People may not like to admit it, but Formula One is in the midst of a serious financial crisis. Look down any grid and sponsor logos are dwindling like never before. The global economic downturn has hit hard, and it's not about to get any easier.
Title challengers McLaren have a blank rear wing for the first time in years, the Ferrari has never had as many red panels as it does now and Red Bull have struggled to get new partners on-board despite their success. In the midfield, Force India and Toro Rosso would be blank other than the support of their owners, while the Sauber is actually blank thanks to the unceremonious exit of BMW last year. Renault's car is covered with Genii partners' logos and Williams are set to lose two or three major sponsors by year's end. Then there's Virgin who are running to a budget of just €45m thanks to their CFD-only route, while Lotus and HRT are funded largely by their respective owners.
The sport has begun to act and safeguard its future though and in doing so is hoping to change the way all of us use our cars on a daily basis.
In 2013, Formula One will make a definitive step away from fuel-guzzling, high-revving, naturally aspirated V8 engines and move towards low-capacity, turbocharged, fuel efficient engines, making the sport more relevant to the layperson than it has ever been before, and making itself a hotbed of research and development for hybrid technology.
At the moment, teams have no limit on how much fuel they can pour through their engines over the course of a race weekend, although the ban on refuelling for this year has meant that more fuel efficient engines are advantageous during races. That won't be the case in 2013 however, as a fuel flow meter will limit the rate at which fuel can flow into the engine, while a fuel limit will cap the amount of fuel a car can start the race with.
"The big difference this time around is the amount of fuel that we can pour into the engine across the course of the race - it's going to be very, very restricted. That's where the big change is going to come. We've got to get a lot more out of less," says Cosworth CEO Tim Roustis.
"We're looking at numbers that are going to sit somewhere between 35% and 50% less than the amount of fuel that we're using today. For a car that's got to do fundamentally the same lap-time and the same sort of distance, it's a big change."
If the technological developments derived from the 2013 hybrid regulations succeeds in transferring to road cars in the future, the impact on reducing carbon emissions from the world's fleet of automobiles will be absolutely extraordinary. 2013 is Formula One's chance to change the world and it must succeed. The future of our great sport is at stake.
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