Mercedes on Red Bull suspicion: 'As long as they waste their energy on that'

Since the summer break it has been noticed that the Mercedes engine is a lot faster on the straight. In Russia and Turkey, it was clearly noticeable that all teams with a Mercedes engine had more speed than the other engines. However, that difference seems to have disappeared in Austin.

Because Red Bull Racing were only five kilometres per hour behind at top speed on Saturday and in the long straight they had a lead of one and a half tenths. At Auto, Motor und Sport, Christian Horner explains what he thinks is responsible."The advantage differs per circuit. Here it's less because there are a lot of fast corners, so you can't adjust the rear of the car very low without losing pressure."

"You can perform it on circuits with long straights like Sochi and Istanbul though. Mercedes picked up seven-tenths on us there". Red Bull had therefore raised questions with the FIA, to get clarity on the Mercedes engine. They didn't get an answer, but according to Wolff, it did have an effect on the Mercedes team's preparations.

"As long as you want to waste your energy on that, then that's totally fine with us". However, the Mercedes team boss also acknowledges that the FIA's technical inspections did cause time to be lost and that they did not have everyone at their disposal in preparation.