F1 Rumour: Lewis Hamilton All But Accuses Red Bull Of Cheating - Hungarian GP

Is Red Bull exploiting the rulebook after they seemingly lost pace this weekend?

Has Red Bull been cheating so far this season, and after a sudden loss of performance at the Hungarian Grand Prix, has F1 and the FIA quietly told them to change their car?

Lewis Hamilton sparked rumours after qualifying this weekend when he brought attention to how Red Bull has lost pace compared to the rest of the top 5 teams. This is what he said in an interview with Sky Sports F1:

“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.”

What he’s asking is: has the FIA stepped in and changed something on the RB19. Because it wouldn’t be the first time this has happened.

2019 actually saw Max Verstappen accusing Ferrari of cheating and this forced the FIA to open a technical investigation into their power unit. It was eventually revealed that the Scuderia were over-fueling their cars to produce more power, but because it’s Ferrari, who are almost synonymous with the sport, a secret agreement took place between them and the FIA to reel them back in, but no penalties or punishments were dished out. 

The next year, 2020, saw Ferrari and their customer teams lose so much performance that it was incredibly obvious that something had gone on behind the scenes, despite the then team principal Mattia Binotto denying everything.

A statement from the FIA at the time 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.’

With Red Bull, it’s the DRS advantage that makes them so, so fast. But according to Hamilton, they haven’t got that anymore, proven by the fact he outqualified both cars in a slower Mercedes W14 for the first time this season.

Joined with the fact that Verstappen’s number one car had random checks performed on it after the British Grand Prix, fans, drivers, and pundits are wondering whether the FIA have stepped in.

Ted Kravitz said: 

“I’m not sure that’s ultimately true. But Lewis certainly wants to put that out there and get the media to investigate that.”

Max is blaming this performance on a poor setup, which it may well be. And to be honest, without any official statement from the FIA or F1 of Red Bull, or a leak from inside the organisations, we won’t know. Fortunately, with Hamilton drawing attention to this, almost urging the media to ask some questions, maybe we might hear something soon.

The question we can answer right now is, is this a realistic idea?

I believe it is. In F1, if you’re not cheating you’re not trying hard enough. And with someone like Adrian Newey behind the aerodynamics of the car, I wouldn’t be surprised if there is something questionable about the rear of the car and/or how the air is guided there. At least a loophole that they’re manipulating. 

If the FIA know, they likely won’t want to bring more drama to Red Bull after 2021, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the cost cap, and now they’re at the front of the pack. It would reflect very badly on the sport. And with this being such an important time as PF1 grows rapidly into America, this is the last thing they’ll want.

I’ve reached out to the sources I have, so I’ll hopefully know more in the coming days, but right now, it’s fair to say that the Milton Keynes team may be under some scrutiny right now.

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