Sam Michael: Cosworth has two hurdles

After two seasons with Toyota power, the Williams Formula One team have opted to return to Cosworth engines for their 2010 Formula One campaign and while it is now known that Toyota will no longer be competing in the pinnacle of Motorsports it is thought that this is part of the reason, however according to the team’s technical director, Sam Michael, it is a lot more complicated than that.

Speaking to Autosport, Michael explained that there have been so many regulation changes since their former deal with Cosworth came to an end in 2006, however there are still hurdles that will need to be jumped throughout their new partnership such as fuel consumption and reliability….

“The sport has changed massively since 2006. If you look back from the early 2000s to the last 18 months, it has been manufacturer dominated but that's shifting significantly. There were different reasons for not being with Cosworth back then. But you can also ask if the decision we took was correct? We don't know, because history sets itself and that's it," he said.

“If we had continued with Cosworth back then, maybe it wouldn't have been the best thing. That's the great thing about F1 – it keeps evolving and it's a process of change right now and that has led things back to an independent engineering group being the best thing for Williams. Cosworth has got two big hurdles. Fuel consumption is critical with no refuelling, and their target for the winter is to improve that. The other is reliability. Everyone has accumulated three years of running on their engines while Cosworth has been out and gained thousands of kilometers of knowledge.