Despite Mercedes getting the upper hand once Formula 1 switched over to 1,6-liter V6 hybrid units ahead of the 2014 season, Williams performance chief Rob Smedley believes everybody else has finally caught up.
It’s taken a while, but finally this year it does indeed look like Ferrari aren’t down on power at all compared to Mercedes. Renault has made a big leap too and by their standards so has Honda, which isn’t as far behind as people may think, says Smedley.
The Williams man points out that during qualifying “there’s not a great deal in it and that’s fairly evident,” as teams are now lapping much closer together than they were before.
“If you just look at speed traps, there is not the difference, either towed or untowed or DRS or non-DRS, that we used to have. There is much more parity between all of the top cars.”
The rest of the field is catching up too, according to Smedley. Even Honda, a team that came in a year late and were obviously going to be a year behind everyone else.
As stated by Autosport, next year will certainly be more interesting with even more engine parity – seen as how the token system will be gone. For Williams however it will mean relying less on the benefits of having Mercedes power in their corner and developing the chassis and the aero in order to become consistently good.
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