Toto Wolff makes 'ganging up' claim as F1 set for critical Mercedes engine talks

Toto Wolff believes that F1 president and CEO Stefano Domenicali could prevent rival engine manufacturers from "ganging up" against the controversial Mercedes engine.

F1's Power Unit Advisory Committee is due to meet in Bahrain on Wednesday to discuss a potential change to the rules over how the engine compression ratio is measured, ahead of engine homologation on March 1st.

Ferrari, Audi, Honda, and crucially Red Bull Powertrains are seeking to measure the engine compression ratio when it is hot and not at ambient temperatures, as the rules currently state, with Mercedes HPP's engine believed to create a ratio of 18:1 when hot, instead of the 16:1 limit. 

F1's powerful PUAC is due to meet on Wednesday, with any rule change requiring four of the five manufacturers, plus the FIA and Formula One Management (FOM), to vote in favour. This is known as a supermajority.

Wolff has claimed that FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has indicated his support for the design, but there is no public stance from either the FIA or FOM. 

Therefore, the votes of the two bodies will be crucial for Mercedes' hopes of running the engine, with Wolff believing that Domenicali could help prevent rivals from 'ganging up' on Mercedes and its three customer teams - McLaren, Williams, and Alpine.

"I would say that within this sport, there are individuals who want it to be a series with BOP, without calling it BOP," Wolff told media, including RacingNews365.

"It is by saying we actually don't want engineering ingenuity, and we prefer to have a level playing field, and therefore we have some rules which are invented on the fly that make things even more complex.

"The very essence of Formula 1 is to find performance, to attract the best engineers and best people, and give them freedom to develop regulations, and once it goes for you, and another time it goes against you.

"But I believe that fundamentally, the president of the FIA and [F1 president and CEO] Stefano [Domenicali] will look at it holistically, and avoid too much gamesmanship. 

"When there is a supermajority, the four engine manufacturers plus FOM and Mohammed [Ben Sulayem as the FIA], then you could say: 'Okay, this is not a ganging up anymore against one supplier' because I believe that Stefano will always look at it from outside of the teams' gamesmanship or manipulation."