McLaren in favor of return of KERS

Button in his McLaren

McLaren have added their voice to the growing support for the return of KERS, confident they can keep the costs down and the "power up."

KERS, Kinetic Energy Recovery System, was introduced into Formula One in 2009, however, only McLaren, Ferrari, Renault and BMW used the system with mixed results.

Although KERS gives a power boost, the added weight can counteract that while the cost of developing it ran in to the millions.

As such KERS was dropped ahead of this year's Championship, although there is now talk of it returning in 2011.

"We fully support what FOTA and the FIA are trying to do in terms of KERS," McLaren chief engineer Tim Goss said during a Vodafone McLaren Mercedes phone-in.

"Clearly to introduce it for next season, it's starting to get a little bit late in the day. But there are lots of people working on this.

"We understand the need for KERS for the association with road car technology, and we think it's the right thing to bring it back. Really we'll just go along with whatever FOTA and the FIA decide."

Already Ferrari and Renault have given their support while Williams, who developed by never raced KERS, would also welcome its return. All three teams believe that they it can be cheaper and more powerful, a sentiment echoed by Goss.

"We've learned an awful lot since we were designing the system for 2011. It's realistic to keep the costs down and put the power up. But probably the knock-on effect of that is that it's going to be a little bit bigger and a little bit heavier.

"A lot of the improvements we made to our KERS last year were in the ability to downsize it and make it easier to package in the car and get the weight distribution correct. It's possible." Planet F1