Wolff: Stable regulations necessary for performance to converge

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff advocates stability in Formula 1, arguing that keeping the technical regulations close to unchanged for 2021 will help bring the field's performance closer together.

When Liberty Media embarked on shaping the sport's future rules, a significant revamp of the technical rules was promoted.

However, over the past twelve months, as the talks between F1's bosses and the teams advanced, it came to light that a virtual status quo induced by compromise would prevail with regard to the 2021 technical rules.

• Formula 1 delays 2021 regulations until October after Paris summit

While fans have been disappointed by the lack of prospective changes, Wolff - whose team has dominated F1's hybrid era - insists it's for the better.

"The default reaction in the past, when a team, or three big teams are running away, is that we change the regulations," he said.

"Because you believe that by changing the regulations others may catch up.

"I think that exactly the opposite is the case, if you leave regulations alone, which is counter-intuitive, eventually performance converges.

"We’ve seen that in the power unit regulations for a while and I think that if we leave the chassis regulations alone, eventually more teams will be closer together.

"But as in the past, teams lobby for change because they believe that rolling the dice can be an advantage for them.

"When you look at the 2019 regulations and the 2018 regulations, none of them have happened - actually, the teams at the front have increased the gaps they had, so we are back to square one."

Wolff admits however that his view is likely to be dismissed as the postulate of a man defending the interests of his employer.

"I think we are making that mistake over and over again but it is very difficult from our position to be credible or to be heard," conceded the Austrian.

"They believe we want to maintain rules as they are to maintain our advantage, whilst the opposite is actually the case.

"Leave it alone and performance will converge."

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