Red Bull team boss Christian Horner took a sarcastic dig at his Mercedes counterpart Toto Wolff after his team's dominant weekend in Spa, saying that he should probably thank his rival for F1's new technical directive.
In a bid to mitigate the porpoising and bouncing phenomenon that has impacted F1's ground effect cars this season, the FIA implemented a TD at the Belgian Grand Prix by which closer scrutiny was paid to the wear of the planks and skids under F1's cars, while a limit was also imposed on the latter's vertical oscillation.
Mercedes, the team most impacted by the bouncing issue ths season, was a strong advocate of the introduction of the control measures, and many believed their application would rein in somewhat the pace of Red Bull's RB18.
But Max Verstappen's master class performance in Spa proved that F1's latest TD has so far had no bearing on the remarkable efficiency of Red Bull's car, although Horner conceded that Spa's layout "played to our strengths".
"On the face of it I’d probably have to thank Toto for the TD!" commented a mischievous Horner after Verstappen's dominant display. "
"In all seriousness, I think this circuit has played to our strengths. We have a very efficient car, we’ve found a very good setup and Max has just been in phenomenal form the very first lap in first practice.
"Obviously, strategically we chose to take the penalty here and 14th became 13th technically as the starting point with everybody else.
"But of course Max still had to navigate his way through the pack and he did that very efficiently over the first couple of laps, so he hit the front far quicker than we could have ever expected and the soft tyre seemed to work for him as well in that stint.
"Thereafter the pace we had with Max and Checo was enough that he got past Carlos and bring home one of the most dominant performances that we’ve had as a team since either 2010 or 2013."
Horner insisted that F1's latest TD and floor rules hadn't forced Red Bull to alter its set-up approach for Spa.
"A lot was made and a lot of expectation was put on that TD, so perhaps it’s hurt others more than it’s hurt ourselves," he added. "So we haven’t really changed the way we operate the car.
"Obviously, grounding here has always been an issue because of Eau Rouge, but that’s not unique to us that’s the same for every team."
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