FOTA to Push for KERS Ban Starting 2010

According to Renault F1 boss Flavio Briatore, the Formula One Teams Association will allegedly push for the discontinuance of the Kinetic Energy Recovery System in Formula 1, starting next season. When interviewed by Italian newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport, Briatore made it very clear that most of teams have agreed to scrap the new technology from 2010 onwards.

As it was in the case of the controversial double diffusers, Briatore blames the FIA for creating a chaotic set of rules and not documenting themselves prior to their implementation. So far, the KERS unit have cost all teams plenty of funds and have led to basically nowhere. Non-KERS cars are just as competitive as KERS-powered ones – even more competitive, we might add – making the unit practically useless during the races.

With the F1 constructors pushed to invest tons of money into this new technology during the off-season, they are now facing plenty of new investments in the new double diffuser. All together, the FIA have caused the teams to push the costs for 2009 higher than initially planned.

“Yes, FOTA wants to ban it from 2010. We understood immediately that KERS was a money-sucking genius, and the FIA should have taken note of that. It should have been discussed before the start of the season, and the same goes for the diffusers. Having failed to do that has forced on us expenses that are crazy as much as useless,” Briatore was quoted by the aforementioned source.

“The fault is the rules being unclear. They must become transparent again. It's either black or white. To this day I don't yet understand what the FIA means by hole in the diffuser, so I can imagine the embarrassment for the viewers. And besides that, we must all get back on the same footing: today in F1 there are some racing with KERS and some without, some with the super diffuser and some without. That's not good,” added the Italian.

However, FOTA's desire to ban the unit from 2010 onwards should hit the concrete wall most of the F1 fans know as Max Mosley. The FIA president was one of the first people to hurry KERS into the sport from as early as this year, while also announcing new technologies based on energy recovery for the years to come.

Under the conditions, eliminating the very precursor of those technologies after only one year of use, no matter how expensive it might turn out, is highly unlikely from the FIA. For the time being, we can only tell you Mosley is yet to respond to Briatore's comments. But I guess we all know what to expect anyway.