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Days After Demolishing Lewis Hamilton’s Misconceptions, Red Bull Director Catches Mercedes & Co. Napping

Published 08/11/2023, 5:15 AM EDT

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via Imago

It is proving to be quite a task for Mercedes to scale up their current performance to match Red Bull. Lewis Hamilton, on occasion, has been dumbfounded as to how RB is finding so much pace. He even commented on the fact that their DRS looked quite lethal. To contradict his view, Red Bull’s Technical Director gave a simple explanation as to why they are the fastest. And to add insult to injury, he’s even seemingly mocked the Brackley outfit.

Red Bull’s Technical Director, Pierre Wache, has suddenly appeared in the media and is dishing out strong opinions on RB’s rivals’ performances. First, he squashed Hamilton’s doubts by saying that RB’s DRS only reduces their already-low drag. And Wache has now said that he’s quite confused as to how Mercedes and Co. haven’t figured out the simple secret behind their powerful DRS yet.

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Wache said, “The crazy thing is that people are talking about it two years after we introduced it. We had hundreds of tests by the FIA to see if we had used a trick or something, and people [even recently] don’t understand why on high downforce tracks the advantage disappears. Okay, that means they haven’t been able to figure it out yet. And that surprises us a lot.”

While Mercedes doesn’t seem to have figured out the DRS secret yet, their Technical Director has other problems to deal with.

Mercedes Technical Director James Allison Explains the Technical Side of the W14’s Drawbacks that Trouble Lewis Hamilton

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On one hand, Red Bull‘s Technical Director has enough time on his hands to comment on their rivals’ developments. On the other hand, is Mercedes’ Technical Director, James Allison, who is sorting out the W14’s maneuverability issues. Allison believes that the main challenge that their drivers face is traversing the apexes.

via Reuters

“Bread and butter downforce is always a good thing,” said Allison, as quoted by Express. “We are also trying to make the car more reassuring for the drivers when they initially turn in. It feels too reactive. And then when they get to the apex they have the opposite problem, where we want it to bite at the front and it doesn’t. It’s unstable when you first turn the wheel and then annoyingly dead when they get to the apex. We want it the other way around. That’s what we are working on”

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Written by:

Yash Kotak

555Articles

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Yash is an F1 writer at EssentiallySports. With a strong passion for communicating through written word and a keen interest in the world of motorsports, he thoroughly enjoys being a fan of F1 and covering it for other fans. Ever since he watched the 'INSIDE TRACKS' episode covering the 2018 German Grand Prix, he has fallen in love with the intriguingly complex world of F1.
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Edited by:

Varunkumaar Chelladurai