© Steve Etherington for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff spoke out against Ferrari and Red Bull’s power unit convergence proposal.
Following Honda’s F1 exit announcement, Red Bull said it would be open to keep developing the Japanese manufacturer’s engine themselves, but only if an engine freeze is instituted.
Although Mercedes agreed with the proposal, Ferrari and Renault were opposed to it, at least at first. Now, Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto says the team is open to such a freeze, provided that there is a mechanism put in place for power unit convergence, so that there are no big differences in performance between the manufacturers. Red Bull team boss Christian Horner agrees.
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff previously claimed that such balance of performance-style systems had “no place” in F1 and now believes this rule could mark the beginning of the end for Formula 1.
“I don’t see any difference, and I think this would be the beginning of the end [of F1],” said the Austrian.
“The power unit is not only measured by the sheer max power, but it is subject to driveability, to weight, to cooling, and introducing a simple formula that fits all isn’t possible.
“It’s not something that Mercedes would endorse.”
If you like SilverArrows.Net, consider supporting us by buying us a coffee!
When a possibility of a token system being re-introduced to Formula 1 to allow manufacturers who lag in performance to catch up was brought up, Wolff called the suggestion an “insult”.
“We had a token system in the past when the regulations came out, and because some of our colleagues wished the tokens to be removed in order to catch up, we agreed to a removal of the tokens.
“Now some of our colleagues come back with a system of convergence, which honestly said, it is bit of an insult.
“When you look at the last few years, and the development of performances in the engine, Ferrari was clearly the most powerful engine in 2018, and by far the best in 2019.
“And we developed our engine, we continued to push the boundaries, and we brought something to the track in 2020 that we were hoping would catch up.
“That’s why I cannot comprehend that any car manufacturer that trusts in his abilities to develop a power unit and a chassis would want some kind of mechanism that would balance the power units out.
“I don’t think anybody would accept such a humiliation in public.
“I’ve seen it in DTM where weights were introduced based on your performances, and the only thing we heard after qualifying was ‘well I would have qualified on pole if I wouldn’t have had 5kg in the car’. That was the whole narrative of the DTM seasons.
“Formula 1 must stay very, very far away from that, or we end up [like] in GTs where you design power units for the sole topic of manipulating the system,” concluded Wolff.
