Toto Wolff, Mercedes Formula 1 team boss, is astonished by the Red Bull behaviour. He was surprised by loud protest by the rival team to the questions regarding power unit and straight line dominance.
Max Verstappen out-performed Mercedes which led to fourth victory of Red Bull this season. It also managed to break Mercedes’ record at the circuit.
Hamilton felt lonely at the Styrian GP, where Verstappen was in wind. Wolff appreciated Red Bull success which has made “a huge step forward with their power unit”. Wolff made clear that he didn’t mean that Honda introduced a major upgrade.
The F1 regulations for 2021 restrict teams from upgrading their power units to increase its power. Only exception is reliability.
Red Bull has responded to questions linking its straight line speed to small rear wing and low-drag set-up.
Verstappen also responded to questions after Styrian Grand Prix victory. He wanted to “print out of the rear wing difference we’re running” and that there was “no clear advantage on pure power”.
Wolff expressed his surprised to Red Bull protest on the suggestions that reliability card could be played for performance enhancement.
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“I wonder why that is such a topic. When we all know that the power units need to be homologated,” Wolff said.
“I’m really surprised that the Red Bull guys keep protesting so loudly on the power unit story. So that is a bit weird.
“The rules are very clear. It’s homologated, you can come up with reliability fixes, and that’s it.
“Obviously there are certain things you can clean up, but you have your tokens and you need to use them, and that’s it.
“So there shouldn’t be any power advantage as such.”
Hamilton made clear that his team is far behind Red Bull and he could not catch up to Verstappen performance.
Sergio Perez also appreciated the team at Milton Keynes for bringing more updates to car.
“The team is pushing hard,” Perez said.
“Everyone back in the factory is trying to develop the car as best as possible, bringing upgrades pretty much every single weekend. You can see the results on-track.
“Obviously yeah, we’re running a smaller rear wing than the competition. So hopefully that can be an advantage come race day.”
