I agree 100 % . To win you have to push the envelope and try to design a superior car/engine . If the rumor is accurate I applaud Mercedes and Red Bull/Ford for thinking outside the box .

Creative Interpretation of the Rules!

Whatever is not expressly forbidden must be permissible.
That is called innovation by those who use it, "cheating " by those who didn't.

'Spirit of the rules' is reserved for amateur level racing

Phrase does not exsist at professional level as the rules are read from the perspective of 'what can't be done', every grey area and loophole is open for exploiting

Have a strong opinion on this, black and white for me, no grey area, cheating ie breaking the rules is for losers, people and teams that are not good enough to compete fairly

If Mercedes and Redbull have found away to increase compression enough at temperature to increase power, good for them, well played, up to the other PU manufacturers to catch up or for the FIA to close the loophole

Reminds me about Won, hope he is still thriving in F1.

One of the reasons Porsche has won Le Mans 19 times was the careful scrutiny of the rules by Norbert Singer and staff. He found things that are legal to do that other teams missed. I got to eat dinner with him and his wife, and he signed my name badge. Interesting guy.

yeah but now that it's OUT, that means the FIA has to rule on this. Y/N. So one side or the other will have to redo parts of their engine... Ouch, either way...

Maybe the FIA has already made a decision. I can't imagine an engine supplier making a bold move like this without asking first, with the risk being that 8 of the 22 cars on the grid aren't legal.

And maybe it's just a matter of 'look what the right hand's doing" while the left hand is working in secret on something else entirely, completely under the radar.

If the engine fits under the rules, the FIA has to change the rules to outlaw the engines. Doesn't every team sign an agreement on the rules as published?

Sounds a lot like the big telecom companies all getter on the brink of rule breaking but within them until the other complains and the rules get changed, they all do this all the time.

No different than the flexie wing; passes the load test, but obviously bends on camera down the straight. The FIA measures static compression, but all engines expand, creating some degree of dynamic compression.

That the FIA didn't figure this out does not mean teams are cheating, in any way. The FIA could very simply state no engine shall expand more that 2% or whatever. They didn't, and the smart engineers took advantage. Bully for them.

"You don't race cars, you race the rule book." - Smokey Yunick

^^^^ exactly this ^^^^

Car can be any shape on the track but must pass the FIA static load deflection tests

No structure is infinitely stiff and all structures expand/shrink with temperature

Dynamic measuring of real parts is not practical so FIA can set limits but can only virtual check using FEA, set crash test criteria or static load tests

FIA left an open loophole and clever teams have driven a truck through the rules book, good for them, excellent job, no cheating going on!

There always seems to be a very dominate team in F1. Ferrari was once a long time ago, then McLaren-Mercedes. Mercedes became a team on their own, and and were king on track for many years. Then four years of Redbull and Vettel, and Max for four driving the heck out of it with Mercedes separating Vettle and Max. Now McLaren is the big dog.

Those teams were all within the rules, they just had better engineers and rule book readers. And Adrian Newey is a one man major advantage.

It will be a very interesting new season. all new cars, with Ferrari, Audi, Cadillac, McLaren, and Aston Martin teams that make road cars, and teams that use engines of the big boys. I guess Cadillac is using Ferrari engines for now.

The new rules and active aero maybe we can have some passing. And goodby DRS.

No more only Red Bull, now Red Bull Ford
https://www.redbull.com/int-en/red-bull-x-ford-future-f1-engines