Formula One news
KERS a costly mistake, says Domenicali
22 June 2009Stefano Domenicali has become the latest in a long list of people to label the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) as an expensive waste of money for Formula One, particularly when considering the current economic climate. BMW scrapped the system completely last weekend and McLaren elected not to use the device at Silverstone, leaving the Ferraris as the only KERS-shod cars.
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New for 2009, KERS allows drivers to make use of an 80 horsepower boost for 6.6 seconds per lap, either all together or in short bursts. The system, which converts engine power under braking to stored electrical energy, is deployed at the touch of a button on the car's steering wheel; however, expensive to develop and used by only four teams (BMW, Ferrari, McLaren and Renault) during the season, the innovative device has not been popular in the paddock.
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| The risk of electric shocks from KERS has seen mechanics wearing rubber gloves this year |
"I think we have to learn from it," said Ferrari team principal Domenicali. "One thing is the new technology and the fact that, for sure, KERS on the one side is the future of road cars, but we are dealing in an environment that is totally different; we are in a racing environment where there are a lot of things, a lot of compromises, that we have to take in order to ensure that this new technology could be beneficial to the performance of the car - at the end of the day, this is what it is all about."
With the likes of BMW, who pushed hard for the system's debut in F1, now having abandoned its project for good, the majority of teams have also been critical at the fact that use of the 30-40kg (approximately 5-6st) component forced drivers to lose weight in a jockey-like fashion to avoid exceeding cars' maximum weight allowances. "The reality is that the facts show that KERS, in the way that it is now, is not ready to be performing under this set of regulations - that is a fact," Domenicali continued. "This is something that we need to learn from in the future."
He added that, in a time of budget caps and massive financial caution, the sport must be careful in making potentially expensive future decisions, and added that the funds could have been used in a more efficient manner. "I know that if you put that amount of money into the development of the car, then you would have been fast like Red Bull today - it was millions of Euros," he concluded.
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