BMW will have been looking to sell the team for a while, as it's cheaper and less of a PR heartache to do so. The announcement that they're pulling out and not handing over to a new buyer simply means to date there's no serious buyers and and that they're prepared to exit and absorb the costs of doing so fully. There's going to be a few prospective new owners to speculate over...xpensive wrote:Great fun to wildly speculate on that one! The idea that BMW has an interest to off-load the team rather simply shutting it down makes great sense to me anyway, while Nelson has some experience of running teams for Nelsihno in lesser formulaes, correct?
But Ferrari engines, lost me there really. Couldn't the new owner by a dozen or so of this years long-life engines from BMW, re-badge them and have the maintenence through Mader, Zakspeed, or someone?
...but it's doubtful if the engines will ever come with the deal. BMW manufacturers many engine parts including block and head castings. If BMW was willing to sell the intellectual property of their engines - including how they're manufactured, which is a huge legal operation in itself (and something that is unlikely to ever happen) - you'd still need to find and fund an operation to cast parts, machine them back, etc. Cleanroom assembly is the least of your worries; you'd them need to bring their manufacturing processes up to speed - so facilities for destructive engine testing and development also, knowledge of relevant test processes, etc - such that manufacturing and assembly quality were sufficient to guarantee an assembled engine out of the factory was good for so many starts, so much power, so many hours use, etc...
There are probably two companies in the world that are not current 'official' F1 engine manufacturers with the capabilities of doing so. Of them, Cosworth is back in the game next year and Mecachrome has the same relationship they've always had with Renault - we'll build them, you design them - would be hard to imagine BMW handing over their IP to them! Nor would separate facilities be cost effective.
If a new buyer really, really wanted BMW engines, the cheapest way to do it would be to pay BMW to continue their involvement with the team as an engine supplier. BMW might want to do this but remember that unlike staff terminations, there's no mega-gardening-leave style payout for halting engine supply... it might be cheaper to just stop!
But if a team really just wanted to get into the grid, they're going to be scratching for pennies to do so. Unless Ferrari or some other supplier feels generous or a sponsor really thinks there's going to be a significant performance advantage in something special worth tipping an extra 20m+ into (remember, all teams would need to consent to Ferrari supplying another team)...
...the obvious choice is to get a Cosworth and worry about getting racing!
Unless Piquet snr knows something about the spec engine's packaging or performance that we don't yet know... talking up Ferrari engines diminishes the seriousness of his bid and makes it sound a little more wishful than serious! But who knows. Anything to keep a team on the grid and people in jobs isn't a bad thing.
The first reliable data or feedback on the Cosworth powerplant are going to be interesting.
. It's a fast car, sure, but not 'put that Honda engine back in it and watch it win races' fast.