Toto Wolff accuses Formula One engine rivals of ganging up against Mercedes

SAKHIR – Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has accused rival Formula One manufacturers of ganging up against his team to put pressure on the governing FIA to change the engine rules, but said it would make no difference.

The Austrian was speaking at pre-season testing in Bahrain on Feb 19, a day after the FIA announced an e-vote proposal to close a suspected loophole by proposing a change from August.

Rivals have accused Mercedes, who supply engines to champions McLaren as well as their own works team, Williams and Renault-owned Alpine, of exploiting a grey area to gain performance through compression ratios and thermal expansion of engine components.

Wolff told reporters the pre-season favourites would accept the rule change but questioned the way it had been brought about.

“Either we stay with the regulations like we are or the e-vote goes ahead on Friday with the proposal that came from the FIA. Both are OK for us,” he said.

“We said all along that this looks like a storm in a teacup.

“It doesn’t change anything for us, whether we stay like this or whether we change the new regulations. We also want to be good citizens in the sport.”

If the proposal is accepted for August, that would still give them and customer teams the first 13 races of the 24-round season before any change.

Red Bull team boss Laurent Mekies said on Feb 18 he welcomed clarity.

“We don’t think it’s noise,” he said, in reference to Williams chief James Vowles, who had earlier described the debate as “just noise that will probably go away, probably in the next 48 hours”.

“It’s true that it is early days, but it will come along very quickly where it’s a competitive advantage – whether it’s one, two, three whatever number of tenths is going to make a difference,” added Mekies.

Ferrari, Audi, Red Bull and Honda are the other power unit providers, with all facing a big challenge this season as F1 starts a new engine era.

“You’ve developed a component to the regulations and that’s been confirmed and then everybody else gangs up and says it’s illegal. The regulators are being put under pressure. Is that how it should go?” said Wolff.

“Philosophically I disagree. But that’s what has happened the last 50 years in Formula One and this time we were on the receiving end. I guess the next time maybe we will be ganging up against somebody else because we believe it’s not right.”

The Austrian also fired a broadside against reports that fuel supplied to Mercedes by Petronas has allegedly not yet been approved ahead of the season’s first grand prix on March 8 in Melbourne.

“This is another of the stories. We were told compression ratio is something that we were illegal (with), which is total b***s***. And now the next story comes up that our fuel is illegal,” he said.

“Maybe tomorrow we’re inventing something else? I don’t know, I’ve been on the Epstein files, God knows what.”

Moments later Wolff appeared to backtrack on his reference to the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

“You’re not happy with me saying that, no?” he appeared to ask his media representative. “I was too young. What? Oh, yeah, I must not say that.”

The US Justice Department in January released the latest cache of so-called Epstein files – more than three million documents, photos and videos related to its investigation into sex criminal Epstein, who committed suicide while in custody in 2019. REUTERS, AFP