Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has said that he’s no fan of frequent changes to the rules governing Formula 1.
He feels that attempts to liven up the sport artificially by changing the rules tend to be counter-productive and unnecessary.
“Some of our competitors have campaigned for a complete shake-up, a massive complete shake-up of the regulations,” he said this week.
“I’m not such a fan of shaking up the regulations every two or three years just because someone wants to roll the dice.”
The new aerodynamic and tyre regulations for 2017 brought in over the winter appear to have wiped out Mercedes’ advantage over their rivals. Cars are now around three or four seconds a lap faster than they were. But Wolff insists that his view on rule changes wasn’t down to sour grapes on Mercedes’ part.
“It was a majority decision,” Wolff said of the vote introducing the 2017 rules. “Once it was done, we’ve kind of switched into competition mode and tried to do the best of it.”
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He added that the change in the balance of power would have happened naturally anyway, even without the rules shake-up.
“If you keep the regulations stable, you will have more cars being competitive,” he insisted this week.
“The development curve by sheer nature flattens and it pushes the teams more together in terms of performance,” he explained.
While the latest rule changes have allowed Ferrari to catch up with Mercedes, Wolff pointed out that the rest of the field seems even further back than it was under the old regulations..
“It looks like two teams are far ahead of everybody else,” Wolff acknowledged. “There is a huge gap, 1.6 or 1.7 seconds to Red Bull, and then another gap.
Wolff admitted that Mercedes “do not feel satisfied with where we are” in 2017. The team has won only two of the four races so far this season, with the balance going to Ferrari.
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