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After a lengthy debate among various stakeholders, the turbocharged engine will be back in F1 in 2014, after what will be a 26-year hiatus.

The return of the turbo has been in the pipeline for years. The theory is that turbos had more in common with current and future road-car thinking than the existing V-8s, and thus would be more attractive for manufacturers. The FIA's hope was that a change would attract new players—VW/Audi being the principal target—thus giving the sport a boost after the loss of Honda, Toyota and BMW during the depths of the global economic crisis.

The FIA announced late last year that a 1.4-liter inline-4 would be compulsory from 2013. The teams and manufacturers had been party to the decision process and appeared to have accepted the decision, but as time passed, they showed less and less enthusiasm for the format. Ferrari in particular complained that such an engine had nothing in common with its road-car range.

Then Bernie Ecclestone chimed in, complaining that a small I-4 turbo wouldn't sound like a proper F1 engine (although his Brabham F1 team won two titles with a BMW 1.5-liter turbo!). His concerns were part of a bigger picture—a political chess game with FIA President and turbo mentor Jean Todt—but he had a good point.

Initially Todt stood firm, but eventually he relented and agreed to the compromise of a 1.8-liter V-6. And since everyone had to start their R&D from scratch once more, the introduction date was moved back a year.

Todt is keen to use F1 as the FIA's flag bearer for green technologies, and the turbo engines come in tandem with an increase in the importance of energy recovery systems, and the novelty of compulsory use of an electric motor to power the car down the pit lane. There's also a major package of aerodynamic changes.

The new rules are manna for the engine designers, who became virtually superfluous under the V-8 freeze. However, there are huge cost implications and a spending war could be imminent. The FIA also failed to attract VW/Audi or any other major carmaker.

We've had some wonderfully close racing over the past few seasons and that's been due, in no small part, to the V-8 engine freeze. Should a manufacturer get a big jump on the others, everything could change. And then Bernie would have more than the noise to worry about...

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