Force India against Mercedes/Honda help plan

As recently reported by Motorsport.com, Mercedes has opened talks with Honda to see if there is scope for it to offer assistance to its rival to help it overcome its performance and reliability problems.

It is understood hat no final decision has been taken about if they will work together, but Force India deputy team principal Bob Fernley said on Friday at the Spanish Grand Prix that he would not support such a partnership.

"As a team obviously that has not only paid for its engines, but contributed to the development of them, I would certainly be very negative with sharing that technology with another team that is a competitor," said Fernley, whose team is powered by Mercedes engines.

No deal done

Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff declined to elaborate about the extent of talks with Honda, but insisted that nothing had been finalised yet.

Pushed on what exactly Mercedes was doing with Honda, Wolff said: "We are not doing anything for Honda, that is the current status quo.

"So unless that situation changes, I don't want to contribute to rumours out there that are false and I think are damaging for Honda, and create hard standpoints from teams or other stakeholders. We will see what happens."

Wolff added that he believed ultimately Honda would get on top of its situation in F1.

"It is important for F1," he said. "Honda is an important factor in F1, a massive and very successful company and I have no doubt they will eventually be where they expect to be."