Autosportfoto

F1 Japanese GP: Wolff takes aim at new regulations as Mercedes wins third title

Toto Wolff reiterated his feeling that the sport is making a mistake in overhauling its technical regulations for 2017 in an effort to close up the competition as Mercedes sealed its third consecutive world title in Japan.

Needing only a small handful of points over Red Bull to confirm the inevitable having led the standings from the opening round, Nico Rosberg's win alone was enough to put the title out anyone's reach with four races of the season remaining.

In what has been Mercedes most comprehensive season in terms of race wins having ceded only two to its rivals so far - compared with three in 2014 and 2015 -, Wolff nonetheless feels it has been the most contested run to the title yet.

With this in mind, he feels the FIA is making a mistake in changing the technical regulation framework for 2017 rather than maintain the current trend for closer competition in the three years since the engine formula was changed.

"In terms of our performance I have the same impression, it wasn't as dominant of a season as it was last year, and for me it's just the fact of diminishing returns with the stable regulation.

"It's what we always said, leave the regulations and leave the rules alone and the performance gap is going to shrink and eventually we're going to have some good racing. Then somebody else decided to invent something new for next year and then it's back to square one I guess."

Zdroj: crash.net