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Cosworth has thrown more cold water on a mooted plan to offer cheap customer engines to independent teams.
The company presently supplies both Jordan and Minardi - as well as furnishing works V10s on Ford's F1 team Jaguar Racing - with customer engines at a reputed cost of up to $25 million a year.
But the FIA recently said it had reached an agreement to scrap a ban on traction control if manufacturers vowed to make customer V10s available at reasonable rates from '04.
Speculation puts that figure at $10 million, although BMW - and now Cosworth - says it is not commercially viable.
A senior Cosworth executive said it is not realistic for a competitive Formula One engine package to be provided for that figure.
He says the only way it could be achieved is through a 'subsidy from a manufacturer.'
BMW reckons supplying competitive engines at $10 million would actually cost Munich money. 'And we are most definitely not prepared to do that,' said director Mario Theissen.
Mercedes-Benz hinted that it was ready to supply engines to a second team by 2004 but competition boss Norbert Haug refused to confirm his company's former boasts in Austria last weekend.
'We made the offer,' he said, 'but nothing is yet fixed. Everything is open.'
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