Ross Brawn suspects Red Bull’s design to be illegal – Formula 1 news
Mercedes AMG team principal, Ross Brawn has turned over the tables to Red Bull, suspecting the design of the RB8 to be illegal.
After the strong criticism from the contenders on the design of Mercedes new car W03, concerning its DRS-activated F-duct device which can boost up the top speed of the car during the race, Brawn admittedly went with a counter tactic and said that the debate
regarding their novel device had switched the focus away from the implications of the exhaust blown diffuser.
“The discussion about our system has diverted the focus from the exhaust issue,” he said in Australia.
Before the first race, team principal of Lotus, Eric Boullier said that they would challenge the qualifying results over the legitimacy of Mercedes’ W03 design. Nonetheless, Charlie Whiting, the technical delegate said that it was legal.
Furthermore, Bild newspaper of Germany had reported that the Brackley-based team suspected that defending champions were exploiting the loopholes in the FIA regulations.
According to the report, Red Bull was setting up an engine trick which evidently implicated the turning on and off of the individual cylinders, which was not legal.
The vice-president of Mercedes’ competition, Norbert Haug said that they would not demonstrate publicly however, they would ask FIA about the issue.
“There is no official protest by us. But there are some questions that we are asking the FIA.”
However, Dr. Helmut Marko of Red Bull responded, “No one will find anything. We comply with the rules.”
In addition, Sauber team principal, Peter Sauber said, “I wouldn’t say that it’s illegal, but it’s borderline.”
Mercedes had quite a reliable pre-season testing programme this year than the previous one in which it almost could not test run the car before the season opener.
Moreover, it would be interesting to know that Mercedes, with its innovative car design had been deemed amongst the strong teams for this season.
In addition, it had been reported that the teams which include Mercedes, Williams, Lotus and Toro Rosso relied on using a more conventional approach to their cars’ design in Australia during the last week.
“First we wanted to see what is allowed and what is not,” said Williams engineer Mark Gillan.
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