3-4 teams to run Cosworth power in 2010, Maybe

UPDATE #3 We are downgrading this rumor to 'strong' from 'fact.' Questions that remain unanswered now that Max Mosley is gone from the FIA, including the disagreement about whether the three new teams' cut-price Cosworth engines – essentially at 2006-specification – should be allowed to run a higher rev limit.

"The basis of the engine is four years old," Mosley insisted on Wednesday to Auto Motor und Sport, "and the (fuel) consumption is clearly higher than the others. That means a clear (fuel) weight disadvantage."

We predict that the FOTA teams will nix the two standard engine idea because an equivalency formula is difficult and say we will provide "our" engines at the same price and Cosworth will once again be cut out of F1.

06/12/09 This rumor is upgraded to fact with today's Cosworth announcement.

06/12/09 (GMM) On Friday morning, Cosworth would not confirm that the publication of the 2010 FIA entry list will cement the company's return to formula one.

It is likely that some new teams, probably USF1, Prodrive, Lola or Epsilon Euskadi, will be named on the list, to be published by the governing body before lunchtime.

Will the Cosworth name return to F1, or will an 11th hour deal struck with F1 teams leave Cosworth out in the cold again?

With their official applications, the teams had to nominate an engine supplier, and as none of the current carmakers involved in F1 have confirmed their participation, it is likely they named Cosworth.

Late last year, the Northampton-based engine specialists won an FIA tender to supply a low-cost customer engine package to teams in 2010 and beyond.

But on Friday, a Cosworth spokesman told the local Northampton Chronicle: "All we can say is, we're unable to make a comment at this time."

It is believed that Cosworth's 2010 engine would be based on the V8 unit supplied to Williams in 2006.

It is not known if Prodrive listed Cosworth as its 2010 supplier, but Williams' co-owner and engineering chief Patrick Head believes the Banbury based outfit can succeed.

"They (Prodrive) are a very experienced outfit in many fields of motor sport, and if they do come in I am sure they will do a good job," he told BBC Oxford.

05/25/09 According to sources AR1.com talked to in the Indy paddock, four teams have reportedly paid the necessary deposit to reserve a supply of Cosworth's customer formula one engine for 2010.

We were told that most of the engineers that were laid off by Cosworth in the UK have returned.

Accompanying the sport's lower-cost future, the independent British company is set to return to F1 next year at the initiative of the FIA, guaranteeing a low-cost engine amid quit threats of engine makers that are currently involved.

Peter Windsor, the British journalist behind the USF1 team, confirmed at Monaco that accompanying a team's official 2010 entry must be an arrangement for an engine supplier.

He said USF1 has indeed done a deal with Cosworth, and Germany's Auto Motor und Sport claims that the arrangement must have involved the transfer of 2.5 million euros.

The publication said three other potential 2010 entrants have also paid the Cosworth deposit: including probably Campos Racing and Joan Villadelprat's Epsilon Euskadi.

"It is true that we are trying (to set up a F1 team)," Villadelprat confirmed to the Spanish newspaper El Pais. "At the moment I would say the chances of the project coming to fruition is 50 per cent."