Red Bull have shown they are worried about Lewis Hamilton's pace following his Brazil Grand Prix victory on Sunday, claiming the Mercedes was 'unraceable.'
Hamilton picked up one of his most famous victories, in a career full of them, when he had to overcome what was essentially a 25 place grid penalty and an incident on track with Max Verstappen to keep the world driver's title race alive.
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The seven time champion was disqualified from qualifying, after initially finishing on pole position, thanks to his rear wing not being within regulations, meaning he would start from the back of the grid
Hamilton was lucky that last weekend was one of the races with a sprint race to actually decide the grid for Sunday's race and he fought from 20th up to fifth.
However the British driver then got a further penalty for switching his engine, to start the race 10th. The new engine gave him some serious speed as he fought back to overtake title rival Verstappen and win the race by nearly 10.5 seconds.
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With three races to go, the Red Bull driver still leads the title by 14 points but the Austrian team are clearly a bit worried about their rival's pace.
"There were not two rockets, but one," Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko told AMus F1, "Only the Hamilton [car] has such an unbelievable surplus on the straights.
"Despite the lead, I see us at a disadvantage if Hamilton maintains this engine advantage.
"We haven’t seen an engine like that from Mercedes in recent years, as far as I can remember
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"....Mercedes have done a masterpiece to conjure up such a rocket at this crucial stage."
Hamilton may have been even further down the track to his rival if it weren't for their collision on lap 48, of 71, as the former tried an overtake.
The 36-year-old seemed to have gone passed the younger racer at turn four, but Verstappen refused to yield the place and looked to have driven the more experienced man off the road, after leaving him no space.
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Stewards decided that no investigation was needed but Mercedes now claim that the on board replay, which was posted on social media on Tuesday needs to be investigated.
If F1 do now decide the Dutch driver has questions to answer then it could mean a five second penalty for the race and that would drop him to third.
That's due to the fact that Mercedes' second driver, Valtteri Bottas, finished just over three seconds behind Verstappen, after Merc boss Toto Wolff told his driver to try and catch their rival.
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If that happens it would have a huge impact on both the drivers' and constructors' title races, with Red Bull/Max losing three points, and Mercedes/Bottas gaining them.
Wolff's opposite number at Red Bull, Christian Horner, suggested that they will struggle to keep up with their rival's pace in the final three races, referring to Merc's engine change as 'unraceable.'
"Their straight line speed is really impressive, that new engine, they’ve got a Monaco [high downforce, slower on straights] rear wing on here.
"...That’s a very potent weapon with some very fast tracks coming up in the last three races.
"...It was unraceable today, I think we put up as big a defence as we could, Max did his best, he raced hard but there was just no chance today."
The end of the season will surely bring us even more drama.
Featured Image Credit: PATopics: Formula 1, Lewis Hamilton
