F1: Dyer sidelined after 2010 failures

In a statement yesterday, which Ferrari did not tweet (despite dozens of tweets in recent weeks) the team announced "Pat Fry will, in addition to his current role, take on the job of head of race track engineering. Up until yesterday, this position was held by Chris Dyer and his role within the company will be redefined in the next few days."

Dyer has been widely blamed for the strategy in the Abu Dhabi race which, intended to put Alonso ahead of Webber, instead put him back into the pack and allowed Vettel to win the Championship.Recently, Ferrari recruited Red Bull's chief strategist Neil Martin.

Ferrari is in a hostile mood: it is seriously unimpressed with the World Motor Sport Council's decision, announced in December, to a new specification for the F1 powertrain.

Already the mighty engines of the mid 1970s have been steadily downgraded and at what some see as a measly 2.4 litres in v8 configuration, they are relatively weedy. At least, until the figures are shown: the current engines are pumping out the same power as the turbo cars of those earlier days.

So the plan is to reduce the engine capacity to 1.6 litres - with four cylindars. But, get this: they will have turbos and, startlingly, KERS.

Ferrari President Luca di Montezemolo is spitting spanners, according to a report in German magazine Auto Motor und Sport earlier this week. Bemoaning the end of the 12 cylinder engines, he said that Ferrari was not going to build four cylinder engines for the road just because they are needed for F1. "For the top class of racing, it sounds a bit pathetic," he said.

He's got a point: the noise and smell are part of the point of going racing, even as a spectator. Bernie Ecclestone, Niki Lauda and others have been quoted in various media as saying that the new smaller engines will risk losing the character of the sport.

Jean Todt, FIA president, says there will be no problem and that the 2013 cars will "produce a great sound."

Hm: he needs to go to watch an Asia GT race. All the newer machinery runs around the track in relative silence, the squealing of tyres being almost the only sound indicating that cars are racing instead of going on a Sunday drive. But the older Honda NSX, with its balls-out 12 cylinder power pack sounds like racing cars should sound. Loud and proud.

Perhaps the great winner in this will be Group Lotus which has the technology to make electric cars sound like real ones, the idea being to reduce the incidence of people walking off pavements in front of silent cars. Perhaps they can synthesise the sound of racing cars over the years and teams will be able to choose what their cars will sound like.