McLaren racing director Eric Boullier believes Mercedes is trying to protect its current advantage by casting doubts over the safety of Formula One's planned rule changes in 2017.
Although they have not yet been finalised, F1 is planning changes to the regulations to make cars up to five seconds per lap faster in 2017. The plans were put in motion after complaints that the sport is no longer as extreme as it once was, with lap times slower than they were during the height of the V10 era in 2004.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff insists he is receptive to changes in the regulations, but has raised concerns over Pirelli's ability to produce tyres capable of dealing with the extra aero performance.
"We believe that F1 needs to be a competitive platform, we believe there needs to be more teams to be competitive and win races -- it makes the whole thing more attractive for us," Wolff said. "We need a good setup and a good organisation and we will take on every challenge.
"If it is more aero we will take the challenge on as long as Pirelli is able to produce tyres that can cope with that. If it is about changing some of the other regulations we will also be on board, but it just needs to be reasonable."
However, Boullier believes Mercedes' concerns over the tyres are only skin deep and it is actually attempting to prevent changes to the regulations in order to protect its position at the top of the sport.
"Naturally, I guess this is the usual game where you want to stop some changes so you just argue and going the safety way is pretty desperate from Mercedes."