With HRT switching their driver line-up, it made me wonder what exactly this does in terms of the “8 engines” rule.
Does Yamamoto get a separate supply of 8 engines on top of the 8 for Senna and 8 for Chandhok?
OR, given that Yamamoto has raced in both car 20 and car 21 (ie Senna’s car and Chandhok’s car) on separate occasions, has he taken 1 engine from each driver’s allocation?
The reason I ask is that either way, it has implications for other teams to manipulate the rule.
If the rule is 8 engines per driver, then if a driver runs out of engines, can the team being in another driver for the last few races and get a whole new set of engines without penalties?
If the rule is 8 engines per car, then if Alonso runs out of engines, can Ferrari get around the penalties be saying that they are going to switch him to Massa’s car (ie, car 7, not car 8, maybe even placing an all-new driver in car 8 if required)?