Christian Horner and Toto Wolff have both given their respective views on whether we'll see Red Bull protesting the legality of the Mercedes car in the near future, as the Formula 1 championship fights intensify further.
Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton hit back in the title tussles over the course of the Sao Paulo Grand Prix as the team increased their Constructors' championship lead once more and the Briton closed the gap in the Drivers' standings to Max Verstappen to 14 points.
Spurred on by a sense of injustice over a qualifying disqualification on Friday and a new internal combustion engine, Hamilton rather proved untouchable over the entirety of the weekend, racing through the field both in Sprint and the Grand Prix to eventually take victory.
Indeed, his straight-line speed in particular was formidable with the new parts of his engine firing him along nicely, but that alone has not seen talk of a Red Bull protest over parts of the Mercedes car leave the paddock.
After the event, Christian Horner said that Red Bull won't be protesting just yet, but he refused to rule it out in the future:
“We won’t be protesting at this race,” Horner told Sky Sports. “It’s important to understand where the speed has come from. Obviously, they’ve had a new engine here, they’re running Monaco levels of downforce.
“When he passed Max he was close to 30 kilometers quicker on that lap so it’s just something that we need to understand. It’s down to the FIA to police the sport and to govern it. We trust in them and their tests and their investigation.”
Wolff, meanwhile, says he and Mercedes have nothing to worry about:
“The car is fully legal and we are happy to drive it everywhere,” said Wolff, who reiterated the DRS issue had, in Mercedes’ opinion, been caused by damage.
“You can say then was it fully legal after qualifying – we think it was, but it failed one test because the rear wing was broken, the flap was broken.
“I think we are having a much less draggy car, the engine is fresh, which makes a big difference, the concept is good on the straight-line speed than we had in the past.
“The people are free to challenge that and protest, which may happen. We’ll even offer them a rear wing to put it at home in the library or cut it in a thousand pieces.”