New technical regulations to put F1 back to square one, says Mercedes’ Wolff

Mercedes head Toto Wolff has warned that F1’s new regulations for next season may not close up the grid as hoped.

For next season F1 cars will become wider, more powerful and boast more downforce, forcing each team to make radical changes to its designs. The wide-ranging changes have been pressed through in an effort to make F1 more dramatic, with the added side effect of potentially eliminating Mercedes’ current advantage under the existing rules.

However, Wolff believes it could harm competition, pointing to Mercedes’ diminished advantage this season.

While the Anglo-german team has won all but two races and taken every pole bar one this season, it has taken four one-two finishes this year compared to 12 in total in 2015.

“In terms of our performances, it’s not as dominant a season like it was last year, and for me it’s just a fact of diminishing returns with stable regulations,” said Wolff.

“It’s what we always said – just leave the regulations alone, leave the rules alone, and the performance gap will shrink and eventually we are going to have some good racing. But then somebody else decided to invent something new for next year and it’s back to square one.”