McLaren are hopeful that Mercedes will agree to allow in-season engine development during the 2016 season, similar to what has been agreed this year.
Currently the four engine manufacturers can use their leftover development tokens to upgrade their engines during the season, but this is set to change in 2016 with all tokens expiring after February 28.
All but one manufacturer is campaigning the FIA to re-open the loophole and to allow in-season development to allow them to close up to the dominant Mercedes.
McLaren racing director Eric Boullier admits his team and engine supplier Honda are keen to see the rules changed and hope Mercedes will be supportive.
“It’s all about negotiating,” he said. “They [Mercedes] are willing to listen, to be honest,” he is quoted by Autosport.
“I’m sure there is some room for change. You just need to look at the whole picture.”
Whilst Boullier is aware that everyone agreed to the engine rules in the first place, he says a degree of flexibility is required to ensure everyone can compete on a fair basis.
“The position is clear. We want to have as much room [to develop] as possible because F1 has become an engine formula, and it’s too much now.
“Looking at the situation, with the chassis you can develop that when you want; engine, you are locked into a situation and now engine manufacturers cannot recover or compete fairly, let’s say.
“Of course, the regulation is the same for everybody, and everybody knew the regulation beforehand, but there needs to be a degree of flexibility for that. It needs to be changed.
“We cornered ourselves in Formula 1 with this regulation, but now we need to be clever to rethink how to change it.”
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