Harry Westwood, owner and team principal of Westwood Racing, has finally revealed his source of engines for next year... Westwood Racing have currently been running Ferrari engines, which have rarely, if ever, failed them. However, Harry Westwood was not content with them. He claimed "They messed around with the engine too much, last minute design changes had to be made to fit their new engine, which affected us and stressed out many mechanics"
Harry Westwood revealed a few days ago that he had recently signed a new engine contract, but wouldn't say who was going to be powering the Southampton based team next year. However, he then suddenly revealed the deal had fallen through, and he was considering other options. It can now be revealed that he had signed with Judd for next year in the series; however Judd had promised him an engine much better and more reliable than the last. Despite this offer, when put into the 2005 RBR, it was terrible at accelaration, top speed and engine braking with it was near impossible. It then sealed it's fate by blowing up. Judd and Westwood agreed to go their separate ways, as Judd knew they wouldn't be able to develop a good enough engine for the series, and were more focused on top quality engines for other racing series. Once again, Judd's venture into F1 has failed horribly. This left Westwood without an engine for the next year. However, it's not like they were short of options. They had been approached by Yamaha, Peugeot, Jaguar and Bradley Downton about engines. He had very lenghty talks with them all, and was said to be "considering them all very seriously". He was said to be deliberating over the matter for some time. He eventually politely declined all engine offers. However, his talks with Downton had picked up again. Everyone thought something was going to happen, and Harry and Bradley started spending lengths of time behind closed doors. People even started debating whether it was purely engine talk, but it most certainly was all about engines. People were waiting and waiting, waiting for the pen to hit the paper just above the dotted line. But it didn't. Instead, the talks continued. Just as the press got bored, Harry Westwood called a press conference for a big announcement. The room was alive with chatter as people flooded in to discover this big announcement. The surging mass of people made things uncomfortable in the small room very quickly. However, Harry seemed to compensate for this by hurrying up with his announcement. "I am proud to announce that this year, we will be powered by... Ourselves! That's right, we've taken a leaf out of Bradley Downton's book and decided to make our own engines. We have done this because this way we can work on our cars sooner. We won't have to be waiting on our provider so we can build the chassis, we can build the engine and chassis and everything can be developed together. I'm sure we won't be the fastest straight away, or the most reliable, these things come over time. However, I feel this is a step in the right direction for this team." When asked about what all the talks about engines with Bradley Downton were for, Harry replied "Well I was seriously considering asking them to be our supplier. However, it didn't feel right and we agreed to not do the deal. However, after that, I approached Bradley for some friendly discussion on what benefits making my own engine would offer. He showed me some interesting stuff I was not previously aware of, and it inspired me completely." So another team is supplying their own engines, whilst Yamaha, Peugeot and Downton still struggle to get customers. This is the end of the F1 silly season for Westwood Racing, but for many it's still very lively.
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