Formula One's commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone has backed Red Bull's call for action to rein in Mercedes' engine edge and make races more competitive after a one-sided start to the season.

However, the 84-year-old played down talk of the former champion walking away from a sport it dominated only recently. "They are absolutely 100 percent right," Ecclestone said yesterday when asked about Red Bull principal Christian Horner's statement that the governing FIA should apply an "equalization mechanism" to narrow the gap.

"There is a rule that I think (former president) Max (Mosley) put in when he was there that in the event ... that a particular team or engine supplier did something magic — which Mercedes have done — the FIA can level up things.

"They (Mercedes) have done a first class job which everybody acknowledges. We need to change things a little bit now and try and level things up a little bit."

Under a complicated system of tokens, manufacturers can make limited changes to their engines during a season but not wholesale revisions.

Renault-powered Red Bull has been frustrated by its inability to keep up with Mercedes which dominated Formula One last year and cruised to an easy one-two win in Sunday's season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.

Red Bull motorsport adviser Helmut Marko suggested his team, which won four championships in a row before being left in the Mercedes slipstream, might pull out if billionaire owner Dietrich Mateschitz lost interest. "We will evaluate the situation again as every year and look into costs and revenues. If we are totally dissatisfied we could contemplate an F1 exit," he told German-speaking media.

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