'Mercedes doesn't like it when the competition gets too close'

The first half of the current Formula 1 season has turned out to be an already classic battle of titans between Red Bull Racing and Mercedes and in particular Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton. Both teams and drivers battled each other on and off track, sometimes resulting in serious crashes and a lot of bickering.

Little knowledge

On the website of The Race journalist, Gary Anderson gives his opinion about the battle between the two top teams. There were protests against different aspects of Red Bull's car, while the Austrian team objected against the (according to the team) low penalty for Hamilton after his crash with Verstappen at Silverstone. And then there were the updates that weren't supposed to be there but were there anyway at Silverstone.

Toto Wolff flatly denied any updates were forthcoming, but at Silverstone, Mercedes regained some of the tenths it had previously lost to Red Bull. Anderson says: "As an insider at Mercedes told me, 'That was no surprise, Toto has very little knowledge of what's going on technically from day to day. '"

Used to the advantage

Yet Anderson is also shocked at the way Mercedes are acting now that Red Bull Racing have managed to give them the run-around: "Maybe Mercedes have just got used to the half-percent advantage they've had in recent years and don't like it when the competition gets too close?"