Red Bull push for ‘quali mode’ ban amused Hamilton

Jamie Woodhouse
Lewis Hamilton Mercedes Max Verstappen

Red Bull could have been dominant like Mercedes without new engines says Max Verstappen.

Six-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton is “amused” by the fact that Red Bull pushed so hard to get ‘quali modes’ banned.

As of the Italian Grand Prix teams will no longer be allowed to use these short-term power boosts to extract the maximum performance from their engines in qualifying.

In the run up to the event Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko gladly admitted that the team had pushed hard for the ban and now expects Mercedes to fall nicely into their clutches.

But that amuses Hamilton, since it seems that the FIA’s previous rationale for the ban, that being that it was so they could police engine usage better, has been exposed for an effort to actually just cater to Red Bull’s wishes.

“I find it kind of amusing, because the FIA said that it was so they could manage everyone’s usage of the engine, or something like that, and then Red Bull came and said ‘we were the ones pushing for it’. So there’s completely different reasons why they did it,” he said when speaking to the media ahead of the Italian Grand Prix.

“Hopefully the guys back in the factory are looking at is as a compliment that they’ve done just a fantastic job with the engine. We will continue to work and improve with the situation that we’re given. It’ll be interesting to see how it plays out.”

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Red Bull’s Max Verstappen has said he is looking forward to having less work to do in the cockpit now thanks to these restrictions on engine modes, something which Hamilton agrees on.

Although he will miss being able to control his amount of engine usage, which he said has become a “strength” of his.

“I like, personally, being able to control when you use some of the life of the engine and when you save it,” he said.

“That’s kind of been a strength of mine in terms of saving engine mileage through the year, making the engine last longer.

“If they take that away it means we have to worry less about switching over to anything else.”

Asked how the technical directive is going to affect Mercedes specifically, Hamilton said: “Everyone’s potentially going to lose something but maybe some more than others.

“No one particularly knows, I think. But I don’t think it’s going to be a problem for us.”

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