“It’s not clear yet who actually enters as a power unit supplier and who declares themselves as newcomers,” Mercedes chief Toto Wolff said. “It could well be that there are three companies from the same group that are entering as newcomers. The picture is still very unclear and whether $15m CapEx is enough or not enough, there are much bigger topics that we need to agree on – which we haven’t.”
Also discussing the issue, Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto brought up the need to make sure the transferring of intellectual property like engine designs is properly policed. “We’re very happy for Porsche and Audi to join F1,” he said. “That’s great for F1. It’s very great for us, as well to compete with those brands.
“On the regulations, we know that the objective is to try and finalize by June. There are no new discussions relating to that, [but] There are still open points overall, which are financial regulations. We need to consider what we define what is a newcomer and what are the benefits of a newcomer? All that needs to be clarified and defined.
“There is also the IP transfer. IP transfer should not be possible, that was agreed. How we translate that into a wording needs to be decided. There are points on the technical side that are still open discussions, still many things that need to be moved forward and analyzed. Time is certainly very short, so we need to work on it as a high priority.”
