Red Bull want Mercedes' 'party mode' scrapped

Red Bull motorsport advisor Dr Helmut Marko is the latest to criticise Mercedes' supposed 'party mode' which hands them a boost of power in qualifying. Lewis Hamilton taking pole position at the Australian Grand Prix by more than half a second has re-energised the debate over the Saturday practices.

It has been well-documented in recent years that Mercedes are able to engage higher power modes in their engine for qualifying to extract the best lap times.

Hamilton cheekily suggested that the Silver Arrows' 2018 challenger had a "party mode" - a term which has now stuck to the team after such a dominant performance in Melbourne qualifying - albeit only from the champion after Valtteri Bottas' Q3 crash.

Marko backed a suggestion made by Red Bull team principal Christian Horner that engine modes ought to be treated as part of the parc ferme rules that prevent modifications to chassis between qualifying and race day.

But he now believes that more of Mercedes' rivals are beginning to grow tired of their advantage on Saturdays, calling for action to be taken to level the playing field.

"They got nervous because Bottas crashed, and all of a sudden they put full power on," Marko told Motorsport. "As we call it, party mode.

"They normally don't need it, so they used all of it, and it's obvious that they are playing with all of us.

"In the beginning it was just as who were complaining, and it was, 'Red Bull is always complaining.' Fortunately after qualifying the others woke up, and now there's a lot of discussions.

"There are so many relatively easy things to solve it, and make it more equal. You could say that you should race with the mode that you do qualifying with. That would be a solution.

"They could do it for the next race, and then it won't happen for the next race."

Race director Charlie Whiting suggested that the FIA are largely powerless to stop Mercedes exploiting the full capacity of their engines on Saturdays, unless the likes of Williams and Force Idia are denied the same opportunity.

"Some teams were hinting that they might not be getting equal power units," Whiting told Motorsport.

"Whatever party mode is, I've not seen it written in any technical documents!

"Put it like this. If Mercedes customers come to us and say, 'We've asked for party mode and we're not getting it,' then we might have something to say about it."