Mercedes Formula 1 team principal Toto Wolff has ruled out joining other manufacturers at the Le Mans 24 Hours as long as the race is run to performance-balancing rules.
The race is part of the World Endurance Championship. Its top Hypercar class is governed by Balance of Performance rules under which the FIA sets different minimum weight and maximum power limits for each car in an attempt to equalise performance between them.Wolff says he and Mercedes chairman Ola Kallenius are not interested in competing in a championship where teams’ performance is handicapped.
“You spend so much time and money and effort in developing the quickest car and then you’re being [told to] put 10 kilograms of ballast into this car,” he told Bloomberg. “And I just want to build the quickest car.”
“Formula 1 has shown how it goes,” he said. “Give us a cost cap. Do Le Mans, give everybody a cost cap, you cannot spend more than ‘x’, whatever you said, 30, 40 million. And within this 30, 40 million, then you can do what you want.
“Still there’s regulations, but nobody needs to bluff in pre-season racing or in qualifying. It’s war, it’s gloves off, pure racing.
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“If that was to happen, Le Mans absolutely would be something that we would be looking at. But at the moment, BoP, having some officials judge whether you’re quick or too quick, putting 10 kilograms in your car, taking it out from someone else the next day, not for us at the moment.”
It hasn’t competed in the top flight at Le Mans since its embarrassing exit from the 1999 race. Its CLRs repeatedly became airborne during the event, leading to huge crashes for Mark Webber in practice and finally Peter Dumbreck during the race, prompting the team’s withdrawal.
Despite the manufacturers’ chequered history in the race, Wolff recognises it as one of the world’s most challenging and prestigious motorsport events.
“I’m a racer, the Le Mans 24 Hours is one of the greatest races in the world,” he said. “Formula 1, for me, obviously with my bias, is the best there is. It’s the best drivers, quickest cars, the greatest tracks, and then there is a long time nothing.
“But if I would say what’s next, Le Mans 24 Hours, Indy 500 and – that is really one for insiders in the Nordschleife – is the Nürburgring 24 hours. That for me is the top of the top.
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“When I’m not having a Formula 1 weekend, I can watch a Le Mans race pretty much through the night. I’m following the live feed. I know some of the drivers, so I have a personal interest.
“But what it is for me today is we are concentrating on the main platform and that is Formula 1. It’s what we want to do, right? This captures 99% of the audience and everything else comes second.”
The FIA forbids competitors in the World Endurance Championship from making comments about the BoP which may be regarded as an attempt to “influence” the handicapping rules. Reigning Formula 1 world champion Max Verstappen has recently repeated his criticism of the BoP rules.
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World Endurance Championship
- “Luck” needed to win Le Mans because of Balance of Performance – Verstappen
- McLaren finally confirms it will enter the World Endurance Championship in 2027
- How to watch the IndyCar and WEC season-openers this weekend
- Ford’s return to boost top Le Mans and WEC classes to 10 manufacturers
- Lotterer, Estre and Vanthoor clinch WEC drivers’ title, Toyota win constructors’
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
24th June 2025, 11:47
Tell that to Mazda.
Levente (@leventebandi)
24th June 2025, 13:02
mazda left prototype sportscar racing long time ago with their DPi and they are not really consider returning.
if you want to refer their le mans performance, they only stayed for a year after they were not given unfair advantage
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
25th June 2025, 16:32
naturally aspirated 2.6 liters vs 3.5 liters, seems kind of fair they didn’t get a ballast penalty for having say a turbocharged 4 liters or what not.
Marcel
24th June 2025, 11:55
In other words, we need to throw unlimited cash at is in order to be able to win. Seen that before.
Alan Dove
24th June 2025, 11:57
In his actual words
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
25th June 2025, 20:58
Le Mans tried the cost cap approach with LMP2. People didn’t want to do it in the end, because after a good start, eventually the faster and freer LMP1 became more attractive.
S
24th June 2025, 12:32
And yet just about everyone doing Le Mans goes there because of BoP…
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
25th June 2025, 16:38
The FIA did a good job running off Group C and the Diesels. Just so they (stakeholders/FIA) could promote their rules based order it would seem.
MichaelN
24th June 2025, 13:31
The F1 technical regulations are 179 pages long. The additional Operational regulations are a further 30 pages long. That’s 200+ pages on how teams can “do what you want”.
F1 doesn’t get a 1,5 second field spread by being a free for all. F1 has a BoP, but it’s pre-emptive.
It doesn’t even have engine development… In motorsport.
Patrick
24th June 2025, 14:02
This. Toto is blinded by F1 revenue. There’s much to say about the (un)fairness of BoP, but saying that a lack of engineering freedom keeps Mercedes from entering WEC is hypocrite to put it mildly.
anon
24th June 2025, 23:36
Patrick, the regulations in the WEC are intended to heavily restrict the amount of development that teams are allowed to do on their cars over the length of the entire regulation cycle.
The ACO made it explicitly clear in their proposals for the current regulations that the rules were intended to impose strict limits on engineering freedom and restrict development work to make it cheap to compete in the WEC. It’s why the LMDh regulations that most manufacturers use are built around standardised monocoques and components such as the gearbox are standard components supplied by a single manufacturer.
The latest modifications to the regulations mean that teams have been allowed to homologate a maximum of two cars in the period from 2021 to 2029, with a maximum of five “development jokers” from 2021 to 2027, with 2028 and 2029 allowing one more “development joker” for each of those years. There are further proposals being discussed to introduce stricter limits on development work, including proposals to ban teams from introducing mid-season updates and a proposal to introduce a ban on aerodynamic development work later this year until the end of the current rule cycle in 2029.
As a comparison, if we had the same system of regulations in F1, we would have had a set of cars produced in 2021, with the teams then allowed to introduce, at most, one large change in the design of the cars and some small minor updates to the cars between 2021 and 2029.
We are, as it happens, seeing some teams in the WEC running into those development caps. In the case of Peugeot, they have already used up their re-homologation option and also used all of their “development jokers” between 2022 and 2023 to redesign the 9X8 into the version that debuted at the start of 2024. It means that Peugeot is now banned from undertaking any development work on the 9X8 until 2028 at the earliest.
AlanD
24th June 2025, 15:09
I feel F1 has lost its way over engines in particular. I can understand they wanted to massively reduce costs by getting rid of qualifying engines and a new race engine every race, but now they have massively more reliable and massively more complicated and expensive engines, and we don’t see the innovation that I used to associate with F1. The bodywork is so identical as well. If F1 is about drivers, put them in identical cars, a level playing field, and see who is the better driver. If it is a constructors series, let tthem innovate. But instead they want it to be both.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
25th June 2025, 16:36
When people are scamming or acting in bad trust they typically project their own interests on to their victims.
So if a guy say, Toto says we are trying to make F1 more affordable, he really means hes trying to make as much money as possible (affordable for himself). This is a very common phenomenon.
The V8’s were much much more affordable than the hybrid formula, and I would hazard a guess, really good technicians who can rebuild a motor with a blindfold, are worth their weight in gold, and that is really where you need to look at saving money, by finding the best talent <<<
BUT, F1 isn't about talent as it is about milking teams for money, hand over fist, and running cheaper outfits out of business so they can drive investor value up. It has absolutely nothing to do with saving costs, except that stand to benefit exclusively from the corrupt rule changes being issued by the FIA+
Tony Mansell (@tonymansell)
24th June 2025, 13:53
I think BOP is rubbish but thats a fair point
UNeedAFinn2Win (@uneedafinn2win)
24th June 2025, 15:23
Well, they’re not wrong
baasbas
24th June 2025, 15:48
“.. because that is what Max said”
Sergey Martyn
24th June 2025, 16:51
Put a 20 kg backpack onto Usain Bolt to equalize his perfotmance!
S
25th June 2025, 2:52
Why do people make these silly comparisons? BoP attempts to (roughly) equalise the machinery, not the athlete. It aims to make the driver’s (and team’s) performance on the day at least as, if not more important than the fundamental speed of the car.
That’s a fundamental basis of any sport.
If we were talking about BoP’ing a spec series then you’ve got a valid point. But this isn’t.
greasemonkey
25th June 2025, 15:55
Which is why Le Mans is no long what I followed Le Mans for. Le Mans being more about machinery and engineering is what made 24h so cool. Now it just passes time. I don’t even watch most of it anymore.
Le Mans, F1, and Indy were all cooler, for my taste, when they were not trying to blend in spec series stuff. What is the point of being clever if BoP will just wash it away.
Having said that, there IS a way to have both. Make the Manufacturer winner be who has the most BoP penalty. If Merc gets the most BoP ballast, Merc wins. But the drivers gets their points from race results.
Jojo
24th June 2025, 17:16
I don’t like the BoP rules either. When engineers and a team manage to create a top performing car, that effort and quality of work should be rewarded.
S
25th June 2025, 2:57
And it is – typically with a combination of a smaller air restrictor, reduced fuel flow and added mass.
Never forget that car racing is entertainment, and not just for the participants.
The teams designing and racing these cars are doing so to make lots and lots of money. If profit wasn’t their main goal, they’d instead participate in amateur series where there is much more technical freedom to make whatever they want.
Darren Wilks
24th June 2025, 18:19
“F1 has the best tracks” COTA? Monaco? Miami? I think Toto has been smoking something
EffWunFan (@cairnsfella)
24th June 2025, 23:54
What does that even mean?
GongTong (@gongtong)
25th June 2025, 10:04
Names a circuit that everyone loves. And an iconic one that a lot of us love despite it giving bad racing . And a further example that is a bit naff, but has finally given F1 multiple races in the USA.
Kinda made Toto’s argument for him, to be honest
baasbas
24th June 2025, 20:51
I had one of those C9’s as a toy. It had a flywheel and a little flint stone. So it whined when you gave it a push and it kept running for a while making a lot of sparks along the way…
I don’t know why I just thought of that, sorry
GongTong (@gongtong)
25th June 2025, 10:02
@baasbas don’t apologise. I logged in just to say that that comment made me smile. Haha
praxis (@praxis)
24th June 2025, 23:43
Unlike F1 and FOM, I don’t think WEC operates within enough budget to regulate and enforce a cost cap. Also F1 regulations are much more restrictive and monolithic compared to WEC.
But BoP is one of the factors limiting the popularity of WEC in particular, I get the feeling this will eventually be implemented at some point in future.
S
25th June 2025, 3:03
That may well be true amongst a certain demographic – but at the same time, a lot of people are attracted to series that feature far more competitive on-track racing and less consistent results. BoP delivers that.
WEC declined significantly when it didn’t have decent competition in the top class, leading to almost all manufacturers deserting it as a result. BoP and a more restrictive set of technical rules has brought them back in great numbers – and with them, viewer numbers.
anon
25th June 2025, 7:16
@praxis when you say that “F1 regulations are much more restrictive and monolithic compared to WEC” – I would be curious to know how much you have actually studied the regulations in the WEC, or if you’ve just simply assumed that the regulations must be laxer. Have you studied the WEC regulations in any depth?
praxis (@praxis)
25th June 2025, 9:22
@anon,
It’d be helpful if you give an explanation, exactly how my assumption about WEC is wrong.
anon
25th June 2025, 18:58
@praxis I wanted to establish whether it was the case that you were just assuming that the rules were not as strict, or if you had looked at the rules.
There is also the fact that it depends which set of regulations you are looking at, given there are entirely separate sets of regulations written for each class of car. There is also the issue that, superficially, some of the regulations may look shorter on the surface, but when you then look at the fine details, you realise that the regulations are in fact split across more than one document.
As an example, if you look at the LMDh regulations, they may look superficially shorter. However, because the LMDh cars are built around a set of standardised LMP2 monocoques, it turns out that the LMDh regulations are simply listing the additional regulations that apply on top of the regulations that are carried over from the LMP2 rule set.
The regulations do, broadly speaking, follow very much the same approach as in the current Formula 1 regulations, particularly when it comes to defining bodywork zones (i.e. defining certain boxes within which bodywork must fit, and then setting specific requirements on the radius of curvature and specific dimensions). In some areas, the boxes are very tightly controlled – the floors of the cars in particular have very little room for teams to redesign those, to the point where they are almost entirely standard specification in all but name.
The engine regulations are also somewhat looser and also much stricter – whilst the configuration is technically relatively flexible, the ACO also has a set of formulas that specify the exact shape of the power output profile of the engines. For example, if N is the rpm of the engine and Nmax is the rpm at which peak power occurs, then the ACO says that at (N/Nmax) = 0.55 and if the powertrain is producing 500kW, then it should produce exactly 246kW at that rpm ratio – if the ratio of (N/Nmax) is 0.60, then it must produce exactly 289kW (and so on, all the way up the power curve). When the ACO is applying BoP changes, it is simply scaling up or down that same standard power curve to either a maximum of 520kW or a minimum of 480kW.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
25th June 2025, 20:59
@praxis WEC used to manage it with LMP2 just fine. It is unlikely to be any more difficult in Hypercar than it was in LMP2 – the trouble is that it would risk putting off the current participants, and if anything Hypercar is oversubscribed right now.
Steven Payne
25th June 2025, 6:21
As someone who watches WEC on occasions I can’t see what BoP is actually doing, Ferrari have dominated for a third year in the hyper class and in the LMP class the green and yellow car, sorry can’t remember it’s name, won yet again. Where is the balance when the same teams win year after year.
Just my thoughts as I’m not a followers of the rules and regs
Atron
25th June 2025, 12:55
BoP ensures that the team that the top officials want to win will win, currently that is Ferrari in hyper car. They could easily take 20kg off the other cars, but the checks aren’t as big as Ferrari’s checks and the gates/tv money is bigger when Ferrari wins.
MazdaChris (@mazdachris)
25th June 2025, 12:34
“..its involvement in a disastrous crash during the 1955 race, which killed 82 people including the team’s driver Pierre Levegh, led the manufacturer to withdraw from all racing for decades.”
This isn’t strictly accurate. Apparently Mercedes had already decided at the start of that year that they would pull out of all factory-based sportscar and GP racing. The timing of the announcement came, understandably, shortly after the Le Mans disaster, but they didn’t pull out immediately. They contested the final races of the season.
I’m not going to say that the optics of their car killing dozens of spectators wasn’t a factor in why it took them so long to step back into the world of motor racing, but it wasn’t the reason they pulled out in the first place.
M2X
25th June 2025, 14:02
Balance of Power only works when independent drivers, drive all the cars to put down benchmarks, put all the cars on independent dyno’s and stick them in windtunnels.
All the data that comes out of that is used to decide the parameters each car needs to condone to.
The parameters are put into the cars, the cars are tested again to double check.
And from that point onwards no changes are allowed to be made to cars at any point. No changes to software, engine, gearbox, springrates, dampers etc.
Then there is no such thing as sandbagging.
But if you have to go through all that time, effort and money, you might aswell have a spec series.
Or you just do what Toto suggested you write iron clad rules, give teams a budget cap and the best team wins.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
25th June 2025, 21:01
Until the teams leave, and then it’s whichever team is the last one standing (which is what happened to the cost-capped LMP2).
Sergey Martyn
25th June 2025, 16:17
If the pinnacle of motorsport has to be artifically restricted, I’m not interested.
I want to see performance on the edge of capabilities either of machinery or human.
IMHO that’s a very essence of any sport.
Ernesto
26th June 2025, 4:21
I strongly dislike Toto but this time he couldn’t be more right.
Even though I am a lifelong Ferrari fan, I don’t care for their WEC success as long as there is BoP. Furthermore, I believe Toyota was robbed after keeping WEC alive when no one else would compete.
In F1, if McLaren beats the crap out of the rest, you know their car is simply better. Not that some guy gave them a lower weight or added ballast to the others.
CC
26th June 2025, 6:34
IMO, it’s like telling all the world’s best athletes they have to add 5 to 10 or 15 pounds to their ankles for being too good at what they do. Balance of performance is just a form of handicapped racing. To top it off, they trying to legislate rules saying you can’t even talk about it, which is even more infuriating to racers and fans alike. Boycott their races, their TV broadcasts, and their commercial sponsors, till they get back to real racing
S
26th June 2025, 11:56
It’s nothing like that at all.
It is, and it is used in athletics too. And, more comparably, also in horse racing.
It works well for what it is intended to do.
Most sporting series have similar restrictions now, including F1. Criticising the BoP system is directly criticising the people who implement it.
Go for it. And make sure to do the same for all the other racing series which have made sporting compromises for financial gain. Think of all the free time and pocket money you’ll have.
Robb Shearman
27th June 2025, 6:24
A slightly misleading headline… Mercedes will more than likely be at Le Mans next year, but just not with a hypercar…they’ll be in the GT3 class