Former BAR boss and ex-manager of Jacques Villeneuve Craig Pollock has confirmed that he’s involved in a project named PURE to create a turbo customer engine for the 2013 rules.
In a press statement he announced that his project "Propulsion Universelle et Recuperation d'Energie", known as PURE, is already designing an engine for the new 2013 engines regulations that includes turbocharged, 1.6-litre, 4-cylinder powerplants for the F1 prototypes.
The PURE corporation includes Mecachrome –long associated with Renault during late 90s– while development is being carried out by related companies TEOS Powertrain Engineering, IFP Energies Nouvelles and D2T, all of whom are partners in the project. The project is consulted by former Renault engine staff F1 engine head Christian Contzen, aerospace expert Robin Southwell and turbo expert Jean-Pierre Boudy who played a key role in the development of Renault’s successful turbo era during 70s-80s and was responsible for the Pegeuot engines during 90s.
It’s not clear where the financing backup for the PURE project is coming from or what PURE’s chances are of finding a team willing to take a risk on a new project. Moreover, while a new Concorde Agreement hasn't yet been defined and a war for the control of F1 Management mainly between Rupert Murdoch and Bernie Ecclestone has been emerged, nothing is still certain about the 2013 engine regulations.
In effect, PURE project will be in competition with Cosworth and the rest current engine manufacturers like Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault etc, although noone of the current engine suppliers has started yet to develop or even make any paper design of the 2013 turbo-specificated engine but VW has also welcomed a potential new turbo era in 2013.
Yet, his project is fully encouraged by FIA President Jean Todt, as the announcement of a new "green" manufacturer will defintely give him more ammunition as he tries to defend Bernie Ecclestone’s attempts to change the 2013 rules package, and the FIA President lost no time to offer a supportive quote to Pollock's project:
“We welcome PURE to Formula One. The rule changes for 2013 have been developed to provide lower cost, greener and more fuel efficient technologies for Formula One. We wish PURE every success in developing powertrains compliant with the new FIA regulations.”
Pollock commented at Reuters:
"The vision for PURE is to be a leader in the development of the next generation power train technology which must respond to the demands for a cleaner environment. The 2013 F1 power train regulation changes offer PURE an immediate platform to field test and validate future technologies for implementation in other industries... The project has started up since the beginning of the year. And we are in a design and development stage at the moment but we now have a good package that we can go forward and start talking to teams. Our design team have actually been working on this since the announcement on Dec. 10. We are very much down the road, probably the same if not further ahead than the key manufacturers.
Formula One to us is one project but we have other projects that we are working on in marine engines, aviation, helicopter engines. We are definitely looking to use Formula One as a test bed to be able to take cleaner technology back into the mainstream.
There is no question that the reason we’ve announced PURE this weekend is because we feel that we now have a good enough argument and enough information to be able to go towards the teams and present what we are and what we intend to do. Our discussions with the teams will start very shortly. Whether we get anything signed, let’s wait and see. Formula 1 is a tough business and we’re competing with very, very serious competitors in Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault and Cosworth. No promises are going to be made but we’re definitely going to try and get in there. I understand how hard the market it is, but the reality is that the group of people that we have behind the project, and the group of companies behind it too, are not just start-ups.
Mecachrome will be putting together, manufacturing and constructing the engines - fabricating them. The development is being done by TEOS, IFP and D2T. So we are a very tight team, and being tight means that our costs are an awful lot lower - and that means we should be able to carry over this cost reduction to teams and give them a cost-effective power train."
Pollock expects to be present in the Spanish Grand Prix paddock at Barcelona and stated that the engine will be tested on a dyno later during 2011 - which he thinks makes it the first 2013-spec engine to do so.
"It will be towards the end of this year. Talking to various people inside the sport we reckon that we are just about ahead of the field. Don't forget that Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault are all running current V8 engine programmes and they still have to go until the end of 2012, so they all have to carry on developing their engines. We are concentrated on one engine at the moment."
Pollock’s return to the F1 scene as a turbo engine provider follows his role as 1997 Champion Jacques Villeneuve’s manager from the early stages of his racing career and Team Principal of British American Racing (BAR) between 1999 and 2002.
Villeneuve is apparently not involved with Pure and no potential participation -at least not yet- in the project hasn't been yet announced but interestingly, the French-Canadian 1997 F1 champion tried unsuccessfully in 2010 with Durango Racing to bid for the 13th F1 team position....
