{"id":65047,"date":"2026-02-04T13:01:50","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T13:01:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/?p=65047"},"modified":"2026-02-04T13:01:50","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T13:01:50","slug":"wolff-rivals-want-to-find-excuses-over-engine-loophole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wolff-rivals-want-to-find-excuses-over-engine-loophole\/","title":{"rendered":"Wolff: Rivals &#8220;want to find excuses&#8221; over engine loophole"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has blasted rivals over the ongoing questions regarding power unit legality.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Late last year, the story first emerged that the German manufacturer, and potentially Red Bull Powertrains, had found a way to boost the compression ratio of their V6 engine above the regulated 16:1 limit.<\/p>\n<p>This is because the FIA conducts legality checks at ambient temperatures, creating a loophole for engines to exceed the permitted ratio when running hotter on track.<\/p>\n<h4><strong>Also Read:<\/strong><\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/russell-smoother-2026-cars-will-save-a-few-years-on-the-back\/\">Russell: Smoother 2026 cars will &#8220;save a few years on the back&#8221;<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Audi leaving &#8220;no stone unturned&#8221; after tricky debut F1 test<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Just before the Barcelona shakedown, a <a href=\"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/audi-fia-action-avoid-blatant-2026-f1-engine-advantage\/\">meeting was held at the FIA<\/a> to address concerns being led by Audi, Ferrari and Honda.<\/p>\n<p>But Wolff was quick to call them out&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When it comes to the engine question, I just don\u2019t understand why some teams concentrate more on others and keep arguing a case that is very clear and transparent,&#8221; he claimed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCommunication with the FIA was very positive all along. It\u2019s not only on the compression ratio, but on other things too \u2013 and specifically in that area, it\u2019s very clear what the regulation says, very clear what the, let\u2019s say, standard procedures are on any motors, even outside of Formula 1.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, just get your s*** together and\u2026you know, doing secret meetings and sending secret letters, keep trying to invent ways of testing that just don\u2019t exist.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-media-max-width=\"560\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Ready for 2026 \ud83d\udcaa <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/eOHKW197n6\">pic.twitter.com\/eOHKW197n6<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MercedesAMGF1\/status\/2018334554562425008?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 2, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Mercedes is expected to start the 2026 season as favourites and showed ominous form during their three days of running in Spain.<\/p>\n<p>And the Austrian chief insists there are no concerns about their legality.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I feel like I can say, at least from us here, we are trying to minimise distractions, and minimising distractions is looking more at us than everybody else when it\u2019s pretty clear what the regs say, and also pretty clear what the FIA has said to us and has said to them so far,&#8221; Wolff continued.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut maybe, we\u2019re all different. Maybe you want to find excuses before you even start, for why things are not good.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverybody needs to do it at the best of their ability, but that is really not how is not how we how we would do things, especially not after you\u2019ve been told a few times that that is fine, it\u2019s legal, and it\u2019s what the regulations say.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAgain, if somebody wants to entertain themselves by distraction, then everybody\u2019s free to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n<h4>An unlikely ally<\/h4>\n<p>Toto has found himself an unlikely ally on the power unit saga, as former Red Bull boss Christian Horner gave his view on Australia&#8217;s\u00a0<em>Today<\/em> show.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFormula 1\u2019s about pushing the boundaries. It\u2019s about how you interpret regulations. Always has been and always will be,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTeams that are the most conservative are the teams that are never at the front of the grid. You\u2019ve got to be pushing the envelope.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOf course, it\u2019s all about how you interpret regulations and engineers, some of the brightest engineers on the planet, will be looking at those regulations and thinking, okay, how can I maximise performance?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has blasted rivals over the ongoing questions regarding power unit legality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":65017,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[521,341,295,508,305],"class_list":{"0":"post-65047","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-christian-horner","9":"tag-f1","10":"tag-formula-1","11":"tag-mercedes","12":"tag-toto-wolff"},"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65047"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65048,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65047\/revisions\/65048"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insideracing.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}