FIA banning the latest Mercedes and Red Bull engine 'trick' explained

Ferrari alerted the motorsport federation about the latest power unit 'trick' in Formula 1.

Both power unit manufacturers are said to have found a way to suddenly deploy all 350 kW instead of doing it gradually, by exploiting a system that activates if a car issue would cause the MGU-K to shut down.

Teams used this during the final metres ahead of the finish line to drain the battery entirely. In any case, the lap time gain was marginal on qualifying runs, only a few thousandths of a second. GPblog understands that the small performance gain prompted Mercedes to stop using it as early as Japan.

Under the rules, to prevent abuse of this sudden deployment, a lockout is triggered for one minute. This means that using this 'trick' would make little sense during a race.

No, the 'trick' was not illegal, but it was in the so-called grey area, which is regularly exploited by Formula 1 teams. This has now been addressed by the motorsport federation.

After draining their batteries and the cars entering the aforementioned lockout for 60 seconds, this would also prevent cars from suddenly driving slowly on straights in future races.

Now, the FIA ​​has informed the teams in writing that the 'continuous offset' function in the software is intended exclusively for emergency situations, GPblog has learned.