“Weird” that Red Bull is “protesting so loudly” in F1 engine defence - Wolff

Mercedes Formula 1 boss Toto Wolff says he finds it “weird” that Red Bull is “protesting so loudly” in defence of its recent straight-line speed gains.
“Weird” that Red Bull is “protesting so loudly” in F1 engine defence - Wolff

Honda introduced its second power unit at the French Grand Prix as Red Bull enjoyed impressive straight-line speed performance across the weekend on its way to claiming its third straight victory over Mercedes and a fourth win of 2021.

That led to suggestions from Lewis Hamilton that Red Bull had managed to take a step forward with its “upgrade” despite engines being homologated this season, allowing only for reliability enhancements.

On Friday at the Styrian Grand Prix, Red Bull team principal Christian Horner dismissed Hamilton’s recent theories as being “some way from reality”, insisting his outfit’s gains on the straights had come from running a low-drag and low-downforce configuration at Paul Ricard.

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After taking a commanding pole position in Austria, Max Verstappen hit back at a question about Red Bull’s engine performance by saying he wants to “print out” proof that its superior straight-line compared to Mercedes is related to rear wing levels.

Speaking after qualifying, Wolff admitted he is “really surprised” how Red Bull has responded to questions about its power unit.

“I wonder why that is such a topic when we all know that the power units need to be homologated,” Wolff said.

“And 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."

While Wolff admitted that Red Bull has “the faster package at the moment”, he stressed it is not only down to them boasting a straight-line speed advantage.

“It’s always the interaction between a strong power unit, lots of downforce and making the tyres work,” he explained. “And I think they are just doing a very good job.

“We’ve already seen it in Ricard where they were able to run a smaller wing whilst not losing a lot through the twisty bit. So overall, just a very strong package.”

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