Mercedes not disadvantaged by FIA: 'They didn't know that beforehand'

Mercedes would have been disadvantaged by the new regulations this season. Those rules would be specifically aimed at reducing Mercedes' lead, but Marc Priestley doesn't believe that's the case.

In Formula 1, the car of a driver is still decisive, so it is very annoying when a team is too dominant. In the past, the FIA has often tried to reduce this advantage by introducing new rules. One example is the ban on the 'blown diffuser' in 2009.

New FIA rules

In 2021 Mercedes seems to have lost some ground now that the teams had to simplify the floor and the diffuser. However, Priestley doesn't think these rules were devised to reduce Mercedes' lead but had a different purpose. Mercedes has simply not done as well as other teams.

''When the FIA starts thinking up rules and putting them down on paper, you don't know in advance what is going to happen, the teams didn't know either. It could just as easily have gone the other way, that Mercedes would have had an advantage. The FIA has done this from a safety point of view, and not to make fun of Mercedes'', says the former McLaren mechanic in His new video.

Bad luck for Mercedes

''Other cars have simply done a better job with the new regulations than Mercedes at the moment. Honda has also made a leap forward so the lead Mercedes had in terms of the engine has also disappeared. Then a new regulation like this can really mess up the ranking.''

Priestley is well aware that in the past the FIA has cracked down on teams for driving too far upfront, but now sees no reason to suspect the FIA has specifically targeted Mercedes. ''Of course, they have done that in the past, but not this time. If they had wanted to hit Mercedes, they could have done it more specifically with different rules,'' Priestley concludes.