Mercedes leader Andrew Shovlin believes the rule change in Formula 1 has brought Red Bull Racing one step closer. Since this year's Belgium Grand Prix, it is no longer allowed for the teams to use a party mode during qualifying. In F1 you can only use one engine position during qualifying and the race at the weekend. This means that you cannot reduce the power of the engine on Sunday after qualifying. Mercedes leader Andrew Shovlin now admits that Red Bull Racing was indeed able to take a step because of the ban. In the meantime, Red Bull is also continuing to develop rapidly. Shovlin says to Racefans.net: "During the year they caught up with us. The ban on changing engine settings has certainly brought them a step closer. "I think they are developing faster than we are at the moment. Frankly, we have seen that in most of recent years. Usually they don't start as fast as we start, but I can't think of a year in which they weren't very close to us in the end".
Source: GPBlog