Teams still fear V10 advantage

Concerns have been growing over recent weeks that the 16,700rpm limit and 77mm air restrictor for V10 engines has not gone far enough in limiting their performance. It is believed they are still up to 80bhp more powerful than the best V8 engines and have a huge advantage in terms of torque.

The matter was brought up in Friday's meeting of the Technical Working Group, but with no immediate solution forthcoming there are mounting fears that Scuderia Toro Rosso could have an unfair advantage from their decision to run V10s - and that there could now be temptation for bigger teams to ditch their V8 plans.

Renault's director of engineering Pat Symonds told autosport.com: "I brought it up in the meeting and told (FIA technical delegate) Charlie Whiting that what the FIA has done in allowing cars to run with a restrictor and high revs was in my mind illegal.

"If I suspected someone was bypassing the restrictor then I could not protest it, because there is no technical regulation that states they have to run with the restrictor.

"I honestly don't know where it goes from here. There are a number of people who believe the V10 could hold an advantage and I think it is a very unfortunate situation, because the whole reason we put in the equivalency has now gone. In retrospect we should not have done it because the team we were trying to protect is no longer here.

"The idea was for those teams who did not have access to and could not afford a V8 to have the ability to run a V10. In my mind Toro Rosso not only have the budget to afford a V8 but there are people willing to supply them."

Symonds believes that the huge torque advantage that V10s will have over V8s will be of big benefit at the start of races, and at those slower tracks that demand a lot of acceleration - like Monaco.

"What is there to stop Toyota turning up at Monte Carlo with a V10 engine?" added Symonds. "If people start taking the mickey then it could blow up into a big thing. But conversely if Toro Rosso ends up not doing anything special it might be forgotten about. Even so, the mechanism that has been applied is wrong."

The FIA has insisted, however, that no adjustments will be made to the current V10 restrictions until more data from testing has been forthcoming.

A source told this week's Autosport that adjustments to the V10 rules could be made on the eve of the season to ensure the engines do not have an advantage.

"Until we see cars in full race trim, we won't be able to get a true idea of their speed, so we won't know exactly what the restrictor dimensions should be," he said. "We've made it very clear that we'll change the restrictor plates as late as Friday practice in Bahrain if we have to."