Actually, there's very little competition between engine manufacturers. Engine development is frozen from the start of the season. This year, Mercedes got the e

Actually, there's very little competition between engine manufacturers. Engine development is frozen from the start of the season. This year, Mercedes got the engine very right, and Renault much less so. Ferrari have gotten it all wrong. Can Renault and Ferrari develop their engines over the course of a season? Nope. Not very competitive, is that? For true competition in engines, we have to go all the way back to 2005 (the end of the V-10 era) when V-10's like Honda's Suzuka Special punched out 1000 HP from 3 liters...on essentially pump fuel in a naturally aspirated engine. FIA's constant fiddling with engine regs has dramatically increased the cost of power...so much so, that a single PU (Power Unit in F1 parlance: Internal Combustion Engine, Hybrid Stuff)today costs as much as an entire season's worth of customer engines in 2005. F1 switched to V-8 hybrids in 2006, and quickly clamped down on development once there was parity in horsepower. And, let's not forget about the preposterous $500MM Mercedes spent developing this year's engine.