Leading Formula 1 car designers Ross Brawn and Adrian Newey think it important that the drive to cut costs in the sport does not rob it of the kind of technical challenges that have seen them enthused by new rules introduced this year.
While teams mull over how best to impose a budget cap in the sport, the men whose cars have dominated F1 for almost two decades hope that the drive to reduce expenditure does not rob men like them of opportunities such as those created by this year's major aerodynamics overhaul.
Newey in particular says he has been enthused by the challenge of the F1 rules changes for this season - having admitted the onus on car refinement that comes from stable regulations did little for him.
In recent years, Newey has often hinted about a switch to yacht design when he decides to quit his involvement in motor racing. And although conceding in Spain that he was still likely to take that route eventually, he said the 2009 rules had excited him.
"What I have generally said is that since I graduated out of university then my whole career has been in motor racing," explained Newey.
"I would like at some stage to have done something else rather than just retiring finally having only ever been in motor racing, and I would still like to do that. I don't know exactly when that will be, but at some stage I would like to try my hand at something else.
"The yachting idea really came from the fact that what I found fascinating about motor racing is that it is one of the very few sports where you have the blend of technology and the sportsmen � in this case obviously the driver. If you go outside the motor racing in the broadest umbrella, so including rallying and motorcycling perhaps, there are very few sports where you have that mixture, but yachting is one of them.
"I like these big rule changes, I find them stimulating. Previous to this year the biggest change we had of any significance was 2005 when the front wing was raised and the diffusers were restricted more, which was a sort of medium size change. Before that, you really have to go back to 1998 before we had the last largest change.
"I think when you have a period of high regulatory stability then it becomes more of an evolutionary numbers game � it is how many iterations you can do. They are not necessarily clever iterations, they are just lots of iterations, whereas I prefer the solutions that are more think about it and not have to do so many iterative steps."
Brawn team principal Ross Brawn said: "It's a fact that stability � when the rules are right � is the cheapest way of going forward in many ways because you can plan, you can organise yourself but one of the difficulties of Formula 1 is that we're turning into Swiss watchmakers.
"We're just refining everything to the nth degree instead of being able to make conceptual changes or innovative changes because the rules are becoming more and more restrictive. In order to try and contain the costs, we're just closing everything down so much that I'm not sure that that's what Formula 1 should be.
"We, as a team, both in Honda days and now, support the idea of a constraint on resources of some sort, be it financial, be it people, be it some constraint where everything is enclosed and within that enclosure there is more freedom because most of the technical changes we're doing are to save cost, so if we can save cost by saying 'that's all you're allowed to spend' and have more freedom, for me that's a more exciting Formula 1, for us, for the public and we've always supported that concept.
"What we want to do as a team is find a solution to that with all the other teams. We don't want difficulties in Formula 1, we want to work with the FIA, we want to work with all the teams and find a solution that fits with that. But for me, we're going down the Swiss watch making route with Formula 1 and it's not what I believe Formula 1 should be."
Teams have begun talks with FIA advisor Tony Purnell this weekend about the implementation of a budget cap in F1, with much resistance to the concept of a two-tier F1 in 2010.
Renault director of engineering Pat Symonds said he was sceptical about an F1 running to two sets of regulations, and thought there was a better solution.
"I don't think two tier regulations ever work," he explained. "We've had them in F1 to some extent with turbo charged engines and normally aspirated engines. We see it in touring cars and in sports cars with diesel engines and spark ignition engines and trying to get equality between them and we see it doesn't work very well.
"What we are talking about here with the published 2010 regulations is something much more radical than trying to equalise engine torque and engine power and an area under the curve of a power curve. We are talking about hugely radical solutions."
He added: "I want a cost effective F1. I wouldn't care if it cost 200 million, providing income was 250 million. That is the most important thing.
"I think it is possible we could generate more income in F1, it is one of the world's leading brands. But although I say it must be cost effective, I must say the majority of the problems lie with the high cost of F1, not the income. I am not against the reduced costs of F1. I just want it done in a considered manner."
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