Mercedes rejects Red Bull “noise” on F1 straightness device

Mercedes’ strong straight-ahead speed sparked new intrigues as the world championship match between the Brackley team and Red Bull enters the final stages of the 2021 season.

At the Turkish Grand Prix, Mercedes seemed to enjoy a clear top speed advantage over Red Bull in terms of downforce.

While the Brackley team rolled out a new engine specification after the summer break, its rival was stunned by the range of its wins.

“Your straight-line speed has taken a significant step lately and I think that while we used to be able to get to it with smaller wings, we can’t get any closer now,” said Horner, confused, as he told Motorsport.com after Mercedes’ current advantage asked came from.

Upon further analysis, Horner believes Mercedes not only enjoys a performance advantage over Red Bull’s Honda engines, but also uses a trick device to increase straight-ahead speed by allegedly lowering the rear of the car on the straight.

“I think Mercedes is obviously optimizing a no-nonsense device that they can do on this type of track,” Horner told Sky in Austin during FP1. “If you look at the back of your car, you know how it lowers. I think [Turkey] played to their strengths. “

Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes W12

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

When asked about Horner’s comments, Mercedes boss Wolff put back what he called “noise” about his team’s lead over Red Bull.

“I think we absolutely know this is a sport where the competitors will always try to find out if there is some kind of silver bullet,” he said. “My experience is that there is no such thing, it’s all the small wins, marginal gains that have been added and that perform.

“We try to really understand our car better and to improve the performance in the lap times without listening to the noise too much.”

When asked about his explanation for the dominant shape of Mercedes in Turkey, Wolff claimed that Mercedes found the “sweet spot” in setting up its 2021 car.

“I think we understood how to hit the car’s sweet spot in terms of setup,” he explained.

“If you look at the lap times today, it’s a win on the straight, and I think we’ve found the right compromise between drag and downforce.

“And on the other hand, we were very fast in the very fast corners, which is good and Red Bull is on par in the slow corners. Overall, the car is much better together.”