“They wanted to steal our advantage during pit stops”– Red Bull is agitated with Mercedes’ every possible attempt to slow them down.
Red Bull’s Helmut Marko attacked Mercedes for their alleged attempts to slow down the pit-stops through a new technical directive they have proposed to the FIA.
Red Bull is the benchmark for the ideal pitstops, as in the history of Formula 1, the Milton-Keynes-based team has given the record-breaking pitstops, with many going exceptionally below 2 seconds.
Therefore, Red Bull see it as an attempt by Mercedes to slow them down, last week, Red Bull made an undercut over Lewis Hamilton, as Mercedes’ pit crew took a couple of seconds more in changing tyres.
“Mercedes pushed it because they wanted to steal our advantage during pit stops,” an annoyed Marko told Auto Motor und Sport. We lose up to four-tenths. Seven years of work and training have gone into the consistency and speed of our pit stops.”
A few teams supporting slower pit-stops
Mercedes have been talking about slowing down the pit-stops during the race before the French Grand Prix, and after Red Bull’s reaction to it, the issue became the biggest talking point ahead of the event at the Paul Ricard Circuit.
Meanwhile, there are a few teams, who have been supporting the technical directive issued by Mercedes, and reportedly FIA is also considering slowing down pitstops for the sake of safety.
“It was high time something happened. The rules demand that humans give the order. If you analyze Red Bull’s pit stops, then some processes are below the human response time,” Alpine operations manager Alan Permane told AMuS.
The rift between the two teams will continue in Austria, where a double-header has been appointed and could see another intense battle between Mercedes and Red Bull because of the marginal point difference in the points table.
