– Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff is unlikely to be pleased with this statement. Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies told Sky that the Bulls hope to benefit from the ADUO system and be allowed to further develop their engine in the coming months.
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ADUO stands for “Additional Design and Upgrade Opportunities”. The original idea was to measure the pure performance of the internal combustion engine every six races. Manufacturers who are between two and four percent behind the best engine in the field receive an additional upgrade opportunity.
If the deficit is more than four percent, two updates are even planned. “We definitely hope to belong to this category,” Mekies reveals. Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur had previously stated that he also hopes for upgrade opportunities for his own engine.
Toto Wolff, on the other hand, has already made it clear that he cannot see a significant deficit at either Red Bull or Ferrari. “The principle of ADUO was to help teams that are behind in terms of powertrain so they can catch up – but not to overtake others,” Wolff said.
He emphasized that with Honda, there is only one engine manufacturer that needs help. “All others are pretty much in the same range,” said the Austrian. An assessment that Mekies does not share. “Is [the Red Bull engine] at the level of the very best? Absolutely not,” the Red Bull team principal clarifies.
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“So do we expect to belong to that group that will be given the opportunity to catch up? Yes,” says Mekies, who agrees with Wolff and says about ADUO: “The tool is supposed to help catch up, not to overtake others. So I fully agree with him on that.”
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Unlike Wolff, however, he believes that Red Bull also needs this help. The Mercedes team principal recently stated: “I would be very surprised and disappointed if ADUO decisions led to interventions in the current competitive order.”
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“We have precise data from our own analyses of where we see the engine performance of our competitors and ourselves,” Wolff said, adding: “In this regard, I assume that the FIA looks at the same data.”
This means: Given his own data, he does not assume that, in addition to Honda, there is a need for another manufacturer to upgrade its powertrain. Ferrari and Red Bull see things differently.
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According to Mekies, their own engine is currently, for example, about three tenths of a second behind Mercedes’. The Silver Arrows are currently “far ahead of most of us,” says the Red Bull team principal.
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