Rob Smedly is Sure that Mercedes is Playing Fair with Its Clients in F1
Giancarlo Perlas April 24, 2015
Rob Smedly, the Head of Vehicle Performance at the Williams team in Formula One, said he remains confident that Mercedes is providing them the best engine the automaker has to offer. He made the comment after their driver Felipe Massa cast doubt on the integrity of their power unit supplier.
It should be recalled that Massa suggested Mercedes might not be providing them with the same configuration in their power unit. The Williams driver uttered such claim at the start of the F1 season this year.
Smedly pointed out that Williams’ speeds at the qualifying and the actual races possessed the same offsets with Mercedes-AMG Petronas as well as the other customers of the three-pointed star brand in F1. So, he expressed his confidence that the power unit found in the Silver Arrow is the same with everyone else that gets their engine from Mercedes.
The Head of Vehicle Performance of Williams praised the parity of Mercedes to its customers in the sport. He emphasized Mercedes has gone “out of its way” to ensure fairness among the teams that get their engine from them.
Lotus and Force India also downplayed claims that the race car of the Mercedes team might be putting an engine with a different configuration than the rest of their F1 customers.
This fan boy is glad to know that Mercedes customers in F1 still have high confidence in their engine supplier. That’s because while a car’s power unit may play a vital role in winning races in the sport, it should be noted that there are plenty of other factors in play during F1 events. Examples are Williams or other teams that share the same power unit with Mercedes have differing tires, aerodynamic design, strategies, the skills of their drivers, and so on. Putting all the said factors together is a recipe for success in F1 races, and it just happened that Mercedes excelled in almost all these elements last season and at the start of this year.
