Wolff lays the blame at Horner's feet for three-engine rule

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff responded to Christian Horner's complaints about next season's three-engine rule, insisting Red Bull only had itself to blame for the new limit.

Formula 1 goes from four to three complete engines per driver in 2018, a move which Horner has described as "barking mad" as the Briton lobbied in vain to have the rule abandoned.

Wolff however reminded his fellow team boss that the engine reduction rule came about as a result of Red Bull's push for cheaper power units, at a time when the sport's engine manufacturers were happy to keep the four-engine allocation.

"If it's barking mad, they shouldn't have pushed to try to push for lower supply price, and we shouldn't have agreed to give that in order to achieve lower supply price," Wolff told Motorsport.com.

"We're going to go down from four engines, which was bound in the regulations, to three engines.

"This is where we are – the regulations stood for four engines for next year, and we were perfectly fine for that.

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"All manufacturers were pushed, let's call it strongly encouraged, to optimise on the supply price – and this is what we did and this was the consequence.

"And everybody, as far as I remember who was on the table, was part of it. It's a massive struggle for all of us, but it's out of what we have discussed."

FIA President Jean Todt also chimed in on the subject , saying there would be no going back on the three-engine rule for 2018, insisting the decision was validated by unanimously validated by the teams.

"I will say that it had been consensus -- from everybody -- that punishment would be through grid penalty. So that's what it is," Todt said in Abu Dhabi.

"You are talking about three engines for next year. Well, it is something that was decided.

"There were even people thinking 'why don't we have one engine for the whole championship?'. It's not something which is new; it has been decided years ago that for 2018.

"We have had some meetings with all the teams, and the way the regulations are made, the way the governance is made, to decide we want to go back to four engines [for 2018], we need to get unanimous agreement.

"And we don't have unanimous agreement, so we will have three engines."

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