Despite Chase Carey and Ross Brawn's insistence that the days of self-interest are long gone and that the sport is enjoying a new era of cooperation for the good of F1, nothing could be further from the truth.

Indeed, Honda's announcement that it is to withdraw from the sport at the end of 2021 has shown up the 'new era' for what it is, and proven that self-interest remains the name of the game.

Red Bull has said that it is willing to buy the Japanese manufacturer's IPO, however having gone to the expense of doing this it warns that it does not then want to have to pay out more money to develop the engines, therefore it is calling for a freeze on development.

Mercedes was first to agree to Red Bull's demand, but considering that the German manufacturer's power units have won 72% of the 135 Grands Prix held since the hybrid formula was introduced why wouldn't it?

After much consideration, Renault, the driving force behind the introduction of the hybrid formula in the first place, though unhappy about Red Bull's request is calling for the introduction of a new formula a year earlier than planned, while Ferrari is seeking a convergence on performance should any particular manufacturer be lagging behind when the freeze is imposed... this from the team that has scored three podium finishes this season.

Mercedes boss, Toto Wolff argues that a 'balance of performance' system, such is being suggested, has no place in the sport, and would mark the beginning of the end for F1.

"This would be the beginning of the end," warned the Austrian. "The power unit is not only measured by sheer max power, but is subject to driveability, to weight, to cooling, and introducing a simple formula that fits all isn't possible and is not something Mercedes will endorse.

"We had a token system in the past when the regulations came out and because some of our colleagues wished the tokens to be removed in order to catch up, we agreed to removal of the tokens.

"Now some of our colleagues have come back with a system of convergence, which honestly said is a bit of an insult," he continued. "When you look at the last three years and the development of the performance of the engines, Ferrari was clearly the most powerful engine in 2018 and by far the best in 2019. We developed our engine and continued to push the boundaries and brought something to the track in 2020 that we were hoping would catch up.

"That's why I cannot comprehend that any car manufacturer that trusts in his ability to develop a power unit and a chassis would want some kind of mechanism that would balance the power unit result. I don't think that anybody would accept such a humiliation in public."

Indeed, Wolff insists that a balance of performance convergence system could - and would - be manipulated by those seeking an advantage.

"I've seen it in DTM where weights were introduced based on your performances, and the only thing we heard after qualifying was 'well I would have qualified on pole if I wouldn't have had 5kg in the car'," he said. "That was the whole narrative of the DTM seasons.

"Formula 1 must stay very, very far away from that, or we end up like GT racing where you design power units for the sole topic of manipulating the system."

Check out our Sunday gallery from Bahrain, here.