Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff angered by Ferrari's power unit claims

Mercedes

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Wolff angered by Ferrari's power unit claims

Mercedes staff pushed to "almost burnout" to keep pace

Ian Parkes

Sunday 19 July 2020 08:03

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Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff has derided the claim of Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto that Formula 1's power unit manufacturers have been affected by last year's FIA technical directives.

Prior to last year's United States Grand Prix, Ferrari had become the dominant car of the field, winning three successive races in Belgium, Italy and Singapore, and claiming six consecutive pole positions.

Such form aroused the suspicion of many in the paddock, leading to a technical directive from the FIA on Saturday ahead of qualifying at the Circuit of the Americas regarding fuel flow.

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A further TD followed a fortnight later ahead of the Brazilian Grand Prix addressing another potential performance enhancer in oil burning in either the engine's cooling system or combustion chambers.

Since then, Ferrari has struggled with its power unit, leading Binotto to suggest on Friday that not only had Ferrari been forced to adapt, but "looking at the power output of this season, many others, most of the manufacturers somehow had to adapt themselves".

Binotto added: "Certainly as Ferrari, we had to adapt and as a simple output of that, we lost some of the performance we had."

A clearly incensed Wolff, however, described Binotto's comments regarding the other manufacturers as "another complete bulls**t story”.

Wolff added: “There was a clear regulation on power units that was clarified in Austin on what we are allowed to do and not, which was important.

"But nothing that was in any way surprising because if you comply to the regulations then that was clear anyway.

“I think the irony of the story is that we were pushed by some of our competitors to absolutely new levels. It brought us to almost burnout last year to develop and innovate in a way to be competitive on track.

“And here we go, I think we have made a substantial jump in performance from 2019 to 2020 because we needed to last year. And that is a little bit ironic for me.”

One aspect of the Mercedes power unit this season is the occasional wisps of white smoke that have been seen not only in the W11, but also in the cars of customers Racing Point and Williams.

Wolff has suggested a likely cause which will be investigated further between now and the next race, the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

"You can see that when the oil tank is filled up at the beginning, we seem to have an issue that oil gets out of the chassis,” remarked Wolff.

“We don’t know where that comes from. It seems to be that when we fill it up to the top we aren't in control of how much escapes at the beginning.

“We have seen it on all the Mercedes engines and it’s something that we need to understand. It’s not a reliability issue, which I’m glad that it isn’t. At Silverstone, I can tell you what it is because at the moment we don't know."

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