Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff admits changes to Formula One power unit rules will “cause considerable damage” to his team amid an ongoing controversy.

There were numerous discussions last month between the FIA ​​and F1’s five power unit manufacturers – Mercedes, Ferrari, Honda, Audi and Red Bull – after Mercedes and Red Bull identified potential loopholes in the rules.

Red Bull engine chief Ben Hodgkinson described the incident as “meaningless noise” in January and sided with Mercedes against the other three engine manufacturers.

However, Aston Martin team principal Adrian Newey told sky sports newIt’s “everyone is aligned except one manufacturer.” Newey did not mention Mercedes by name but the stance adopted by Wolff suggested he was referring to them, with Red Bull now facing off against the Silver Arrows in a rules dispute.

“Sport is full of surprises, so under no circumstances can you say you are sure about anything,” Wolff said on the opening day of the first Bahrain Test on Wednesday.

“Throughout the whole process, obviously when you design an engine you keep the FIA ​​very close to the decisions you make. That’s what we did, we had all the assurances that what we did was within the rules.

“It’s not even like we’re talking about some big performance race, that’s what it is, but I think all our competitors are a bit aggrieved and have lobbied the FIA ​​for a long time and so far we trust the governance of that body – which is the Power Unit Advisory Committee – and we’ll see what comes of it.”

The FIA ​​said it hoped to resolve the issue before the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on March 6-8 to avoid the dispute going to the “courts”.

Mercedes, which also supplies engines to McLaren, Williams and Alpine, is understood to have found a way to make its power units comply with regulations when tested at a standstill but hit higher ratios when running without inspection.

Asked what it would mean for Mercedes if power unit rules were changed to stop higher compression limits in all conditions, Wolff said: “It takes a long time for you to develop an engine, and there are lead times. If you’re told you can’t operate the engine the way you developed it, that could cause considerable damage to performance.”

Wolff: Engine dispute caused by rivals fearing embarrassment

Earlier this month, Wolff criticized rivals for questioning the legality of Mercedes’ new engines, telling them to “buck up”.

Wolff said FIA president Mohammed bin Sulayem backed Mercedes’ engines and said other power unit manufacturers had made the dispute a talking point ahead of the new season.

“I think everyone was a little too excited about the performance of the Mercedes engine-powered teams,” he said.

“I think colleagues at other brands got a little carried away, which could be embarrassing, but I don’t think that’s the case at all. But that’s okay.

“Let’s see what the test results say and then God knows, I don’t know what the next black swan event will be for us.”

Williams team principal James Walls told sky sports news The rule changes will “open a can of worms” and F1 must avoid trying to be a “performance balance” championship that allows teams to upgrade, leaving little room for incentive engineering.

Wolff said: “What I would say is that there are some people in the sport who want it to be a series with a BOP (Balance of Performance), and instead of calling it a BOP, say, we don’t actually want engineering ingenuity, we prefer to have a level playing field, so we have some improvised rules that make things more complicated.

“I think the essence of Formula One is to look for performance, attract the best engineers and the best talent, give them the freedom to make the rules so that one time it’s good for you and another time it’s bad for you.

“But I believe that fundamentally the FIA ​​president and Stefano (Domenicali) will look at this in a holistic way and avoid speaking too much against manufacturing.”

Sky Sports F1 Bahrain test schedule

Test 1: Thursday, February 12th, Friday, February 13th

• 3 p.m.: Last hour of live track and field events
• 8pm: Test ends
• 8.30pm: Ted’s Test Notebook

Test 2: Wednesday, February 18th, Thursday 19th, Friday, February 20th

• 6.50am-11.05am: Morning live broadcast
• 11.55am-4.10pm: Afternoon live broadcast
• 8pm: Test ends

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