AUGUST 5, 2002
Whispers from Munich
BMW has had the most powerful engine in Formula 1 this year but problems with electronic systems and tyres have meant that the Williams-BMW team has won only one race so far this year. Everyone involved is keen to do better next year.
The engines produced in Munich under BMW Motorsport's Director of F1 Development Dr. Werner Laurenz - although the design team is headed by Heinz Paschen, who joined BMW from Toyota Racing Development in Costa Mesa, California at the start of 2000. Paschen produced the all-new P80 engine for 2001, a 90-degree, four-valve V10, cast and machined from aluminum. The team has taken more and more of the manufacturing work in-house to ensure the best possible quality and the team now working on the engines numbers more than 200. The program has benefited from input from BMW's Research and Development Center (known as FIZ) but the company remains highly secretive about how it has managed to find more power than other manufacturers.