Red Bull perplexed by FIA verdict as Mekies calls for FIA ‘conversation’

Laurent Mekies has confirmed he wants a conversation with the FIA about its ADUO findings as Red Bull cannot find any data that identifies Red Bull Powertrains’ ICE as F1’s benchmark.

As reported by PlanetF1.com in Monaco, RBPT’s internal combustion engine emerged as the benchmark ahead of Mercedes’ ICE when the FIA informed the teams about its Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities [ADUO] findings.

Red Bull wants FIA talks over RBPT benchmark ruling

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The FIA implemented ADUO this season as the sport adopted a new engine formula.

The purpose of ADUO is to give the sport’s power unit manufacturers the ability to improve their product if it is found to be lagging behind the benchmark performer. It, though, only covers the performance of the internal combustion engine.

This was measured throughout the opening five grand prix weekends, Australia through to Canada, with the teams informed of the results in Monaco.

Those results saw Red Bull’s ICE emerge as the benchmark ahead of that built by Mercedes. The latter’s ICE was more than 2 per cent behind the RBPT, with Mercedes receiving one upgrade opportunity. Ferrari, Audi and Honda each receive two upgrade opportunities as their ICEs were more than 4 per cent down.

PlanetF1.com understood that Red Bull was left surprised by the findings and would be seeking clarification from the FIA.

Team principal Mekies confirmed this after Sunday’s Barcelona Grand Prix, where Max Verstappen was the best-placed Red Bull driver in fourth place, but 40s down on race winner Lewis Hamilton.

“We are completely okay with the fact that the rules state that you should only try to estimate the pecking order of the ICE power. We are completely okay with that. We have all agreed to that and we don’t think that is the issue,” Mekies told PlanetF1.com and other media.

“We certainly would like to have a deeper conversation because we do not see one single data sample that indicates that we would have an advantage over our friends at Mercedes.”

The team boss was asked if he was worried that other teams could use their development tokens to “play a game of chess” to stay on top of the ICE rankings.

According to the Frenchman, power sensitivity creates variables in the FIA’s findings, and so far he hasn’t seen anything to hint that Red Bull’s ICE is the best on the grid.

“Certainly,” Mekies replied, “you would need to have extreme certainty in the way you are assessing the ICE pecking order, in order to have the right confidence to give it to the dominant team and not to the team that is chasing the dominant team.

“Especially when you get relative performance variations from track layout to track layout that are perfectly consistent with the ICE power sensitivity.

“You go to Canada, high ICE power sensitivity, we qualified sixth. You go to Monaco, low ICE power sensitivity, we qualified pretty much pretty much four-hundredths from pole. You go to Barcelona, again high ICE power sensitivity, you qualify sixth again.

“We do not see one single data sample where we estimate ourselves higher than competition, let alone being consistently above them.”

Verstappen was also asked about the ADUO findings and whether he feared Red Bull now had one hand tied behind its back.

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“I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, I hope not.

Pressed on “but could it”, Verstappen replied: “I hope not.

“I don’t think I want to answer it at the moment. At some point. I don’t know.”

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

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