Autobayng News Team
Formula 1’s rules to balance engine performance between manufacturers is working as intended, says Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff.
The FIA informed teams of its first changes under the new Additional Development Upgrade Opportunity regulations ahead of the last race in Spain.
The ADUO determines how many opportunities manufacturers have to introduce upgrades for their entire power units based on the performance of the combustion engines alone. Red Bull’s engine was found to be the strongest, while Mercedes, Ferrari and others were given extra chances to improve their designs.
Wolff said the system was designed to prevent one manufacturer gaining a significant advantage over their rivals, as was the case when F1 last changed its power unit rules. Mercedes won 51 out of 59 races from 2014 to 2016.
“It was [intended to be] a protection mechanism to avoid the 2014 situation, [where] one engine manufacturer was having such an advantage and was running away with testing mileage and race results,” he explained. “We were on the good end of that.
“But this is what we wanted to avoid, especially [with] newcomers coming in like Audi and to a certain degree Honda with Aston Martin, Red Bull, of course. That’s what it is, and that’s how it should be.”
F1 has other rules which are designed to level the performance of different teams. The teams which fall further behind in the constructors’ championship are allowed to conduct more aerodynamic testing using wind tunnels or Computational Fluid Dynamics.
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Wolff does not believe F1’s arrangement bears comparison with a Balance of Performance such as that used in the World Endurance Championship. In WEC, the rule makers impose different weight and engine performance limits on competitors, who are not allowed to discuss the restrictions.
“I get a rash of allergy when talking about BoP,” said Wolff. “This is something that we should stay far away from Formula 1. It’s a political mess in all the other series.
“It makes manufacturers go out of the sport, also, and I’ve been very close to that, as you can imagine, in DTM, in GTs, in Le Mans. We should never be tempted to have someone agree on how the Balance of Performance should fall out.
“If there is a mechanism that consists of fine-tuning in order to make sure that nobody’s embarrassed on the power unit side, I think that’s the right way to go, because when you look at aerodynamics, that was invented for a completely different situation.”
However Audi CEO Mattia Binotto suggested F1 could change the ADUO and base it on championship positions, as is the case for aerodynamic development.
“There is an ADUO as well for the chassis, which is [described] differently,” he said, “If you are behind in the standings, you’ve got more opportunity in wind tunnel timing, etcetera, and that’s a way for teams somehow to converge.
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“Now, when we discuss the power unit regulations, what would have been the way to assess it? It was decided [to use] pure kilowatts. Is that the right way to do it? We may argue again.
“So maybe we should do something very similar to the chassis, where you base it on standings of the previous seasons, because if the purpose of convergence is to have a closer field, maybe that’s the most straightforward, and you would have a unique system framework between chassis and power units. So, the best teams not having advantages, the slowest teams or slowest manufacturers to have some more opportunities.
“But that’s the way the regulations are written today, and I think we need to fully trust the FIA. I’m sure that the FIA has done the right assessment. What should we do for the future? Should we establish a different type of ranking? Maybe yes.”
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