Overview
The battle between Mercedes and Red Bull for all the honours this season took another twist a few weeks ago. Mercedes introduced a new power unit for both their drivers, and the results have been mightily impressive.
Mercedes have transcended to another dimension of pace, and no car on the grid seems to be able to match them over the course of a race or even a qualifying session. The timing of it couldn’t have been worse for Red Bull, given how the business end of the season is upon us.
Their ridiculous pace has the rest of the grid worried, and among them is Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner.
Horner says the new power unit is unbeatable and incredible
Mercedes introduced the new power unit at the Italian GP for one of their drivers, and everyone got a serious taste of it. Even though McLaren ended up winning the race with a 1-2, Mercedes was easily the fastest team on that day.
It was déjà vu for the rest of the grid at the Russian GP and the Turkish GP, where both Mercedes drivers took a win each. Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren were left chasing shadows throughout those weekends.
Mercedes leads the Constructors’ Championship, and are only six points behind in the Drivers’ Championship. The latter can be attributed to their lacklustre start to the season. They were second best to Red Bull for the first half of the season, but the power unit turned the tables.
After the Turkish GP, Horner gave his thoughts on Mercedes’ new power unit, and said that he was very surprised at the increase in pace, especially on the straights.
“Their straightline speed has taken a significant step recently,” Horner told the official F1 website.
“And I think that whereas we could match them with smaller wings previously, now we can’t get near. We saw that particularly at this circuit where Lewis (Hamilton) in particular had a significant straightline advantage with a bigger rear wing on the car.
“We’ve got to maximise our package as best we can and, as I say, it’s surprising that they’ve made the step that they have with the power unit.”
There were concerns from non-Mercedes fans that the team were probably breaking the rules if their pace was this good. However, Horner insisted that it was legal, and stated that they haven’t lodged any complaints.
“Just for clarity, we didn’t protest it. We raised some questions, as all teams do,” Horner assured.
“It wasn’t just Red Bull by the way, there were other manufacturers raising questions as well that continue to be raised. It’s something that’s down to the FIA to look at, for them to police.
“But when you’ve got great straightline speed that’s greater than with the DRS opened, that’s pretty impressive. I mean, if you look at the straightline speed of particularly Lewis (in the race), it was like 15 to 20 (km/h) up after the kink on the straight. It’s phenomenal.
“We’ve got to find a bit of straightline speed – maybe they were running a different downforce configuration, but some speed to find. And we’ve got some tracks coming up that hopefully suit us, but we know Austin is Hamilton territory, so we’re going to have to be on our A-game.”
Red Bull now haven’t taken a victory since the Dutch GP. This is due to Mercedes’ precise timing and execution, having trailed them for much of the first half of the season.
Mercedes trackside engineering chief Andrew Shovlin said that the team was very happy to have a car that is the measuring stick at this point in the season.
“It looks like a car that can win championships,” Shovlin said.
“If you go back to the early part of the year, decisions that we’re taking on development, trying to balance the two years (2021 and 2022), one of our worries was at this end of the year, are we still going to be able to stick the car on pole, to get a front row lock out, to control a race?
“And it’s really reassuring that we are now getting into the last six, that we’ve shown we’ve got a package that can out-qualify (Red Bull) on a Saturday and out-race them on a Sunday.”
First testers of the new power unit
Mercedes decided to let Valtteri Bottas do the honours, and allowed him to test the new power unit at the Italian GP. He started the race from the back of the grid to serve his engine penalty.
What followed was pure madness, as Bottas put in one of the performances of the season. The man romped from last place to stand on the podium alongside the aforementioned McLaren team.
Bottas was a monster with the new engine under his car, and overtook some top drivers to take a fantastic podium. Ferrari, Alpine, AlphaTauri and Aston Martin were left in his dust as he stormed into third place. Had he not run into a stubborn Sergio Perez, he might have even taken a win.
Meanwhile, Hamilton took a new Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) two races later at the Turkish GP. He reigned supreme on qualifying day, taking pole position ahead of everyone else. He then dropped to P11 after his ten-place penalty.
It took little time for him to muscle his way into the top five. He shrugged off the challenges of multiple drivers, and finished the race in fifth place. It was due to some miscommunication that Hamilton missed out on a potential podium. If that hadn’t happened, he may have ended up in the top three.
Read more: Horner responds to Stewart’s criticism of Verstappen – “Even Jackie made mistakes”