[gwyllion]

The December 2012 edition of RCE has an interview with John Judd: http://gb.zinio.com/reader.jsp?issue...&prev=sub&p=26

Judd believes that he can produce a competitive gasoline for 2014.

The technical part of the regulations is defined. We have energy usage and the engine is free. I totally support that. The difficult bit is that it is easy for Audi and Toyota; they can just go and do their hybrid, but for use, will our customer teams do the 830 kg non-hybrid petrol engine? Perhaps we'll do a V10 for that. The name of the game is getting the best fuel consumption. We can do a god job with the V8 or the V10. The V8 is 3.4 liters, the V10 5.5, so the horsepower will be between 400-600, the mid-point. You can do that with either engine with not a lot of revs.

A normally aspirated petrol engine wants to be light, run low rpm, direct injection, and it is unlikely that we will do a turbo engine. The development cost of doing that would put it out of reach of the privateers. I don't know if the teams will go 830 kg non-hybrid, or mild hybrid solution. Any hybrid will be more complex and expensive for the teams to manage, and we need opinions from teams to do that and see what it is going to be.

It is intended that we will have privateers, but they won't be able to win. You might do OK in the first year because some of the hybrids will trip up, but the ACO's intention for the hybrids is that they will win. Back in the early 2000s, Audi was wiping the floor at Le Mans with a petrol engine, no hybrid, no diesel, just that they had more monkeys and typewriters and did a better job. The manufacturer domination is nothing new, and not attributable to the diesel or hybrid.

It is down to fuel consumption, and you need the best you can get. I am confident that we can produce a good petrol engine. The average power over a lap will be achieved by the best engine that has the best fuel consumption, grams per kilowatt hour. We have ideas how to do that and they include producing a light engine, low revving, reduce friction losses and we can do that OK. The question is whether or not anyone will be there, and we rely on that. We are like a corner shop. We need to make more money than we spend.