest of it and it's obviously pretty expensive. So you would have to do it in your own factory and sit in your garage on Friday because basically you have to conserve your engine because you didn't say you wanted a nice long mileage engine with low horsepower.

"But I am not sure whether that is a good outcome for F1 or not," sighed Head. Indeed it is hard to see how it can be, with few cars on the track on Fridays and with the fans gazing at an empty circuit.

One of the biggest anomalies of this whole debate is how everyone claims to be saving money for the very people (the engine manufacturers) who have the deepest pockets. Yet how much money does it cost the engine makers to supply and rebuild all the engines that power the enormous amount of testing that goes on and is currently almost totally unrestricted? Williams have made their cars impressively reliable this season through an unprecedented 21,000 kilometres of pre-season testing. That's around 70 race distances before the season has even started.

No wonder the motor sport director of a leading engine maker who was against the changes rubbished the idea that the one engine regulation would save him any money. "If we seriously reduced in-season testing we could get through our programme with much reduced rebuilds costs. Tyre testing in particular is especially expensive for us. We pound around and learn nothing from it at all for ourselves."

The Ferrari Factor

Why did Ferrari, who is currently the dominant team, vote with the 'have-nots' for these changes? As the full package of changes has not yet been enacted, there is still considerable conjecture on this point, but here are some clues.

Ferrari have the capacity to supply two customer teams, and because these engines are always last year's designs, usually frozen around the specification that was raced by the works team at Monza, the engine gained a reputation for reliability.

For a middle-ranking outfit like Sauber, there could be lots of opportunities to score points when faster combinations blow their engines. This enhances the engine's commercial value, something that - as Ferrari heads towards a possible flotation - could be good for business. Also, of course, cars with customer engines have been known in the past to have large mirrors when the works cars need to overtake them during races.

And like every other team, Ferrari have been struggling to match the astonishing power output of BMW's high revving howler from Munich. A clean start gives them another shot of gaining back their previous power advantage.

But there were some in the paddock who claimed that the ongoing problems encountered by the Michelin shod runners in having to continually scrub in their tyres for the races, was the real reason why Ferrari wanted the new rules. Spending laps scrubbing in new tyres would, of course, be a huge disadvantage should engine mileage be restricted as proposed.

According to Michelin boss Pierre Dupasquier, this problem is inherent to Michelin's current design and not something that can easily be changed. Even if Michelin can overcome this issue, Ferrari will naturally be hoping that the effort expended will hurt them for a while and give their tyre supplier Bridgestone an edge.

The whole history of the major FIA-induced rule changes - and all changes in the last decade have effectively been forced through by the FIA - has shown that first amendment to the rules has never been how the final draft has ended up to be. It is highly likely that long before the 2004 season rolls around, further changes to the rules will have been thrashed out, and more substantial changes to the F1 landscape could well be in prospect.

So just what odds would you get that these changes, as they currently stand, will assist the likes of Jaguar, BAR, or Jordan, in being regular visitors to the winners' circle in the future? Probably about the same odds you would get that Ron Dennis will have to sell his house and jet any time soon to fund his racing team. Whatever the rules, some people are winners and some are losers, and even the FIA can't change that.