Mattia Binotto not interested in the Mercedes’ suspension discussion and he is not surprised how it behaves as Christian Horner and Toto Wolff add more.
Its been a roller coaster of topics all-through the 2021 F1 season, shuffling between Red Bull and Mercedes. It kind of shows how tough and close the battle is. The latest topic of discussion arose from the ‘Bulls’ side against the German manufacturer.
It wasn’t like a formal complaint against the movable part, but more inquiring the FIA about it. Even though it is the latter, it is natural that Red Bull would want Mercedes to not have the part if it helps them to eke out that extra performance to edge them out.
It pinned at the suspension usage of Mercedes on rear which helped them to extend its straightline speed and therefore gain that tiny bit. While Red Bull never accused Mercedes of anything, but the twisty ways of media representation is always high.
Amid this topic of debate, Binotto put in a straight message of not being bothered and even surprised about Mercedes doing it. “Honestly, I’m not too interested in this discussion,” he said to written media. “I’m not really following them, I heard about it. I do not see anything wrong or illegal in that.
“I mean even not somehow surprised the way the car behaves,” summed up Binotto, whose position could be understood in a sense because they are more concerned of passing a McLaren than its engine provider Mercedes for the 2021 F1 season.
Considering that the FIA has not seen any foul play over the system which was seen profusely used in Turkey, Horner is expecting it to be deployed to an extreme situation in some of the remaining races, especially the Saudi Arabia’s street track.
Horner did clarify again that they never protested against it. “We’ve never said we don’t think it’s legal,” he said to written median. “So therefore, there would be no reason to protest, but it will have a greater influence at some tracks than others. So, it was a reduced effect in Austin.
“Somewhere like Jeddah for example, it could be quite powerful,” summed up Horner. Despite the words from Red Bull about not playing up mischievously, Mercedes recognises that the rivals will always be up to something in such scenarios to put their competitors in a spot of bother, when fighting for the title.
“I think we recognise absolutely that this is a sport where competitors will always try to find out whether there is some kind of silver bullet,” said Wolff. “My experience is that there is no such thing. It is all small gains, marginal gains that are being added and bring performance and we are trying to really comprehend our car better and add performance and lap time and weed out listening too much to the noise.”
Here’s Toto Wolff on Mercedes’ engine issues
Here’s Carlos Sainz on Ferrari’s pit stop troubles