Has Red Bull gone too far by giving cars ‘bendy’ wings?

Claims of “bendy wings” on Red Bulls cars, engineer poaching and the one and only Monaco GP; just another week in Formula 1.

This weekend F1 moves to the “jewel in the crown” in Monte Carlo. I am not sure I agree with such a title for this street circuit with very little overtaking opportunities, but if you consider the glamour and business aspects of such a venue I suppose it makes sense.

Whatever your view, the fight for the championship is on and so far it is advantage Mercedes, with three out of four possible victories, Red Bull taking the fourth. It promised to be a great season, but if the current form of Lewis Hamilton is anything to go by it is edging towards another benefit year for the Brackley-based team.

Red Bull, meanwhile, needs a double podium this weekend to keep the battle for the title alive. Battle it is proving to be, not just on track between Hamilton and Max Verstappen, but significantly off circuit as it involves technology and personnel.

The creation of the new Red Bull Powerunit manufacturing facility is a large part of the issue, as the British-based Austrian team continues to attract more engineers to ensure the venture will bring success. Most of the new recruits have been sourced in the UK from a large village in Northamptonshire named Brixworth which just happens to be home base for Mercedes High Performance Powerplants.

So far 15 staff members – 10 of them managers – are reported to have accepted Red Bull offers to join the new venture, according to Dr Helmut Marko, Motorsport advisor to Red Bull.

Not the case, according to Mercedes team chief Toto Wolff who was reported as saying: “The majority were not performance people, they were production people.”

He also downplayed a claim by Marko that Mercedes had attempted to prevent such moves by doubling the employees’ salaries. In an interview with Sky Deutschland Wolff, said: “Some of them cannot go to the new company, Red Bull Powertrains, before the end of 2023, a long time.”

He also intimated he was set to increase the engine “battlefield” and stated: “We knew Red Bull was taking this seriously, but so do we. Let’s see what we can think of.”

And it appears Wolff has already come up with an idea – “Bendy rear wings”. After qualifying in Barcelona, Hamilton said: “The Red Bulls are really fast on the straights. They have this bendy wing on the back of their car, which they put on today, and they gained at least three-tenths from this wing. So they will be quicker down the straights than us, and it will be hard to keep them behind.”

So now we have an FIA investigation, it looks as though the 2021 season is set to rival television’s courtroom dramas.