Dreaded BOP in F1?

[wnut]

It is my belief that we currently have BOP run by Mercedes.
Mercedes spent millions (billions) of dollars developing hybrid systems for road car usage and managed to introduce the current PU system into F1 with an accompanying raft of rules to make sure that they were competing in an engine dominated formula and nobody else would be able to develop anything to catch up.
The added competitive advantage is that the hybrid systems are not really relevant or efficient in road cars, so nobody is prepared to sink enough money into the systems to compete with Mercedes.
(Another advantage to Mercedes is that nobody actually knows what Mercedes are doing with the hybrid power plant and what percentage of their performance is due to their engines and what is contributed by the KERS system.
Having established total dominance in F1, how to keep it?
Ferrari must to be kept reasonably happy to shore up the votes in the F1 Working Group and make sure that the current engines are continued in F1.
There were rumours in the F1 press that Mercedes were assisting Ferrari to develop the pretty ordinary PU they had developed. I believe this true.
How do you keep everyone happy in a formula where you have obtained the “unfair advantage”?
Easy, you assist Ferrari developing their PU, done, then you limit your own performance so that you don’t dominate by too much; qualifying mode settings to ensure front row grid position; allow Ferrari to win occasionally, and limit the performance of your customer teams; engine parity is not a requirement; to make sure that they don’t beat Ferrari.
The only threats on the horizon are, Honda and Renault neither of whom seen to be breaking themselves to spend the huge quantities of cash needed to close the performance deficit.
Hence we have a tiered system, works Mercedes, Ferrari, Mercedes engine customers, Renault engines with RBR performing beyond the engine with their aero package, Ferrari customers and Honda.
Welcome to Mercedes BOP rules.