“The new F1 owners listening to the drivers and teams”- Max Verstappen opposes Toto Wolff’s Mercedes being a victim of new Formula 1 rules.
Max Verstappen has now opened a war of words against Mercedes’ team principal Toto Wolff, who feels that Mercedes are being targeted by the newly framed rules which will be enacted in 2022.
According to Wolff, the new regulations are aimed at ‘stopping’ Mercedes. It is not only about the new aerodynamic rules that have been announced, but also about the budget ceiling and the new structure for distributing the prizes.
In contrast, Red Bull driver Verstappen does not acquiesce with Wolff’s statements and has claimed that it is not an attack on Mercedes rather authorities have started listening to others.
“I think the rules are simply the result of the new F1 owners listening to the drivers and teams. They hear that it’s hard to overtake and that we want to race even closer together,” said the Red Bull Racing driver to Motorsport.com.
Should increase excitement in racing
Citing the contest against Valtteri Bottas in Imola, where he was not allowed to overtake the damaged car of the Finn driver, even though he was according to the Dutch much faster than him.
“We need to make racing more exciting and allow drivers to follow other cars up close. We need to make sure that qualifying is not the deciding factor during a race weekend, as is currently the case.”
“I think that is why the new rules will come in 2022. And whether Mercedes will be slower because of these new rules is difficult to say. You can’t even say that now,” concluded Verstappen.
The dominance of Mercedes has been undisputable in recent years, but with the clauses of budget cap and other influential rules, there could be a serious challenge to Mercedes’ hegemony.
