Mercedes mocked Red Bull after the new engine mode limits failed to taper their dominance at the Italian Grand Prix.
Heading into last weekend, much of the talk was about whether the Brackley-based team would be impacted by the restriction to just a single engine setting across both Saturday and Sunday.
Instead, Mercedes continued to be in a league of their own as Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas traded records for Formula 1’s fastest ever lap in qualifying, before the Briton streaked out into a 10-second lead in the race before a mid-race penalty dropped him out of contention.
“I’m not sure how happy Red Bull is now with this engine change,” Bottas quipped, this after their closest rivals had claimed it would help close the gap.
Hamilton, who had been quite vocal in deriding the change as just an attempt to slow down Mercedes, also joked: “I don’t even think we ever had a party mode.
“It’s something someone else made up. Who knows if we even used that mode at Spa anyways?”
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On a more serious note, team boss Toto Wolff revealed the lack of impact on their pace was due to anticipation of the rule change.
“The way we operate is about extracting performance, and being as adaptable as an organisation, almost the Darwinistic principle, to confront every possible situation that comes up,” he explained.
“Once it was clear that the lobby against our qualifying mode has grown, much before the TD came out of the regulations, we shifted our development work towards that situation.
“Today, we’ve seen for the first time how the level of performance has changed between the teams, and there are some interesting outcomes,” the Austrian added.
“I think maybe the ones that pushed the hardest didn’t show great performance today [in qualifying].”
Mercedes’ rebuttals amused many with even Daniel Ricciardo saying it was “fun” that Mercedes had “dished it back” after their dominant performance.
Even funnier though, was Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko trying to put a positive spin on Verstappen finishing nine-tenths off pole, behind a McLaren and a Racing Point.
“We didn’t see this coming,” he told Sky Germany. “But Monza is not very representative to highlight the absence of the party mode.
“We also see a smaller difference in the fast times between Q1, Q2 and Q3, so the change seems to have had an effect.
“It didn’t help that Max’s fast lap wasn’t perfect,” Marko added. “I think a third position would have been possible here today.”
Offering his own reaction, the Dutchman said: “Personally, I don’t think we went backwards, this is also a bit of a tricky track to see the full benefit or differences because [at] Monza everybody’s in the tow, some have a better tow than others.
“I think we have to wait a little where we go to a track again where nobody wants a tow, where you want to drive in clean air.
“So it’s a bit early to say anything about that. I never expected it to be very different but some other people were shouting some different words. It is what it is.
“Anyone can, of course, say whatever they want, but I always learned from a very young age that you have to be a realistic person.
“Maybe that sometimes sounds a bit depressing, but for me, it works the best way because you will not end up after qualifying being disappointed because you know exactly where you’re going to be.”
Verstappen would then retire from the race with an engine issue on Sunday, while Mercedes had their worst result of 2020 in fifth and seventh.
