Horner unhappy with Hamilton's qualifying 'party mode'

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner is unhappy that Mercedes are able to use so many engine modes in qualifying.

Hamilton seemed to turn the engine up another notch in Q3 in Melbourne when he set his blistering pole position lap time.

Horner said: “You have parc ferme when the cars leave for qualifying, maybe engine modes should be the same from the moment you leave the garage until the end of the Grand Prix.

“Lewis’ time came predominantly between Q2 and Q3.

“They have a qualy mode that they don’t need to use in the earlier parts of qualifying, because why stress the engine?”

Horner has also complained that the Renault engine is not at the same level as its rivals, saying: “You only have to look at Saturday’s speed traps where all the Renault engines were grouped together with varying amounts of downforce on the car.

“That’s where we need to make progress.

“There are bits in the pipeline, Renault are not divulging everything that they’re up to but it’s certainly something that we’re pushing for.”

However, Horner was happy with his team’s race pace, and said: “We got one lap in clean air in the Grand Prix to judge out pace on which Daniel set the fastest lap.

“I think we have a quick race car, it’s just unfortunate on this track not to be able to use it.

“We got the fastest lap of the race and that wasn’t through putting a set of ultrasofts on, it was genuine pace.

“I think we have a quick race car.

“The negative for us is still the deficit in qualifying, the party mode… we’d like to go the Lewis’ party.”