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Bernie backing comeback for F1 V10's

LONDON, England - Bernie Ecclestone is refusing to give up his crusade against F1's current hybrid V6 engine formula.

While talking to a group of reporters on Thursday (Dec 11 2014) - among them Forbes' business journalist Christian Sylt - the F1 chief exec revealed that he wants to propose the return of the loud and crackling V10 engines for 2016.

He wants to table his thoughts at the December 18 2014 meeting of the powerful 'strategy group'.

LOUDER ENGINES

Asked if he would prefer V8 or V10, and referring to the teams and manufacturers, 84-year-old Ecclestone answered: "It's up to them."

Ecclestone added, to counter any argument that abandoning the quieter energy-recovery-boosted turbos would be a backward step, the 2016 engines would be branded as 'hybrid' and have an energy recovery system. He also pooh-poohed suggestions that automakers such as Honda and Mercedes would walk away by insisting it would be "a bit of a dream for them to build a normal engine and develop it to about 750kW".

Ecclestone denied that potentially putting off Volkswagen might be another obstacle, as the German giant had been "out there for long enough and hasn't made a big enough effort to come in".

Fascinatingly, Ecclestone also said the International Automobile Federation might not be an obstacle to the move, given that its president Jean Todt "sold the rights" in a recent commercial deal. "The strategy group that we have... we made a contribution (equivalent to R464-million a year) to buy that. It sold the rights to have this new group set up in the way we thought it should."
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