'Party mode'-pooper Horner says engines should be under restrictions

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has suggested that engine modes should be considered part of Formula 1's parc ferme rules in an attempt to curb Mercedes' dominance of qualifying. Lewis Hamilton took pole position for the Australian Grand Prix by over six tenths of a second last weekend.

Daniel Ricciardo said Hamilton's ability to suddenly jumped clear of the pack to set a record-breaking time in Q3 was a "punch in the stomach" for F1, and suggested that the Mercedes' top line speed, rather than the world champion's superior skill, was down to the huge gap.

Teams are forbidden from making major changes to chassis over a race weekend, although Mercedes have been able to turn their power unit up during qualifying for a number of seasons.

Hamilton hinted at a "party mode" available to him before the Australian Grand Prix weekend, while Red Bull are left to hope Renault unleash the full potential of an engine which is being held back to boost reliability.

"There are bits in the pipeline, but that's more of a question for Renault than for me because they're obviously not divulging everything they're up to. It's certainly something we're pushing for," Horner said.

"Alternatively you could say perhaps you should have the same engine mode [for qualifying and the race]. Like in parc ferme when the cars leave for qualifying, maybe engine modes should be the same from the moment you leave the garage until the end of the grand prix.

"We know we have a good race car, the negative for us is still the deficit in qualifying. The 'party mode'... we'd like to go to Lewis' party!"

Ricciardo and Max Verstappen found overtaking difficult at Albert Park, finishing fourth and sixth after long spells racing behind Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso respectively.

Horner hopes that those issues were more due to the street-circuit nature of Melbourne and hopes that his team can deliver on their pre-season promise as title hopefuls in the coming races.

"It's extenuated [in Australia]," he added. "Bahrain you can overtake, China you can overtake. But it exposes you.

"You've only got to look at the speed trap [in qualifying] where all the Renault engines were grouped together with varying amounts of downforce on the car, so that's where we need to make progress."