McLaren boss Zak Brown has been vocal in his desire to see F1 revise the rules surrounding customer car parts and team alliances from 2026, amid unease he has about the relationship between Red Bull and RB.
Brown believes F1’s current regulations are “not fit for purpose” as they offer too much of an advantage for teams that are able to work together, and he wants a complete overhaul of things from 2026.
Wolff, whose own Mercedes team supplies customer engines, gearboxes and suspension to Aston Martin and Williams, thinks that the time has come for a rethink about what is best for grand prix racing as a whole.
He believes what is critical is finding a path that suits the smaller teams that are in need of external help, as well as the full independents and the manufacturer squads.
“We need to have all of the 10 teams happy with the situation, so we are not excluding the small ones that need such cooperation,” said Wolff at the Bahrain GP.
“[Plus] the ones that by sheer shareholding are sister companies, and that's fine, and to the big ones that have no relationships, like McLaren, and us, which has a relationship with many. So just 2026 is the point where we can reset that.”
Wolff said that ending customer relationships between teams would be bad news financially to an outfit like his that sells components, but he reckoned that having more robust rules would be better overall than worrying about profits for Mercedes.
Source: Autosport