Mercedes opposed to 'can of worms' scheduling changes proposed for 2021

Toto Wolff says tinkering with Formula 1's race weekend scheduling risks causing ructions up and down the grid, with Mercedes firmly against an idea put forward in Liberty Media's proposed shake-up of the regulations, to come into force in 2021.

Wolff is especially opposed to a suggestion of moving scrutineering of cars to Friday morning, before the cars have run on-track.

This would limit the scale of changes teams could do before races. The gap between FP2 and FP3 is currently an area which the bigger teams especially exploit to ensure their cars are running at full potential come lights out on race day.

Wolff says the increased likelihood of grid penalties would impact teams with more modest budgets, and could actually push teams to much more conservatively.

"I think if you can compress without reducing the show, then that is something we should look at," Wolff said.

"I believe that for the promoters it is not great. The Friday is an important day when they are able to generate some revenue and attract some audiences.

"We are not keen on the parc fermé format from Friday to Sunday. There is no motor racing formula out there that doesn't allow the cars to be touched over the weekend and I don't think we should start with Formula 1, the pinnacle of motor racing.

"You open up a can of worms with penalties because cars will end up in the wall and they will need to rebuilt and I think from the sheer idea of how we can add more variability, more unpredictability, have more cars braking down, I think we will achieve the contrary.

"We will spend more time and resource in the virtual world, run cars harder on dynos to make them last, because we know we can't take them apart over three days, so I don't think this is something we should touch.

"There are many other areas that make sense, but this one, not for us."

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