As Formula One mourns the passing of Ferrari president Sergio Marchionne, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has echoed the Canadian-Italian's unease at the planned overhaul of the engine regulations in 2021.

Though currently casting doubt on the legality of the Maranello manufacturer's power unit, and in particular its hybrid system, like Marchionne, Wolff is no fan of the proposals offered by the sport's owners.

Indeed, using the logic of 'if it aint broke, don't fix it', Wolff argues that the current formula is fine as it is and all that's needed is further convergence in terms of performance.

The Austrian however, is particularly concerned that as we get nearer to 2021, if the planned overhaul goes ahead, the engine manufacturers will have to go to the expense of two programmes, one for the 2020 units and the other for the new.

To make the situation worse, the manufacturers have yet to receive - far less agree to - the definitive 2021 regulations, and having initially agreed to the dropping of the MGU-H, which it was feared was prohibiting new manufacturers from entering the sport (on cost grounds), the manufacturers are now seeking to retain it arguing that there are no signs of new manufacturers entering F1 anytime soon.

As a result, seeking to retain the MGU-H, Wolff argues that it would be "madness" to go ahead with the planned overhaul of the regulations.

"We have made our standpoint pretty clear that we think, for the sport, the best thing would be not to change a lot," he said.

"Leave it like it is so that the performances of the various engine suppliers converge," he added.

"You need to take into account the sound debate, fuel saving, and maybe we can tweak it a little bit, add a little bit more revs, give more fuel allowance, and I think that would be perfectly enough to have good racing."

With the manufacturers eyeing the ever decreasing lead-in time should the sport go ahead with its plans for a major overhaul, he said: "The risk with knowing soon is that then everybody would start as early as now and develop two engines in parallel, which would be madness in my opinion."

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by Mad Matt, 26/07/2018 11:00

"I agree with imejl99. The engines aren't the biggest problem and changing them will at best lead to a different dominant supplier. It's good to see innovation and different ideas as we've seen with Ferrari taking a step ahead.

What really needs to change is the aero so the cars can run close together and so we can see more close battles.

As a BTW it seems the technology does have some application to road cars according to Renault's Rémi Taffin but on the other hand I don't think there's ever been that much transfer from F1 to road cars (I'm not saying none)."

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2. Posted by imejl99, 26/07/2018 7:39

"Leave it as it is. Not that I love this PU, but I am not a big fan of changing regulations. As hard as I wish for regulations to be more loose (proved impossible), next best thing is not to change them so often. We are all witnessing that with constant environment someone will come up with innovation. Today it is Ferrari, tomorrow someone else. Engine, battery, aero, name it. Someone will eventually come up with THE IDEA and shake the field. But if they all know next year it will change, why bother? So, since solar, nuclear, diesel-electric, jet, 2 stroke or even turbo ERS boxer is SF, leave it as it is. For the good of innovation."

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3. Posted by nonickname, 25/07/2018 18:01

"Homologate the indycar engines and let Mercedes and Renault build them or leave.. You would get engines running in 2 series and Honda would be in the top end with no additional cost and Chev would be new boys."

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4. Posted by Ro, 25/07/2018 17:44

"Get rid of the MGU-H , simplify the wings and allow more fuel. Simple. Fixed. The manufacturers will do it regardless of cost. The current units are not fit for F1 but only fit for endurance racing, they will never be seen on the roads, so why bother with them ?"

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5. Posted by JClark-Monza1967, 25/07/2018 17:36

""We have made our standpoint pretty clear that we think, for the sport, the best thing would be not to change a lot..."

Yeah, right. Sure Toto. Best thing for the sport. As true F1 fans, all we can do is hope that Liberty doesn't cave in to this bluster. Can't say that I'm very optimistic, though. We should know soon enough..."

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"Madness" to continue with planned engine rules overhaul

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