Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff wants the rules governing technical partnerships between teams in F1 to be tightened up, even if it leads to a loss of income for the Brackley squad.
For many years, the FIA's regulations have allowed for a fair degree of technical collaboration and information sharing between teams.
From transferable components – parts that can be bought from a competitor such as front and rear suspension members, gearbox internals, rear impact structure or hydraulic and exhaust systems – to Intellectual Property, smaller teams have taken advantage of the regulations and acquired elements from a partner outfit to reduce costs.
Haas' entire business model in F1 is based on its technical partnership with its engine supplier Ferrari and on maximizing the use of transferable components. Indeed, since the introduction of F1's budget cap, the US outfit now has its own office in Maranello, staffed with ex-Ferrari personnel.
But AlphaTauri also enjoys a close relationship with Red Bull, while Williams and Aston Martin have deals in place with Mercedes.
Aston's actions in 2020, when under its Racing Point guise it reverse-engineered and cloned Mercedes championship-winning W10, sparked a controversy that led to the FIA tightening the rules governing technical collaborations.
But two years on, and following the introduction this year of an all-new regulation platform, Wolff believes the rules of intra-team collaboration should be tightened once again.
"I think it needs reform," said the Mercedes motorsport boss. "Because we want to avoid these kinds of discussions that we have now, the polemic around the last few days or last few weeks.
“Everybody deserves to perform well, and people should get credit when they’ve done a good job.
"But some of the job-hopping or entity-hopping on the same premises is just creating arguments that are not necessary for the sport."
Wolff's comments clearly targeted Haas and its close relationship with Ferrari thanks to which the US outfit has gone from distraught laggard in 2021 to a top midfield contender on the back of F1's regulation overhaul.
"So definitely for us, you know, we have Aston Martin in the wind tunnel that we had two years ago; quite a sh*tstorm about that. We have been handling them with the utmost diligence.
"But going forward, if we were to need to compromise our, let’s say, income ability, we need to do this, because none of the teams should be able to cooperate in a way that we’re seeing today, with some of the teams.
"I mean, Haas has made a huge jump from being last, the way they were into being… having been solid and into Q3, I think, in Bahrain. So that’s an interesting step," added Wolff.
"For us, it’s a learning exercise, because as an organisation, we have 2000 people and we’ve been successful in the past, and suddenly you’re fighting a team that’s much smaller in size.
"So, they must have done a super job."
McLaren F1 boss Andreas Seidl, who runs a team that does not have a techncial partner, unsurprisingly echoed his Mercedes' colleagues comments.
"It’s clear that in Formula 1, the maximum that you should be allowed to share is the power unit and the gearbox internals," said Seidl, quoted by The Race.
"That’s it, there should be no sharing of any infrastructure and so on, because as soon as you allow that, IP transfer is happening on the car side.
"We know from the FIA that it’s difficult to police, and if something is not possible to police then you need to ban it.
"For two reasons: because it makes B teams overly competitive compared to teams like us; and at the same time the A teams are also benefitting from this, which is even more worrying for us.
"We just hope with all the dialogue that is happening with F1 and several teams that we finally see some action there in the next years in order to correct this situation."
Haas team boss Guenther Steiner suggested that Mercedes and McLaren's opinions are self-serving and being expressed on the back of their current under-performance.
"Andreas doesn’t run the FIA, fortunately, so he can suggest it but there is a governance in place which will define that as much as he wants to run it," said Steiner.
"There’s sometimes things in the rules that if they don’t work for you, you cannot go and change it.
"Mercedes won the world championship eight years in a row, they had a very strong engine – good for them they did a good job but nobody said ‘we now need to change the engine because Mercedes is winning everything’.
"There’s governance in place and certain people think they can change everything by just speaking. I don’t think that is going to happen."
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