MARCH 31, 1997

Cosworth to sell Ford customer V10s

COSWORTH ENGINEERING will be selling its Ford V10 engines to customers in Formula 1 next year, although Stewart Grand Prix will continue to benefit from exclusive developments of the engines as Ford's factory team in F1.

The aim is to supply two teams with the V10s - which will probably cost around $8m a year - a good price when compared to the Mugen Honda and Mecachrome engine deals which are both expected to cost over $10m.

Cosworth Engineering, which is part of the automotive division of Vickers plc, is under pressure to produce more profits for the company and supplying customer engines in F1 is a good way of doing that. Cosworth has also recently signed a four-year exclusive contract to work in F1 exclusively for the Ford Motor Company, which means that the company cannot build engines for other motor manufacturers. Cosworth did have talks with Audi some years ago when the Ford-Cosworth relationship was a little strained.

The arrival of customer Ford V10s is good news for F1 as it means that the much-discussed lack of available power units will not be a problem unless there is a dramatic increase in the number of teams involved, which is currently not very likely.