“Unless you’re having some magic wand, you will be at a deficit next year”– Mercedes warns Red Bull about the risk of upgrading this year.
In this year’s championship battle, Red Bull has constantly been upgrading their car to challenge the hegemony of Mercedes, but the Brackley based team, except for the race in Silverstone, didn’t mind upgrading the car.
The reason behind this is to safeguard the prospects of 2022, which introduces multiple regulations, and Toto Wolff wants his maximum resources to be engaged in it.
“You need to look also in 2022,” Wolff told Autosport. “Because unless you’re having some magic wand, you will be at a deficit next year. So I believe that most of the teams have stopped development for 2021.”
“But if they continue to push for 2021, that certainly is going to give them an advantage [this year].”
Red Bull will not be at a disadvantage.
Several teams have abandoned their 2021 projects to focus on 2022, citing the same reasons. But Red Bull isn’t worried and claims they are not keeping their 2022 prospects at stake for the 2021 world championship.
“You’ve got to go week by week, race by race and I think the team’s doing a great job of balancing the challenges of this year and next year,” he explained recently about the potential to not risk its 2022 efforts.
“It’s nothing new. I mean there’s a lot being made of it at the moment, but we’ve had big regulation changes in the past so you have got to balance your resource and apply it to what needs the most. I think the team are working incredibly hard, extremely well and effectively.”
Currently, Red Bull is leading the 2021 championship and has a realistic chance to conquer it; fearing it, Mercedes recently brought in the upgrades, which made them win the British Grand Prix.
But it happened because both Red Bull cars were out of the contest at the starting of the race, giving an easy pass to Mercedes, and Red Bull was still ahead in the sprint racing.
