Regulations 'no limit to innovation', insist Mercedes and Ferrari

Mattia Binotto (ITA) Ferrari Chief Technical Officer with Andy Cowell (GBR) Mercedes-Benz High Performance Powertrains Managing Director

Mercedes and Ferrari found themselves in agreement when asked whether the current technical rules and regulations were proving to be a limit to what teams can do in the sport.

"I personally don’t believe there is a limit," Mercedes' High Performance Powertrains boss Andy Cowell told reporters in Spain last week.

"It comes down to your belief and understanding of whether there is a limit," he added, when asked how close he felt teams were to getting to the limit of what you can be achieved under the current regulations.

"I think you can always find gains. Every week I have the pleasure to sit in our performance and innovation meeting and listen to bright engineers come up with ways of getting a little bit more efficiency out of the various systems.

"Then enjoying the competition in the factory to turn those ideas in proven experiments. And then prove that they are reliable enough to come racing and compete in this wonderful environment.

"We will continue to develop, and there is no such thing as a limit," he insisted.

"I would agree with Andy, no doubt," said Ferrari's Mattia Binotto in response. "When you put engineers together, there will be always innovations, creativity.

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"For an engineer there are never limits. I think we have seen in the last years, in the last season, how much we improved, year after year.

"I don’t think we have shown so far that we have reached the limit of the product," he added. "We have improved in most of the areas and our spirit is really to try to improve first."

The current engine regulations expire in 2021, with discussions already underway for what where the sport will go after that.

"Is it enough time?" mused Binotto. "It will depending much on how different will be the new power unit compared to the one of today.

"No changes to the regulations, plenty of time. As much as you change it, obviously the more time you need."

Cowell agreed with his counterpart's reasoning.

"I think so long as the regulations come out over the next few months, and as Mattia rightly pointed out, as long as it’s not a complete tear-up of what we currently have, then there’s sufficient time to do a professional job.

"So we don’t embarrass ourselves at the beginning of 2021!" he added.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.