Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has had his claim of no further upgrades to the 2021 car contradicted by his own team.
Last weekend, the Austrian made it clear that the Brackley-based team had “stopped developing” their current W12 car despite falling behind Red Bull both on the track and in the Formula 1 championships.
This is because Wolff wanted to ensure Mercedes “get it right” when it comes to the new regulations coming for 2022 so that their success since 2014 continued long into the future.
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But in response, Red Bull boss Christian Horner doubted Mercedes would really want to potentially sacrifice their seven-year run of success.
“What Mercedes do is very much their business, so we’re just focused on ourselves,” he said.
“We know that Toto likes to throw the light somewhere else, so I can’t believe that they’ll go through the rest of this year without putting a single component on the car.
“But, as I say, what we can do is focus on our own job. Of course, it is a balancing act between this year and next year, but if that means we’ve all got to work a bit harder than the other teams, we are fully up for it.”
Now though, James Allison, who transitions from technical director to chief technical officer from Thursday, has revealed more parts are to come before this season is over,
“We have a number of things that will make our car faster in the coming races. Let’s hope they prove sufficient,” he declared on the F1 Nation podcast.
When put to him that his comment contradicts his Mercedes boss, Allison replied: “What Toto points out is that next year’s rules are a big, hairy affair and they demand a huge amount of our attention.
“So most of the focus of our factory has switched over to next year, the performance discovery for next year, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t things still in the food chain from prior to that focus switch.
“Furthermore, it isn’t all of the factory, and we are only one of two factories – there is also the power-unit factory and there is a little more to come from the PU.
“So there is some more aerodynamic change in the offing, a little bit of PU we hope on the delivery side, and a few things that are not quite as tidy as we would wish that we still have the opportunity to put right while this season is still very much alive and hot.”