Sauber team principal Monisha Kaltenborn believes F1 should follow DTM’s example and open up engine development to Ferrari, Honda and Renault – but not Mercedes – to allow them to close the gap.
Last year the German touring car championship allowed Mercedes extra time and an additional test to develop their uncompetitive C-Coupe – concessions that were not given to BMW or Audi.
Kaltenborn believes this is the only way to level the playing field in F1 too, as fully opening engine development could allow Mercedes to pull further ahead.
“If you open this up it is going to opened up for everybody. I don’t like to compare this now to DTM, but they did allow one big name [Mercedes] to develop and they themselves didn’t develop that much to bring them up to a certain level,” she told Sky Sports.
“I think that is the kind of thinking we need that you have to make it a level playing field, because the advantages which are there will be for years and not be able to be caught up. So you don’t want to see this happening for the next two, three years.”
When asked if she was worried that Mercedes could extend their advantage Kaltenborn replied: “Exactly, if you open it up it is for everybody. So they will continue to develop as well and they have such a massive advantage that I think even if they were to stop their development others would take two years to get there.
“And that is something we have to be seriously thinking about because for two years fans are not going to accept these kinds of races. You look at other events coming up, TV stations paying far more to broadcast those events and we will just be suffering.”
Red Bull's Christian Horner concurred that F1 needed to level the playing field, but did admit Mercedes had done a fantastic job.
“I don’t think Formula 1 can afford for Honda and Renault to be in the situation they are now,” the Red Bull team principal said.
“We had the new president of Honda here and I don’t think we put on a great show for him. For Renault it is not a great encouragement for them to commit further to the sport when we are imposing the penalties we are, the public embarrassment that there is over engine failures.
“I think that we need to look at it for sure. Don’t get me wrong, quite often I am perceived as moaning or complaining about Mercedes, but they have done a fantastic job, they have interpreted the rules and have done a better job than anyone else. The problem is that it is totally out of kilter with where the other manufacturers are at the moment and we need them to be there for there to be engines for other teams to compete with.”