Are Mercedes experiencing reliability problems due to engine upgrade?
F1 News
- GPblog.com
Mercedes have made a big step forward since the summer break. Red Bull Racing were convinced that the sudden progress of their rivals had to do with the engine. According to the team's measurements, Mercedes' cars have realised more power, especially when accelerating.
On the straights in Turkey the German team was even faster without DRS than Red Bull with DRS, Auto, Motor und Sport reports. Team boss Christian Horner could not explain the increase in performance other than that Mercedes somehow found more power.
Red Bull investigates suspicions about Mercedes engine
Red Bull Racing therefore suspected that their competitor had found a gray area and expressed its concerns to the FIA. However they ruled that the Mercedes engine was completely legal. Horner doesn't intend to leave it at that, and the team is continuing to investigate other suspicions.
Mercedes claims that no changes were made to the engines since the start of the season. Because Williams and McLaren also showed a sudden improvement since the Hungarian Grand Prix, there are assumptions that Mercedes has increased the power output of all their engines. As a result Toto Wolff's team could now be facing reliability problems. An engineer of the German team denies this: "There has been no change to the calibration of the engines."