Cosworth Returns to Formula One in 2010

Formula One history will come back to the fold next year as legendary engine builders Cosworth return to the Formula One paddock after a reluctant three-year break. They return with brand new three year deals to supply 2010 Formula One new comers Compos Grand Prix, Manor Grand Prix, and Team US F1, with the powerplant they need to compete in Formula One.

Cosworth engines will be heard in Formula One again in 2010

The business idea of British engineers Mike Costin and Keith Duckworth, Cosworth started life in a diminutive English workshop, in an out of the way section of London in 1958. This duo was sure the path to success was to design and build race engines, and immediately began development of a Ford 105E powerplant. Two years later their work would be rewarded as Jim Clark raced to victory in a Formula One Junior competition held at Goodwood, in a Lotus 18 race car powered by their creation.

The sun shined on Cosworth over the next few years and culminated in them signing a deal with Ford to design a new three-liter Formula One engine in 1966. This deal spawned the iconic DFV (Double Four Valve) engine and was the beginning of a historic-relationship that would span four decades of Formula One history.

Duckworth’s DFV was a design that provided a technological leap forward in terms of powerplant development and remains to this day the most successful engine in Formula One history. The first engine debuted for Lotus in the 1967 Dutch Grand Prix with Jim Clark driving it to its historic win in its first Formula One appearance.

This same design would go on to win a total of 155 Grand Prix races over the next decade and a half of Formula One history, with iconic names like Emerson Fittipaldi, Jackie Stewart, James Hunt, and Nelson Piquet behind the wheel.

Cosworth would replace the DFV design with a new one, the HB, by the time the end of the 1980s. This new engine design would go on to win 11 races between 1989 and 1993, before being retired for the new Zetec V8 F1, which would power Michael Schumacher to a title for Benetton in 1990s.

In 1996, the Ford-owned Cosworth designed the new V10 engine for the Stewart Grand Prix team, which after a three year relationship, resulted in Johnny Herbert winning the 1999 European Grand Prix. In 2000, Cosworth was still providing engines to the Jaguar team and several other teams.

Ford left Formula One at the end of the 2004 season and Cosworth once again would become the property of a new owner. In 2007, Cosworth’s Formula One run of almost four decades came to an end when deals with Williams-Toyota and Ferrari came to an end and were not renewed. Cosworth was only taking a forced break from Formula One, though, and next year we’ll get to hear and feel the power of this iconic and historic companies engines on a Formula One track, once again.

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