Toto Wolff has reiterated his opposition to Balance of Performance (BOP) being introduced in Formula 1, describing it as a "catastrophe." At the recent F1 Commission meeting at the Belgian Grand Prix, engine parity was discussed with RacingNews365 understanding that the Renault power unit in the back of the Alpine could be as much 30bhp down on the Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull Powertrains/Honda offerings. Engine development for performance reasons has been banned since the start of 2022, but when this was agreed, so was a clause stipulating that if one power unit supplier was considerably behind the others, talks would be held to bring all into line. One potential way to do this is to reduce the power available to the Mercedes, Ferrari and RBPT/Honda units to bring them to the Renault performance, which in effect, is BoP - a tool used in sportscar racing to ensure no car/team can gain an advantage over the rest of the field. Wolff previously rejected the calls for BoP to be introduced into Grand Prix racing, and has now gone further, believeing it could be a "bankruptcy declaration" for F1.
Wolff doubles down
"Entertainment follows sport, and why the sport is so credible is because you've just got to work hard to be successful," Wolff told media including RacingNews365. "If you are falling back as an engine supplier and your engine isn't as performant as others, that's obviously everybody's problem. "But at the same time, with a frozen engine, we don't want to miss out on giving someone opportunities, but that needs to be done in a meritocratic way. "We have a rule in the 2026 power unit regulations that if one power unit drops out of 3% of the top power unit, then the teams would sit down in good faith and debate what could be done. "Once we have a common understanding of what the lack of performance that we need to discuss is, how many more dyno hours and jokers can be given. "That is something we are open to debating but touching any kind of fuel flow or Balance of Performance (BoP) is a catastrophe and bankruptcy declaration for Formula 1. "It should never be talked about."
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