'A limit based on one body part' - David Coulthard slates Red Bull ADUO ruling

David Coulthard has criticised the system used to establish which team has the best Formula 1 power unit after Red Bull was again ruled to have the best in class. 

ADUO is the 'Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities', which monitors the performance of every engine on the F1 grid. These tests create a ranking system, with development tokens awarded to OEMs to develop provided they are more than two percent behind the benchmark.

Crucially, the tests only measure the output of the internal combustion engine, and not the electrical element, even though the latter is believed to make a far greater difference to overall performance.

"There's an old expression in Formula 1, that aero is king, and that's always been the sort of mantra," he told the Up to Speed Podcast. 

"We always tend to talk about aero rather than the horsepower per se, and there have been examples of teams winning world championships not with the most powerful engine. But what I think feels a bit like there's been a missed opportunity, and it has been explained by the FIA, it was requested by the teams to have as simple a mechanism as possible, which fell to being only the internal combustion engine element of the power unit, which that to me just isn't about being fair if they've all agreed to it. It's like, why? 

"It's like saying we're going to, I don't know, set some kind of limit based on one body part or something in athletics, even though the whole body's used. Even though the whole body's used in the actual competition. 

"So, the power unit as a whole isn't just about the internal combustion. It's also about the electrical storage capacity."

Red Bull has disputed the findings but remains unable to upgrade its engine, whereas Ferrari will bring its upgraded power unit to Monza, a week after Honda introduced its latest package. 

He added: "For me, really, it's more about it doesn't seem the fairest mechanism to monitor power unit output, because it's just the internal combustion engine, and that's part of the power unit, which clearly is electrical energy deployment harvesting. That is massively complex. 

"And we know from McLaren at the beginning of the year that they were frustrated that they were getting the same power unit, but they were getting all the information on the power unit the week before the race, and it just wasn't enough time to be able to run the simulations to work out the best way to deploy the energy. 

"So, what we find is we're in this classic sort of scenario where we all have to sit there going, ‘This doesn't seem really the best.’”