Racing
© Adriaan Greyling
Nikolas Tombazis says the FIA did not view Mercedes’ engine compression-ratio solution as illegal or an attempt to cheat, even as the governing body tightens its checks from June 1 to stop Formula 1 heading further down that path.
Speaking to the Italian media in an AutoRacer press meeting recap, FIA single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis described the winter controversy as “one of the most classic hysterias that could have been much more contained.” He added that it “didn’t deserve even one cent of the articles written about it or the passion it provoked in various people.”
Tombazis said the debate caught the FIA “a bit by surprise,” but stressed there had been dialogue with Mercedes during the design phase, as there is with all engine manufacturers. He said the governing body’s established method has long been to measure compression ratio at ambient temperature because “traditionally it is measured at room temperature, and this is what happens in industry in general.”
He rejected suggestions that Mercedes had crossed a line. “We do not believe something wrong was done or that there was an attempt to cheat,” Tombazis said, while adding that some competitors’ public comments had been part of a different effort to apply pressure.
The FIA’s concern instead was the direction of development. Tombazis said there were design choices aimed at changing the compression ratio through temperature in a more favorable way, which he characterized as potentially outside the intentions of the regulations even if not prohibited under the existing interpretation.
That is why the FIA first moved in October, adding a clarification to the rules that the compression-ratio measurement procedure is carried out cold. It then made further changes at the end of February and start of March, with Tombazis saying the aim was to avoid pushing “the whole of F1 to invest in exotic materials or other solutions that, in our view, would go against the spirit of the regulations.”
From June 1, compression ratio will be checked both cold and hot. Tombazis said the measures were approved “in whole or in part” unanimously. The FIA’s longer-term plan is to move to a hot-only check for 2027, with the control carried out in running conditions at 130 degrees.
Tombazis said that approach reflects the FIA’s usual balance in grey-area cases. “I do not accept criticism that someone was cheating,” he said. “At the same time, though, perhaps it was outside the intentions of the regulations. In these cases we try not to ban something immediately, but also not to let it drag on for many years.”
That leaves the Mercedes case framed less as a rules breach than as a development route the FIA is now closing off before it becomes an arms race across the engine field.