With power unit efficiency central to success in the new F1 technical regulations, engine suppliers are fighting tooth and nail to establish themselves as the supreme force before the start of the season in Melbourne. Over the past couple of months, reports have emerged about a clever trick being utilised by two of the sport’s giants.

It is alleged that Mercedes and Red Bull have developed a method that will allow them to run at an 18:1 compression ratio, rather than the 16:1 ratio used by their rivals. Put simply, these teams would be able to push their engines harder, extracting more horsepower and more speed.

This sparked controversy in the paddock, and last week the FIA held a meeting with the power unit manufacturers. According to Tombazis, the FIA’s single-seater technical director, this won’t be a central talking point by the time cars hit the track in Melbourne.

“When the regulations are new, inevitably, there are different views about certain parts, and compared to past lives, where, let’s say, things would end up in a protest and an international court of appeal or something like that,” Tombazis told RacingNews365.

“We aim to provide clarity before, following all of the governance processes there are, but we clearly never have any control over anybody on whether they want to protest or not, but we hope to be able to provide enough clarity so that hopefully, it is not a necessary step. But of course, whether a team decides to do that, that is their business; we are still working on what the solution will be.”

According to Tombazis, the meeting held ahead of the first pre-season test in Barcelona was not intended to address the controversy surrounding Mercedes and Red Bull’s engine trick, but was instead a routine discussion.

“I think to probably disappoint slightly, but the meeting, as we said on a few occasions, was not a summit meeting where big decisions were made, or intended to be made,” he explained. “The meeting had a very clear agenda to discuss the technicalities and methodology of measuring compression ratio.

“It was a purely technical meeting on how it is measured. It was clear before the meeting to all the participants, and made clear during the meeting to one or two who wanted to stray from the agenda, that this was not the forum to discuss exactly what is happening on that topic.

“Once this was made clear, all the participating entities were constructive and talked like scientists and engineers with a problem at hand, not in terms of their opinion about the regulation.”