'Get your s**t together' - Wolff claps back on questions of PU legality

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has told rival power unit manufacturers to “get your s**t together” and focus on their own performance rather than questioning the legality of the Mercedes design.

Reports that Mercedes and Red Bull had found a way of exceeding compression ratio limits – reduced from a maximum of 18:1 last year to 16:1 in this year’s regulations – through piston design emerged during the off-season, as meetings were held with the FIA to discuss multiple topics relating to the new power units. Although rival manufacturers publicly downplayed the topic, Wolff says there has been behind-the-scenes lobbying that he believes shows others have missed a trick.

“When it comes to the engine question, I just don't understand that some teams concentrate more on the others and keep arguing a case that is very clear and transparent,” Wolff said. “Communication with the FIA was very positive all along. And it's not only on compression ratio, but on other things too.

“Specifically in that area, it's very clear what the regulations say. It's very clear what standard procedures are on any motors, even outside of Formula 1. So just get your s**t together. Doing secret meetings and sending secret letters and keep trying to invent ways of testing that just don't exist [are distracting].

“I feel like I can just say at least from us here, we are trying to minimize distractions. And minimizing distractions is looking more at us than at everybody else when it's pretty clear what the regs say and also pretty clear what the FIA has said to us and has said to them so far.

“But we are all different. Maybe you want to find excuses before you even started, why things are not good. Everybody needs to do it at the best of their ability, but that is really not how we would do things. Especially not after you've been told a few times that that is fine.

“It’s legal and it's what the regulations say. But again, if somebody wants to entertain themselves by distraction, then everybody is free to do this.”

The FIA checks the compression ratio of the fuel/air mixture at ambient temperatures when the power unit is not running, and Wolff says the Mercedes has been designed in line with all of the regulations for 2026.

“The power unit is legal. The power unit corresponds to how the regulations are written. The power unit corresponds to how the checks are being done. The power unit corresponds to how these things are measured in any other vehicle. Everything else I can't judge upon.

“But that's how we see the world today. That's what the FIA said, that's what the president of the FIA said, and he knows a bit about that. And in that respect [a team could protest], let's wait and see, but we feel robust.”