F1 News: Toto Wolff Disagrees With Lewis Hamilton On Red Bull Cheating - "Within The Regulations"

Lewis Hamilton hinted to the media that something was fishy with Red Bull slowing down their pace but Toto says the car is engineered within regulations.

Just ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton had told the media that the Red Bulls had slowed their pace as opposed to the early races of the season where the RB19 was a lot quicker. 

While Hamilton didn't reveal the details of what he was trying to say after securing his first pole position of the season, he did throw light on probabilities that others failed to see. Hence his urge to the media to ask Red Bull why they had slowed down. He said:

“Obviously I think they’ve slowed down quite a bit, from the beginning of the year. I mean, just looking at the DRS, they don’t have the DRS advantage, all of a sudden, that they used to have, where did that go?

"They just had an upgrade so you’d expect them to take another step; we heard it was around 2 tenths or something like that, for them to not be able to extract that in qualifying is interesting.”

Just last year, Red Bull was levied a penalty for exceeding the budget cap limit in 2021. Their wind tunnel test time was also reduced as a form of penalty. Despite the penalties, the RB19 is the fastest car on the track today. 

Could Hamilton be hinting at some sort of cheating being done by the Red Bull team where they've taken advantage of a certain loophole that others don't know of yet? If you consider the time gap between winner Max Verstappen and runner-up Lando Norris at the Hungarian GP, it is a massive 33.731 seconds! 

Considering the rumours that are doing the rounds, there could be a high possibility of some wrongdoing and maybe, the FIA has addressed it behind closed doors so as to not let it reflect badly on the sport. In responding to the investigation, Red Bull might have made corrections on the RB19 to make it 'legal.' Hence the drop in speed that Hamiltons has been talking about. 

While all this could sound very dramatic, it has sadly happened in the past when Max Verstappen accused Ferrari of cheating in 2019 given the kind of pace they carried. The FIA investigation revealed that the Scuderia were over-fuelling their cars to produce more power. 

What was more surprising is that Ferrari and the FIA settled the matter behind closed doors. No penalties or punishments were handed out. Next year in 2020, the Ferraris lost so much pace that it was evident that something had been done to the cars that brought them in line with regulations behind closed doors. 

Of course, Team principal Mattia Binotto denied everything but the FIA released a statement that said a lot. It read:

"The FIA announces that, after thorough technical investigations, it has concluded its analysis of the operation of the Scuderia Ferrari Formula 1 power unit and reached a settlement with the team.

"The specifics of the agreement will remain between the parties.

"The FIA and Scuderia Ferrari have agreed to a number of technical commitments that will improve the monitoring of all Formula 1 power units for forthcoming championship seasons as well as assist the FIA in other regulatory duties in Formula 1 and in its research activities on carbon emissions and sustainable fuels."

Speaking of cheating, Toto Wolff points in a similar direction when he said that Max Verstappen's F1 car makes the rival cars look "like a field of F2 cars." However, he has also said that the car was developed within the FIA regulations so we're not sure if he is on the same page with Hamilton here.

Discussing Verstappen's lead by a huge margin with Sky Sports, he said: 

"It is a meritocracy. We are going to fight back and win races and championships but today you've seen the pace that Max had, and you saw it already on the long runs on Friday.

"That is where they are. It is like a field of Formula 2 cars against a Formula 1 (car). They've done the best job. Within the regulations, they've done the best job."

Wolff went on to say that despite the Mercedes being the second fastest, Hamilton finished 4th due to a bad start but more importantly, as a result of bad tire preparation. He revealed:

"I think clearly yesterday was a mega Lewis lap. We screwed it up with George in qualifying.

"I think we had the second quickest car today, if you look at the lap time profile and also where George came from. But we just didn't monetise on it.

"But having said that, you see where Verstappen is doing his laps and that needs to be the target and that is far off at the moment.

"The start certainly played a role but you know that can happen.

"Maybe we also brought the tyres in very carefully, maybe too carefully, and you can see the lap time difference towards the end.

"I think we reeled in 15 seconds, and we were missing 1.9s or so to Perez and just four seconds to Lando, or less, and I think we had that."

Wolff's statements display a stark contrast from the rumours that surround Hamilton's statements on the RB19. But one thing is clear- that the car is too quick and too good to be fast enough 'legally'. If Red Bull has achieved such a feat while indeed working within the regulations, I bow down to them.