Wolff and Vasseur ‘love affair’ blasted as rivals gang up on Red Bull

Sam Cooper 14 Aug 2023 12:45 PM

Helmut Marko is not expecting to receive any support from Ferrari as he said Fred Vasseur is in a “love affair” with Toto Wolff.

It can be hard to be friends with your rival team bosses but on the odd occasions, team principals do seem to genuinely get along.

Guenther Steiner has a good relationship with former Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto while the current Ferrari head is closer to another member of the F1 paddock.

Fred Vasseur-Toto Wolff ‘love affair’ preventing Red Bull support

Even with two and a half years to go until the regulations come in, we are already seeing some complaints about the 2026 changes to power unit rules.

Red Bull have led the way with their main concern being the size of the battery, so much so that Christian Horner described it as a potential “Frankenstein” car.

Horner is not the only Red Bull voice to shine a spotlight on this with Marko suggesting Max Verstappen’s 2021 Silverstone crash could have been very different with a bigger battery.

“The weight is a safety risk,” he toldMotorsport-Total.com. “The Silverstone accident that Max [Verstappen] had in 2021 can end very differently with such a heavy battery .

“A battery always entails certain risks. We already have cars that are close to the sports car level in terms of weight and dimensions. But the race tracks remain the same. We would have to make them all a metre wider in order to keep up with the development of the cars.

“That’s where we should start. The cars have to get lighter and smaller again. If you then need 30 litres of fuel just to charge the battery, then something is wrong in terms of approach.”

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Marko继续建议不仅仅是红牛who have these concerns but revealed who he does not expect to get any support from.

“The fact that you then have to slim down the car aerodynamically so that it no longer has any air resistance means that the effect of the slipstream is lost,” the Austrian said. “There are brands that have the same concerns.

“Vasseur is continuing his love affair with Toto. Therefore there is little resonance at Ferrari.

“At Renault, they don’t know what they’re doing. We don’t have any allies yet and that’s not because we can’t get it under control.”