Alpine Managing Director Steve Nielsen has laid down the challenge to detractors of Mercedes’ controversial Formula 1 engine, telling them to “do something about it.”
The German marque‘s power unit has been the talk of the sport across the winter, after its apparent use of a loophole in the new technical regulations which has given them a supposed power advantage.
Mercedes has been unrepentant on the alleged illegality of the engine, and it did appear that the FIA was likely to vindicate its higher compression ratio – the crux of the discontent.
But now there is a sense of uncertainty in the air, as the increasingly high rate of lobbying from rival engine manufacturers has led to a renewed sense of worry.
Alpine is in its first year of being a Mercedes customer team, having ditched its own OEM status via Renault, and Nielsen believes that those who are discontented should “put some skin in the game” and protest properly.
“They’ve got their right to protest I suppose,” he told media including Motorsport Week. “We go to Melbourne, and if they really feel that strongly, then put some skin in the game and do something about it.
“I don’t know whether the FIA will express a view on this before Melbourne. I kind of hope they do because I kind of hope the story of Melbourne isn’t about compression ratios.”
Alpine questions ‘what is off limits?’ if Mercedes PU is deemed illegal
Such is Nielsen’s belief that the PU is perfectly within the way the rules are written for this new era of F1, that he questioned whether if there is anything else that can be protested about.
“The more fundamental thing for me is the way we’re going about it,” he said.
“If we’re saying that a very clear written set of regulations can be challenged in this way, then what else is off limits? Everything’s up for discussion.”
Nielsen continued: “People invest an awful lot of time and money, and particularly money into this, in good faith.
“And if suddenly everything can be challenged…then I think that’s a whole new world which we’ve not been in before.
“You could say I’m biased because we’ve got a Mercedes engine in our car, but do we really want a sport where clearly written stuff can just be challenged because people fancy doing it? That’s for the FIA to answer.”
Nielsen added that the regulations are “crystal clear,” and accused rivals of introducing “different parameters to that, and that’s for reasons best known to themselves.”
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