Audi insists it will never accept an FIA compromise on 2026 power unit loophole
Mercedes and Red Bull are rumoured to have found a loophole in the new engine regulations.
Audi has said it will ‘never accept’ an FIA compromise on the technical regulations following reports Mercedes and RBPT-Ford have found a loophole.
Compression ratio have been the buzzwords of pre-season after claims that two power unit manufacturers have found a way to produce one reading while stationary, and another once on track, potentially giving them an advantage.
Mercedes, Red Bull and FIA warned over power unit compromise
After the other power unit manufacturers wrote to the FIA seeking clarification, the sport’s governing body arranged a pre-season meeting where the issue will be discussed.
Ahead of Thursday’s (January 22) meeting, Audi’s technical director James Key has insisted that it would never accept a compromise.
“We have to, as we do, trust the FIA with making the right decisions here,” he said at the team’s launch, as per Autosport.
“It’s new regs. You’ve got to have a level playing field. If someone came up with a clever diffuser and you said it’s not the right thing to do, no one else can have it, but you can have it for the rest of the year. It doesn’t make sense. We’d never accept that.”
The reference Key is making is to 2009 when Toyota, Williams and Brawn arrived with a ‘double diffuser’ which exploited the wording of the rule book.
That opened a can of worms with the likes of Adrian Newey, then Red Bull’s technical director, claiming there was a political motivation behind the FIA’s decision to allow the interpretation, suggesting the governing body wished to hurt McLaren and Ferrari.
More on the engine rumours from PlanetF1.com
* Cadillac chief insists Ferrari engine ‘fully legal’ ahead of FIA meeting
* Impact of controversial engine loophole ‘impossible to know’
* Why Red Bull Powertrains believe 2026 compression ratio intrigue is ‘noise about nothing’
Key suggested that any attempt to sidestep the regulation had to be controlled.
“I think if it’s sort of bypassing the intent of the regulations, then it has to be in some way controlled,” said Key.
“So we trust the FIA to do that, because no one wants to sit a season out if you’ve got a blatant advantage that you can do nothing with in a homologated power unit. So I think for us, hopefully, the FIA will make the right decisions.”
So far, Mercedes has kept quiet on the rumours but Red Bull Powertrains director Ben Hodgkinson suggested the situation is much ado about nothing.
“I think there’s some nervousness from various power unit manufacturers that there might be some clever engineering going on in some teams,” Hodgkinson said at the team’s season launch in Detroit.
“I’m not quite sure how much of it to listen to, to be honest. I’ve been doing this a very long time, and it’s almost just noise. You just have to play your own race really.
“I know what we’re doing, and I’m confident that what we’re doing is legal. Of course, we’ve taken it right to the very limit of what the regulations allow. I’d be surprised if everyone hasn’t done that.
“My honest feeling is that it’s a lot of noise about nothing. I expect everyone’s going to be sitting at 16, that’s what I really expect.”
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