Horner wants parc ferme rules for engine modes

Christian Horner has proposed parc ferme rules for engine modes, hoping that would be go some way towards negating Mercedes’ qualifying advantage.

While qualifying in Australia looked to be a battle between Mercedes and Ferrari, it turned out to be the Lewis Hamilton show.

The British racer claimed pole position by six-tenths of a second ahead of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen.

His pole was Mercedes 71st pole in the hybrid era; that’s 71 out of 80.

But while Mercedes denied that there was “any difference in modes”, rivals aren’t buying it with Red Bull team boss Horner saying something needs to be done.

“Like you have parc ferme when the cars leave for qualifying, maybe engine modes should be the same from the moment you leave the garage to the end of the grand prix,” he told Sky Sports.

“Lewis’ time came predominantly between Q2 and Q3.

“They have a qualy mode that they don’t need to use in the earlier parts of qualifying, because why stress the engine?”

Horner, however, says it is also on Renault to make inroads into Mercedes’ advantage.

“You only have to look in [Saturday’s] speed traps where all the Renault engines were grouped together with varying amounts of downforce on the car. That is where we need to make progress.

“There are bits in the pipeline. Renault are not divulging everything that they’re up to but it’s certainly something that we’re pushing for.”