McLaren’s Martin Whitmarsh suspects the Red Bull car is using a ride-height adjustment system which he thought wasn’t permissible according to FIA regulations.
“There’s evidence there are ride-height control systems which many people thought weren’t permissible,” he told the BBC after qualifying in Australia.
With the ban on in-race refuelling, cars are now having to ride higher in qualifying, so when the car’s are filled with (around) 170kg of fuel for the race, they don’t bottom out and wear away the ‘plank’, which, at the end of the race must be intact.
Whitmarsh admitted McLaren were now working on their own system which he hoped would be implemented come the Chinese GP on April 18th.
“As you can imagine, we’re working quite hard on those systems now,” he added. “The original rulings suggested such systems wouldn’t be allowed on cars but we’re seeing some cars which seem to have them.
“We’ve got to have them fitted as soon as we can – hopefully by China we’ll have something on the car.”