“I’m getting red,” laughs Mercedes boss Toto Wolff in reaction to the Red Bull engine being ranked the most powerful in F1.
News of the decision came days after Max Verstappen ground to a halt in Monaco with a power unit issue, and Mercedes had secured its sixth win of the year and sixth pole.
While there is no doubt that the Mercedes power unit is the best on the F1 grid, the ADUO system is based on the power provided by the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) only, and in this regard the Red Bull is adjudged as being the best.
“It’s quite easy to analyse,” Wolff told reporters in Barcelona. “You can see how much grunt you have from the ICE, and definitely being behind is a challenge for us. Did we get that wrong? Didn’t we optimise it? Didn’t we optimise it on the ICE side? And how can we do it better? I’m not getting red!
“When you speak to Nikolas, it’s data that they have measured and collected,” he added, referring to the FIA’s single-seater director, Nikola Tombazis. “There’s no political background,” he insisted, “there is no favours, it’s the outcome of their analysis of their torque sensors and the way it’s being done, and that is the result.”
“The ADUO is made on assessment of engine power, pure engine power,” explained Mattia Binotto, “and the delta which is measured is really on the engine itself. So, it’s not the full power unit, it’s not related to energy management, efficiency of the electrical system. It’s pure engine power.
“So, if you have been assessed that you are down in engine power, I think the first where you have to be concentrated and focused is really on engine power. And that’s certainly where we stand at the moment ourselves as Audi.
“That’s down to the efficiency of your combustion chamber. There isn’t much you can gain in there, but that’s not obviously the overall performance of a power unit. There are certainly efficiencies in the batteries, in the inverters, in the turbo dimensioning for what can be drivability on track and compromises. So when developing a power unit there are a lot of metrics, but certainly when it comes to ADUO, I think that’s assessing, as I said, the gap on pure engine power, and that’s, I think, where at least we are focusing the most.
“I think there is no doubt on the assessment,” he added. “We’ve got proper sensors on the car to measure the delta power. So, is the principle of the ADUO being based on the delta kilowatts the right approach? We may argue. There is an ADUO as well for the chassis, which is called differently, but as a matter of fact, if you are behind on the standings, you’ve got more opportunity in wind tunnel timing, etcetera, and that’s a way for teams somehow to converge.
“Now, when we discuss the power unit regulations, what would have been the way to assess it? It was decided pure kilowatts. Is that the right way to do it? We may argue again. So maybe we should do something very similar to the chassis, where you base it on standings of the previous seasons, because if convergence, if the purpose of convergence is to have a closer field, maybe that’s the most straightforward, and you would have a unique system framework between chassis and power units. So, the best teams not having advantages, the slowest teams or slowest manufacturers to have some more opportunities.
“But that’s the way the regulations are written today, and I think we need to fully trust the FIA. I’m sure that the FIA has done the right assessment. What should we do for the future? Should we establish a different type of ranking? Maybe yes.”
Wolff was asked if ADUO works as intended or whether it should be a safety net for one or two manufacturers rather than, as it appears, a means to leapfrog rivals. Also, whether it is only the ICE that should be measured.
“It was a protection mechanism, to avoid the 2014 situation, that one engine manufacturer was having such an advantage and was running away with testing mileage and race results,” said the Austrian. “We were on the good end of that, but this is what we wanted to avoid, especially newcomers coming in like Audi and to a certain degree Honda with Aston Martin, Red Bull, of course. And that’s what it is, and that’s how it should be.
“Now we can say, does it need an engine adjustment as it is in aero? I get a rash of allergy when talking about BoP (Balance of Performance). This is something that we should stay far away from Formula 1. It’s a political mess in all the other series. It makes manufacturers go out of the sport also, and I’ve been very close to that, as you can imagine, in DTM, in GTs, in Le Mans.
“We should never be tempted to have someone agree on how the balance of performance should fall out. If there is a mechanism that consists of fine tuning in order to make sure that nobody’s embarrassed on the power unit side, I think that’s the right way to go, because when you look at aerodynamics, that was invented for a completely different situation.”