Toto Wolff's accusation that Red Bull is abusing the rules, according to Red Bull F1 boss Christian Horner, is "complete garbage" in the midst of the current flexi-floor crisis.
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Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has disputed allegations that his team used a flexing floor on its vehicles to gain a major advantage. The Briton claimed they were unconcerned about their floor and dismissed Mercedes team chief Toto Wolff’s comments. Following a meeting of the F1 Commission in Austria, the FIA will implement stricter floor standards for the Belgian Grand Prix. Following safety car worries over proposing and bouncing on the straights in Baku after Lewis Hamilton struggled to get out of his Mercedes cockpit, the new technical regulation was implemented. In recent weeks, there has been discussion concerning movable flooring, with a number of teams rumored to have discovered a loophole in this area of the regulations. There is now a 2mm tolerance for how much the floor plank can flex, but some teams are rumored to be exceeding that and so benefiting aerodynamically by running their vehicles closer to the ground.
At the Austrian Grand Prix, Mercedes team principal speculated that Red Bull and Ferrari might be utilizing a flexible plank on the floor or skid blocks to contain their proposing. The FIA noticed the problem at the most recent TAC (Technical Advisory Committee) meeting, according to Woff, and the floor and skid blocks were being inspected. Horner, on the other hand, has disputed any such accusations and is convinced that they are not concerned about the floor of their car. Wolff has also stated that some of their competitors’ flooring may be stretching or moving more than the authorized limit.
Using Tricks
Wolff described their opponents’ two tricks as follows: “As a matter of fact, some teams have skids that actually disappear when the car hits the bottom. The reason for skids is that they are the limitation of how much plank wear you can have. And if a skid can disappear miraculously into the floor, that is clearly against the regulations. Then the second thing is a plank that can deflect or that basically also moves away more than the tolerance should be. The tolerance is one millimeter. And if a plank moves away many more millimeters up into the car, obviously, you gain some performance there too.”
Horner was then queried about Wolff’s remarks, and he made a subtle remark about the German “pointing to cars that are around him at the moment,” referring to Mercedes fighting in the midfield at times this season. “That is total rubbish, total rubbish! We are getting issues mixed up here, Horner added. “Maybe [Wolff] is referring to cars that are around him at the moment. I have no idea. We have absolutely no issues or concerns on our floor.” said Horner. He questioned the FIA’s intervention once more, noting that proposing was not an issue at last weekend’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
“The technical directive is focused on bouncing, proposing, which only certain cars have struggled with,” Horner explained. “It is due for further discussion in the technical working group, which is the correct forum for it. Because, as we saw at Silverstone, no cars were really affected by it. Is it the duty of the competitor to make sure the car is safe? Or the duty of the FIA to make sure the competitor runs their car safely?”
