With the 2004 Formula One season now officially over, it's time to analyse what engine suppliers have done their development homework throughout the year, and who has fallen behind. Atlas F1's Karl Ludvigsen used the Brazilian Grand Prix to rank F1's power units

It was always going to be tough for Rubens to win at home this year. Tyre problems apart, Ferrari's decision to cease development of their current car after it iced both titles inevitably left their red cars at the mercy of German juggernauts. Both German luxury-car makers and their teams had a heck of a lot to prove after seasons that rated somewhere between disappointing and dire. Under pressure from Munich and Stuttgart, Williams and McLaren pulled up their socks and delivered a respectable effort at the end of the season.

Beneficial efforts by both German engine makers were especially evident in Brazil. My favorite index for engine performance is that climb up the hill to the finish line at Interlagos, the famous Sector 3. Apart from a curve at the bottom there's nothing much for the driver to do but put his foot down and see what his engine can do. For this reason, above all, I'm really sorry that Brazil has been moved to the end of the season.

The work done by the Germans is good, judging by an average of their cars through Sector 3 during the final practice and qualifying. BMW was fastest of all up the hill, followed by Mercedes-Benz. That shows how well Mercedes in particular has pulled itself together since the beginning of the season. The race result indicates as well that the boys from Brixworth have also mastered the challenge of the one-engine-per-weekend rule.

Who was next-best after these two? You'll never guess. It was Renault, a whisker better than Ferrari. Slick aerodynamics may well be playing a part, but I have to credit a strong performance from the 72-degree-vee ten that Renault brought into service for 2004 after ditching the wide-angle unit. It may interest you to know that this vee-ten benefited greatly from work done at Leafield by the engine-development unit set up there by Tom Walkinshaw in the twilight months of his TWR operation. Tom brought in Cosworth's Geoff Goddard to head the unit, which was snapped up by Renault when TWR and Arrows collapsed. That they were doing good work is proven by the fine results achieved by Renault this season.

You may feel that I've loaded the dice against Ferrari by averaging the performance of the Saubers in with the red cars, but I think it's fair. Ferrari's haven't pushed their engine development at the end of the year, while Sauber's Petronas-branded engines have been given updates that should grant them parity with the Maranello team's tens. And Massa's Sauber was impressively quick up the hill, better than Michael at least once. The Ferraris showed good performance in Sector 3, but just not so good as the other guys mentioned above. Paolo Martinelli's merry men have some work to do over the winter.

Next slowest, by a significant margin, were the BAR-Hondas. We heard a lot about the screamers that Honda were going to supply for the end of the season, but if they were installed in the cars of Button and Sato they didn't deliver up the hill at Interlagos. Honda has often had a tendency to go for top-end power at the expense of the torque that's essential to make a Grand Prix car accelerate; this may have been the case in Brazil. If so I'm sure there'll be some hard talk over the winter between BAR and Honda, now that the boy Button has been confirmed as one of the team's pilots for 2005. BAR will be strongly motivated to give him a car that will help Button beat the best from BMW-Williams.

We've heard a lot about Toyota's great engines, but they failed to walk the talk at Interlagos. You'd have expected them to compensate up the hill for shortcomings elsewhere on the track, but they didn't deliver. If aerodynamics helped the Renaults it may have harmed the Toyotas, but if competitive power were there it should have been manifested. It will be needed next year. I was glad to hear Mike Gascoyne say that Toyota couldn't afford another disappointing season like 2004. In Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli the team have two drivers who have shown they can rival the best. If Toyota don't perform in 2005, the fault will lie obviously with the cars in a manner that hasn't previously been transparent.

The Cosworths trailed in last place in the dash up the hill, and by a substantial margin. Only the Jaguars occasionally squeaked under the 17-second barrier that all the rest of their competitors managed to better — the best by almost four-tenths of a second. This is no surprise, of course. Denuded of its best talent and lacking a major development budget, Cosworth Racing has being doing well just to supply engines to its contracted customers. As a result, the best Sector 3 times of Cosworth-powered cars were only four-tenths of a second faster than they'd been in 2001, while BMW improved its times by more than six-tenths.

So there are some surprises — but not many — in the 2004 power stakes. Both Williams and McLaren can go into the winter break with their heads held higher after a good race in Brazil. Indeed, Ron Dennis will be gloating after seeing his 2005-contracted drivers finishing one-two. But they shouldn't count next season's chickens too soon.

While McLaren and Williams have been throwing men and money at their 2004 cars, trying to rescue disastrous seasons to please their impatient engine suppliers, Rory Byrne's team have been beavering away on their 2005 model while the championship-winning 2004 car coasted respectably through the balance of this year's races. This, gentlemen, is a recipe for success. McLaren in particular know it; this used to be their trademark. Only when they get back to that kind of forward planning will they have a chance to challenge Ferrari consistently again.

About the author:
Long time columnist at Atlas F1, Karl Ludvigsen is an award-winning author and historian who managed racing programs for Fiat in America in the late 1970s and Ford of Europe in the early 1980s. He is the author of seven books about racing drivers and numerous books about classic racing cars and engines, all of which draw extensively on the many images in his Ludvigsen Library in Suffolk, England.

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