It seems there may be very few if any customers other than Red Bull.
The natural audience for this sort of thing would be Toro Rosso, Red Bull, Force India, Lotus, Manor, Haas and Sauber - basically the low-cost teams plus Red Bull which has its own self-created issue.
Following the articles it seems several teams are not in favor of the idea:
Sauber - Monisha Kaltenborn has said she thinks its bad for F1 because it will reduce manufacturer interest in F1, and she believes manufacturer interest is important for the sport. Kaltenborn also mentioned the importance of high technology to being able to market F1 to sponsors.
Haas - have already said they aren't interested and prefer to stick with ferrari. Haas specifically said that he felt F1 had to be the pinnacle of tech and that the third-party engine idea is going backwards.
Lotus - will be against this once it becomes Renault
Force India - will be against this once it becomes Aston Martin (given that Aston Martin is partially owned by Mercedes and installing Mercedes engines in its newer road cars which makes for a great cross-marketing opportunity)
So basically only Manor and Red Bull are in favor. And by the way I'm not sure if Manor will commit to the FIA engine given that they are telling their sponsors they are a rising team with Mercedes engines and a Williams gearbox.
If this boils down to being just a Red Bull engine, then I think it will look very bad for the FIA since effectively they would be throwing the rules out the window for just 1 team. Plus it would make it very difficult to set the engine parity rules in a way that won't backfire. Imagine they achieve actual parity taking into account power, fuel, weight, etc. In that scenario Red Bull will probably dominate because they have the best chassis. Then the OEMs will say the engine rules weren't set fairly and Red Bull has the better engine. it will be very hard for the FIA to defend their actions without other teams on the new engine.
I think the FIA engine is a no-go.
The natural audience for this sort of thing would be Toro Rosso, Red Bull, Force India, Lotus, Manor, Haas and Sauber - basically the low-cost teams plus Red Bull which has its own self-created issue.
Following the articles it seems several teams are not in favor of the idea:
Sauber - Monisha Kaltenborn has said she thinks its bad for F1 because it will reduce manufacturer interest in F1, and she believes manufacturer interest is important for the sport. Kaltenborn also mentioned the importance of high technology to being able to market F1 to sponsors.
Haas - have already said they aren't interested and prefer to stick with ferrari. Haas specifically said that he felt F1 had to be the pinnacle of tech and that the third-party engine idea is going backwards.
Lotus - will be against this once it becomes Renault
Force India - will be against this once it becomes Aston Martin (given that Aston Martin is partially owned by Mercedes and installing Mercedes engines in its newer road cars which makes for a great cross-marketing opportunity)
So basically only Manor and Red Bull are in favor. And by the way I'm not sure if Manor will commit to the FIA engine given that they are telling their sponsors they are a rising team with Mercedes engines and a Williams gearbox.
If this boils down to being just a Red Bull engine, then I think it will look very bad for the FIA since effectively they would be throwing the rules out the window for just 1 team. Plus it would make it very difficult to set the engine parity rules in a way that won't backfire. Imagine they achieve actual parity taking into account power, fuel, weight, etc. In that scenario Red Bull will probably dominate because they have the best chassis. Then the OEMs will say the engine rules weren't set fairly and Red Bull has the better engine. it will be very hard for the FIA to defend their actions without other teams on the new engine.
I think the FIA engine is a no-go.