'Red Bull filed complaint with FIA over McLaren brake discs'
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- Corwin Kunst
Red Bull Racing is increasingly looking at other teams' cars to see if there are any technical gadgets on them that they might be able to use too. According to Auto, Motor und Sport, the Austrian formation's eye fell on a hole near the front and rear brake discs of the McLaren's MCL38.
Red Bull got suspicions that McLaren might have developed an extra cooling channel. The Woking-based racing stable reportedly made a hole near the brake discs, in order to insert sensors to measure the temperature of the rims and tyres.
The FIA regulations state that during free practice on Friday, teams are allowed to place such sensors through such a hole in the brake discs to collect data. From Saturday, those holes must be covered. Red Bull reportedly discovered that at some races that has not been the case at McLaren.
Red Bull's complaint
The team of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez therefore filed a complaint, according to the German medium. The FIA found in the last two races that the access points to the sensors - i.e. the holes - were closed, in accordance with the regulations. McLaren's solution? Tape over them, according to photos taken during those races.
McLaren was better than Red Bull in Miami, Imola and Barcelona on old tyres. The older the tyres, the faster the MCL38 almost seemed, while it was always the other way round before. In the last two GPs - won by Mercedes - the British team had a smaller tyre advantage at the end of stints, something that reinforces Red Bull's belief that McLaren did indeed benefit for a while from not covering the holes at the brakes.