Mercedes and Ferrari deny claims of sneaky tactics to break up Red Bull deal

Mercedes: What’s gone wrong at the F1 and can they recover?

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Mercedes and Ferrari have insisted they are not trying to break up Red Bull’s potential tie up with Porsche, who are set to enter F1. Red Bull have been in imperious form this year as they lead the Constructors’ Championship, while their driver Max Verstappen is at the top of the Drivers’ Championship.

Earlier this year, it was revealed that Red Bull would form a partnership with Porsche in time for the 2026 season, while Audi would also come into the sport. But progress has been slowed due to the fact that F1 teams have been unable to agree on a formula for a new engine.

And Mercedes boss Toto Wolff and Ferrari chief Mattia Binotto have denied any suggestions of sneaky tactics coming into play. “On the contrary, we don’t want to delay those regulations – we want to have it in place,” said Wolff. “We have given the H [engine], which was a massive thing to accommodate the newcomers. It was said to us that by the end of the year, we’re going to have the confirmation that they’re joining.

“That confirmation hasn’t been given until today, I don’t know why – this is an environment where regulations will change all the time. So you can’t make it regulation dependent, it’s something that we can expect from them also because we’ve made big steps towards them. Let’s make those final stops on the regulations. We’d like to have them part of the show. They’ve been sitting on the table negotiating those regulations since a while but not committed yet.”

And Binotto added: “We are very positive. We are very positive because it’s great for the F1, it’s great having more manufacturers, and it’s great to have Volkswagen Audi Group within our business and our Formula 1 racing championship.

“I think we’ve done whatever we could try to adapt, to make sure that they were happy. We removed the H, we did it only to try to help them joining the F1 and, believe that for us, removing the H is something which is not maybe the best choice.

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“It’s a compromise as we are discussing for the budget cap. It’s a compromise because these are technologies that we know pretty well – it’s a very high-efficiency technology, which is great for F1. So I think that, overall again, we are very positive and constructive.

“Now, why is this taking so long? Because I think is a time which is required to do things properly – and simply we are not ready right now. Not only us, as current manufacturers, the FIA because they are the ones somehow leading the discussions. I think for also Audi and Porsche, the regulations are not ready. They’re still open points and these open points simply need to be tackled and discussed and agreed.”

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