Mercedes’ rivals are pushing hard behind the scenes for even more freedom in design improvements.
Toto Wolff says F1’s struggling teams would be the victims if a push to relax the engine development ‘freeze’ is successful.
As Mercedes continues to utterly dominate in the first season of the turbo V6 era, behind-the-scenes discussions have turned to allowing struggling rivals Ferrari and Renault to catch up.
For cost-cutting purposes, F1 operates under strict engine homologation rules, more commonly referred to as a ‘freeze’ that severely limits performance development.
Under the existing rules, engine makers will be able to change up to 48 per cent of their 2014 ‘power unit’ design ahead of the next pre-2015 homologation.