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According to James Allen, there were rumours circulating this morning that McLaren have bought Cosworth. Later denied by McLaren but an interesting thought n'est ce pas? https://twitter.com/Jamesallenonf1

Ha, that'll be the political shock of the year, seeing Macca run their own Cosworth-based engines. But even if the news would be true (which is far-fetched, but nevertheless possible, even though they denied it) I doubt they would make a good engine by the start of 2014. As far as I know, Cossworth didn't have any V6 on the test bed, and starting building a new one is a little tight, schedule wise.
Nice little gossip, anyway. Much better than he Caterham exhausts, come to think of it.

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Olivier Panis fan.
...and also Jenson Button fan.

If they have bought cosworth, cosworth will be no more and Mclaren will suddenly start producing their own engines, however as cosworth were not producing a V6 turbo engine for 2014 it would still take them a couple of years to test the engine so I really don't see this happening.

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Jenson Button Fan.

Good move, the new cossy staff, tooling and factory can finish the engine macca have been building in the underground test track!!

Just a thought. Mclaren buy Cosworth and still use the Merc engine for next year and however long they need. Once they acquire the new Merc engine can't they pull it apart and start being 'inspired' with the design to create their own engine? Sort of like what the Chinese have been doing for years. I know a genuine Panaphonics when I see one.

Think beyond F1. McLaren builds road cars too, but still I don't think it makes sense to buy entire company. I just wanted to stress that McLaren does a lot things that aren't directly related to F1.

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JPSpecial:

What is the distance of this 'underground test track', and can I have one?

If there ever was a team up to taking on a task like this, it's mclaren.

Ferrari do it, Lotus do it, AMG do it.

Considering that they make road cars, it's not a massive stretch.


Now if red bull bought it, then that world be a different story.

Would really, really, REALLY like to see McLaren do that and give engines a go to be a full inhouse company like Ferrari

Could run Merc engines in 2014/15 whilst devolving their own engine for 2015 or even 2016.

It's too late for them to design and develop a reliable and competitive engine for 2014 now though.

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1994 1995 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 Get well soon Schumi.

No one call anyone a moo-pickle...

Ehm, I honestly think that would be a very big thing to handle. Even reverse engineering of a Mercedes V6 engine won't guarantee them a good package right away.

Besides, they're in their Mercedes partnership since what, 1996? that's a lot of time...sure, if they would want their own engine, this is the way to do it, pretty much like Mercedes did themselves when they bought Ilmor. But it ain't no walk in the park, that's for sure.

For the record, reverse engineering and copying competition's products are the thing in F1, they're even more Chinese than the Chinese. Basically every invention worth copying gets copied. No need to look further than this year, with the pull-rod thing.

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Olivier Panis fan.
...and also Jenson Button fan.

Would be wise in my view an established engine manufacturing facility and engineers, with McLaren money could make them self sustaining and not reliant on others although the nostalgic part of me wants Honda to come back as an engine manufacturer and the Honda McLaren partnership start up again

Of course that would be a great thing to have, but it's pretty much all up to Honda, which doesn't seem to be particularly eager to jump aboard. Testing with 1 cylinder prototype doesn't sound like a sustained commitment yet.

As for the McLaren money, if this article is correct:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2f1c6c50-c5e0 ... z2KGTodSCB
19.7 million pounds pre-tax profit, if this is their final amount, doesn't sound that much to me. Developing in-house engines, both for F1 and for road cars, I believe it would swallow up more than that.

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Olivier Panis fan.
...and also Jenson Button fan.

Don't forget that cosworth are about a lot more than F1 they supply a lot of engines to other racing events, and even have a diesel engine for air flight (something like an unmanned drone I think). Plus they do electrical components for cars too.

It would be a pretty big deal if McLaren took them on as it would mean McLaren having a hand in almost all forms of motorsport!

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Honda are rumoured to have a full engine on the bench. Which could be very likely as they have a history for building stuff to various rule changes even if it will never see the light of day. Plus they already have a V6 turbo in Indy cars.

The 19mill figure isn't the whole picture.

From the original interview

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Disclaimer: The above post maybe tongue in cheek.

"I thought I'd get your theories, mock them, then embrace my own. The usual."

You never know.

As much as I dont think its true, with Mclaren who says they have not already been building their own engine in preparation for 2014? This is Mclaren after all who have built their own engines, even building top production cars that can compete with the best out there.

This would make a lot of sense. Obviously not for F1, but a performance engine facility is a missing piece in McLaren's expanding non-F1 motorsport jigsaw puzzle.

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I went skating on your name,
And by tracing it twice,
I fell through the ice,
of Alice

If they did buy Cosworth, I would not necessarily mean they would run them in their own F1 cars, yet.

Due to the sort of company Mclaren are, it would be a very useful acquisition for them in many ways.

Where would they stand (in F1) if they bought and modded engines from someone else under license?
I mean in terms of homogenization etc with an engine having to be 'presented' for approval then not changed?
Could they offer their own spec of one already approved?

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I have nothing to offer but blood, oil, gears, and sweat.

Would Merc allow that? It would be like saying 'your engine's not as good as it could be and we can make it better than you'.

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I went skating on your name,
And by tracing it twice,
I fell through the ice,
of Alice

No, more like saying "we used to get our engines for free but now you are bleeding us dry and we'd like to spend some of that money on car development & driver salaries".

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Me Like - Button, Hamilton, Webber, Rosberg
Over rated, over paid - Räikkönen, Alonso, Vettel. Schumacher
Disappointing - Massa, Kobayashi
I may be wrong about - Alonso

Lotus don't make there own engines, they are supplied by Renault. Although the Enstone team were previously the Renault works team, this is no longer the case. Renault Motorsports have even said their main customer is Red Bull now.

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VI LXXVII XIV

Yeah I agree, I meant cosworth disappearing completly from formula 1 as I presume they still make engines for various road cars and other race series, as others have said Mclaren building their own engine (even if they did break down a Merc one to gain experience) it would still take them a few years at the minimum to get a decent engine.

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Jenson Button Fan.

What exactly of Cosworth is for sale?

the company has been splintered and split with various pieces sold of to that many different people I have lost track of whatis what.

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Disclaimer: The above post maybe tongue in cheek.

"I thought I'd get your theories, mock them, then embrace my own. The usual."

This: http://cosworth.com/ "A global technology business that delivers high performance solutions for customers in aerospace, defence, automotive and sport."

Is some of it not owned by different people.

A bit Like rolls Royce.

I know the road car and race bit was split with VW I think it was buying the road car end.

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Disclaimer: The above post maybe tongue in cheek.

"I thought I'd get your theories, mock them, then embrace my own. The usual."

Audi bought Cosworth from Vickers in 1998 but sold the F1 engine part of the business to Ford. Audi's part was then known as Cosworth Technology, which Audi sold to the Mahle Group in 2004 and it is now called Mahle Powertrain Ltd.

Co-incidentally, in 2004 he Ford owned part of Cosworth was sold to Gerry Forsythe and Kevin Kalkhoven (the, then co-owners of Champ Car), who embarked on a diversification strategy, exploiting business opportunities in the Automotive, Aerospace and Defence markets. Late last year, Forsythe and Kalkhoven put the Cosworth Group (as it is now called) up for sale.

rolls-royce is two distinct companies when they had a gov bail out in the 70's the company was split rolls-royce plc is the power plant, civil aerospace, defence aerospace and marine sectors and rolls-royce motors i think is owned by bmw but in not sure on that part, but retains the right to use the name.

I don't know much about engines but I would have thought a engine for a road car where it could theoretically have to cover an immense amount of distance as well as being reliable, I don't know the exact figure for how many miles/km the average F1 engine covers but obviously a lot less than a road car therefore the engineering must be completely different. So what I'm saying is that if a company produces engines for road cars you can't just have a burst of inspiration to move into producing your own F1 engines, there has to be much more planning and surely at least one article would have leaked about Mclaren developing their own engine for 2014.

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Jenson Button Fan.

As an engine presented to FIA a 'the merc engine' they could not change it.
After 12 months development they would know a lot more, but still could not change it.

Would Mclaren be able to say they are running Cossi engines next year and present a modified engine at that point and call it a cosworth if it had been (say) 60% made in the cosworth factory, even though it was to Merc drawings?

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I have nothing to offer but blood, oil, gears, and sweat.

Angle of the cylinder banks, displacement, maximum cylinder diameter, number of valves, turbo boost, fuel pressure, fuel rate, and a bunch of other variables of the engine design are set by the formula. There isn't a whole lot of room to play with when it comes to the physical aspects of the engine aside from bore & stroke.

So most of the difference from one engine to the next will be in the engine maps, and how it's being cooled & lubricated. Most of the work with the new engines will be in the implementation of harvesting and use of the ancillary bits associated with the ERS.

I know this is not the whole difference, but I'm getting ready to head out the door for my Friday night so I'm keeping it brief. So others can feel free to add to or correct what I wrote.

FIA rules are written by relatively small group of people who will always lose against army of engineers working for teams. People said in 2008 that current aero rules would reduce the downforce. History have shown that cars generated even more downforce after 2009. Double diffuser, f-duct, using exhaust to blow diffuser, stalling wings, flexi wings etc.

How many loopholes in new engines regs FIA didn't close? All of them.

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Buy cossy, in 2014 reverse engineer a merc engine and then design your own.... All companies do it.

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2011 Winner of PF1's pick 10 competition.

They have to return the merc engines don't they? Doubt they'd be able to pull it apart and copy it without jeopardising their contract with merc.

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Warning: The above post may contain sarcasm.

Their partnership with merc runs til 2015 doesn't it so they could spend 2 yes developing