Williams team principal James Vowles feels Formula 1 has a choice to make about whether it remains a meritocracy that rewards good engineering, or heads down a path that punishes it, amid the ongoing row over compression ratio rules.
It comes amid a move by rivals of Mercedes - which supplies Williams its customer engines - to get regulations changed.
Mercedes is under the spotlight because it is understood to have gained a performance advantage by exploiting a loophole in F1's new-for-2026 regulations regarding a compression ratio limit.
While the rules lay down a limit of 16:1, the measurement for that is taken at ambient temperature - and it is believed Mercedes has found a way to run at a higher level when its engine is running hot.
Mercedes' opposition are unhappy about the situation, with Ferrari, Audi, Honda and now Red Bull Powertrains working together to try to agree on a rule-change proposal for the compression ratio to be measured when engines are at operating temperature.
If the four manufacturers can reach consensus on a rules tweak, then in theory that could be enough to secure a super majority voting bloc to push an immediate regulations change through - providing it is also supported by the FIA and Formula One Management.
With the FIA having not declared its stance beyond saying it wants the matter sorted before the start of the season, Mercedes knows that how things develop from here is out of its hands.
Things are likely to reach a crunch point at a meeting of the F1 Commission that is set to take place next week in Bahrain during the testing period.
But for Vowles, the matter runs much deeper than simply being about the specifics of a checking procedure.
He said at stake was a critical call on whether F1 wants to stay true to the pioneering spirit of its past, or it wants to become a Balance of Performance-style series where technical advantages are wiped away for the sake of closing things up.
"We as a sport have to take care that this is not a BoP series," said Vowles ahead of the start of the second pre-season test in Bahrain.
"This is a meritocracy where the best engineering outcome effectively gets rewarded, not punished as a result.
"I'm sure other teams are pissed off they weren't able to achieve what Mercedes did, but we also need to take care.
"My hope is that sense prevails and that we, as a sport, recognise that we are here to be a meritocracy: [where the] best engineering solution wins as the result of it."
Vowles said he had been in regular dialogue with Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff and engine chief Hywel Thomas over the matter, and had no doubts that the current power unit design in his car is fully compliant with the rules as they stand.
But, with question marks over whether the engine could run if the rules were changed, Vowles said that careful thought needs to be given to any move that would alter the compression ratio testing procedure.
Asked about the implications of a successful move by the four Mercedes rivals that meant the rules change, Vowles said: "First of all, they have to come up with a regulation, and good luck with testing power units in the conditions you're trying to run on track.
"And the second element of things is what you do when you have effectively changed the rules that now mean, if we are not legal to it, that there are eight cars not participating on the grid.
"And that's what I meant by we as a sport have to really think about what the implication of this change is."
The FIA has held a series of meetings with power unit manufacturers as well as technical experts over recent weeks to try to get a better understanding of how new procedures could work.
Speaking in a video that was released by the FIA this week, single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis said the FIA did not want the controversy to remain unresolved heading into the start of the season.
"We are determined to make this a championship of competition between the best drivers, best engineers, the teams, but not a championship of rule interpretation," he said.
"We want it to be a championship of engineering prowess as well as driving prowess, but not just a smarter rule interpreter."
