Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has sent a warning shot in Red Bull’s direction, threatening to protest the result of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix if the team continue to use their “limbo” rear wing design.
The flexible wing saga continues to boil on despite the FIA clamping down, however because new tests won’t come into force until the French GP, Red Bull and a handful of other teams, can continue to use their rear wing designs at the next round in Baku.
The delay in introducing new load tests has been condemned by Wolff and McLaren’s Andreas Seidl, with both pushing for quicker action to ensure the matter is quickly resolved before the next event, otherwise it risks getting “very messy” according to Wolff, who has threatened to protest the race result.
“I think if the limbo wings are on [the car] in Baku, with the advantage that we see, it’s going to go to the stewards,” Wolff said after the Monaco GP, in which Red Bull claimed victory and moved ahead of Mercedes in the championship standings.
“And if the stewards are not enough, then it’s going to go to the ICA [International Court of Appeal].
“So I guess the FIA is going to clarify things before Baku, because if not, it could be very messy.”
Seidl stopped short of confirming whether McLaren would join that protest, but expressed his displeasure with the matter.
“As we said, we are absolutely not happy that cars that from our point of view are clearly not within the regulations, and after it got detected that they’re not within the regulations, that our competitors can keep running these cars.
“That’s why we have this dialogue with the FIA and then we have to take it from there in the next week.”
Red Bull has since raised concerns over Mercedes’ front wing design, which it says is flexing, but Wolff dismissed those concerns.
“We’ve analysed the front wings, and they are bending exactly the same way as the Red Bull – so we could be protesting each other on the front wing also,” added the Austrian.
Mercedes are the new Ferrari/Red Bull — when others start to catch up, they panic and resort to nonsense like this which only harms F1 as a sport. Ferrari always did this in the 2000s, and Red Bull in the early-mid 2010s. After Horner & Co. acted like babies while publicly dragging Renault through the mud in 2014 (rather than helping them improve), I never thought in a million years I would ever side with Red Bull again, but here we are.
There are no angels in F1. The smartest ones push as much as they can to the edge of the regulations, just as drivers incur risks to drive to the limit of their cars. Mercedes and McClaren are well within their rights to protest. Red Bulls ingenious wing gets my grudging admiration. Nothing to see here folks. It’s F1 as usual.
For outright cheating though I have no sympathy for Ferrari gaming the tests which at the same time made them the only real challenge to Mercedes in 17 and 18. The challenge was welcome for fans. The way in which it was obtained, that was truly shameful.
This wing business doesn’t even compare.
If Ferrari did actually cheat, it proves that crippling regulations are the only thing preventing F1 from becoming an actual competition, because they simply do not allow for teams who are behind to catch up until a new set of regulations are created. Testing bans and budget caps are nonsense that harm everyone in the end, including the fans. This is why I’ve been saying since 2014 that Mercedes will win every title, and nearly every race until the current regulations end; which has indeed happened.