Skip to content

Toto Wolff says Mercedes are open to the idea of relaxing F1's engine freeze

Austrian dismisses speculation that it could reduce their advantage

Toto Wolff

Toto Wolff says Mercedes are open to the idea of relaxing F1's engine freeze, dismissing speculation that it could reduce their advantage.

The Silver Arrows power unit is accepted as being the class of the field in 2014, with much of Mercedes’ success being attributed to the horsepower advantage they enjoy over rivals Ferrari and Red Bull (Renault).

The engine manufacturers will be allowed to develop their units over the winter by way of a token system and Wolff says they are now looking at permitting those tokens to be used throughout the campaign rather than just the off-season.

“You don’t want to open up the homologation and the freeze, the question is about consuming those tokens at any given moment during the year, but it is early days,” the Mercedes boss told Sky Sports’ F1 Midweek Report.

“We are going to reconvene and discuss properly and see what we do, but we are pretty open to everything.”

The idea would seemingly give Renault and Ferrari the opportunity to close the gap to Mercedes, but Wolff countered that suggestion as he feels they can also improve their own unit.

“Why not? If we at the same time can work on our engine then we have no problem,” he added.

“You don't want it to be like GP2 where you have standard engines, so you either open it up and everyone develops in the way they think it should develop or you freeze it. So we are open for both directions.”

Around Sky