F1 News: Red Bull-Ford engine is the benchmark so far

The consensus leaving Barcelona was that Mercedes was the team to beat, but here in Bahrain, they are purposely sandbagging with the hope the FIA won’t ban it’s trick 1:18 compression ratio engines. Their trick engines measure 1:16 when the engine is cold, but are rumored to be 1:18 when hot. But was Red-Bull Ford sandbagging?

–by Mark Cipolloni–

“Look at the energy deployment today,” Mercedes Boss Toto Wolff said of Red Bull after their ace Max Verstappen went quickest this morning.

“They are able to deploy far more energy on the straights than everybody else. I mean, over consecutive laps.

“On a single lap we have seen it before, but now we have seen it on 10 consecutive laps with the same kind of straight-line deployment.

“I would say that as of today, on the first official day of testing, which is always with a caveat, they have set the benchmark so far.”

If this is true, Red Bull Powertrains and Ford have done a credible job given they are a new F1 engine manufacturer.