Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko remains convinced that the new limit on engine modes will help to catch Mercedes from this weekend.
For the Italian Grand Prix, a new technical directive will take effect restricting teams to just one engine mode for qualifying and the race but for some exceptions which only apply to laps at cruising speed.
The FIA is implementing it as a way of better policing the power unit regulations, potentially as a result of their consultation work with Ferrari, but from a competition standpoint, Red Bull think it will take away a key weapon in the German manufacturer’s arsenal.
“That Mercedes can drive longer with a strong mode may well be the case”, Marko told Motorsport.com in an interview.
“But as we see it, the blatant superiority in qualifying will no longer be there. This also applies to the in and out laps around the pitstops in the race.
“[Valtteri] Bottas suggests that there will be less overtaking, but that means they’ve been going at full throttle on every overtaking manoeuvre so far.
“We believe that this will bring us closer and if everything goes well, our race pace was pretty good anyway.”
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George Russell though, who is a Mercedes junior and drives for customer team Williams, believes the gain in race performance Mercedes will get will prove much more significant.
“I think unfortunately it will probably affect us and Racing Point more than Mercedes, purely because Mercedes are so far ahead in qualifying anyway,” he told RaceFans at Monza on Thursday.
“If anything it’s only going to help them even more in the race. So the whole idea of trying to slow them down is actually going to go completely the opposite way and is only going to enhance their performance.
“I think on a Saturday it will probably compromise us a tenth or two, but we expect it to also compromise the other manufacturers a tenth or so. So we are probably net one-tenth down on a Saturday.
“But on a Sunday we’re definitely net up by a big margin and I think what Mercedes has done to improve the engine to allow us to run a very high engine mode for the whole race is really impressive and she’s going to be flying on the Sundays.”
Another manufacturer tipped to be impacted more than most is Renault, who have made big gains in the past 18 months.
“Renault has a relatively good qualifying mode,” Marko commented. “But in the race they are weaker than us.”
Commenting on the change though, engine boss Remi Taffin explained…
“The easiest thing would be, of course, to use the current race mode and use it from the first lap of qualifying, but you can imagine that it’s not that easy,” he said.
“You have to reassess and re-optimize the whole thing – actually do the job again. The FIA has tried to make things easier and tried to satisfy everyone and therefore moved it to Monza.
“The FIA is very clear about what they want from us now. It’s a single mode. Whatever the number before, there will now be only one.
“It will take time for this new technical directive to be further refined but that’s okay. It’s a process: it’s not that with Monza everything is black and white. I think it will evolve. You can’t turn these complex machines into simple motors in one day.
“What we don’t know: to what extent someone will lose or win,” he added.
“The only thing that is a little annoying is that we have developed our engines to have a race and a qualifying mode.
“We did the job and in the middle of the season, we have to change the way they work. The one who has put their focus on the race will win. The one who has focused on qualifying will lose.”