Mercedes Formula 1 team principal Toto Wolff has ruled out joining other manufacturers at the Le Mans 24 Hours as long as the race is run to performance-balancing rules.
The race is part of the World Endurance Championship. Its top Hypercar class is governed by Balance of Performance rules under which the FIA sets different minimum weight and maximum power limits for each car in an attempt to equalise performance between them.
Wolff says he and Mercedes chairman Ola Kallenius are not interested in competing in a championship where teams’ performance is handicapped.
“You spend so much time and money and effort in developing the quickest car and then you’re being [told to] put 10 kilograms of ballast into this car,” he told Bloomberg. “And I just want to build the quickest car.”
He says championships should copy Formula 1’s budget cap rules to promote competition between teams while preventing costs escalating out of control.
“Formula 1 has shown how it goes,” he said. “Give us a cost cap. Do Le Mans, give everybody a cost cap, you cannot spend more than ‘x’, whatever you said, 30, 40 million. And within this 30, 40 million, then you can do what you want.
“Still there’s regulations, but nobody needs to bluff in pre-season racing or in qualifying. It’s war, it’s gloves off, pure racing.
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“If that was to happen, Le Mans absolutely would be something that we would be looking at. But at the moment, BoP, having some officials judge whether you’re quick or too quick, putting 10 kilograms in your car, taking it out from someone else the next day, not for us at the moment.”
Mercedes won the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1952 and again with its Sauber-run team in 1989. However its involvement in a disastrous crash during the 1955 race, which killed 82 people including the team’s driver Pierre Levegh, led the manufacturer to withdraw from all racing for decades.
It hasn’t competed in the top flight at Le Mans since its embarrassing exit from the 1999 race. Its CLRs repeatedly became airborne during the event, leading to huge crashes for Mark Webber in practice and finally Peter Dumbreck during the race, prompting the team’s withdrawal.
Despite the manufacturers’ chequered history in the race, Wolff recognises it as one of the world’s most challenging and prestigious motorsport events.
“I’m a racer, the Le Mans 24 Hours is one of the greatest races in the world,” he said. “Formula 1, for me, obviously with my bias, is the best there is. It’s the best drivers, quickest cars, the greatest tracks, and then there is a long time nothing.
“But if I would say what’s next, Le Mans 24 Hours, Indy 500 and – that is really one for insiders in the Nordschleife – is the Nürburgring 24 hours. That for me is the top of the top.
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“When I’m not having a Formula 1 weekend, I can watch a Le Mans race pretty much through the night. I’m following the live feed. I know some of the drivers, so I have a personal interest.
“As Mercedes, it’s something that we did in the past. We weren’t particularly – that wasn’t our happiest place. We had a very bad accident in the fifties when we exited. And then some of our prototypes have been flying, taking off, in the nineties.
“But what it is for me today is we are concentrating on the main platform and that is Formula 1. It’s what we want to do, right? This captures 99% of the audience and everything else comes second.”
The FIA forbids competitors in the World Endurance Championship from making comments about the BoP which may be regarded as an attempt to “influence” the handicapping rules. Reigning Formula 1 world champion Max Verstappen has recently repeated his criticism of the BoP rules.
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