Haug has no sympathy for Red Bull’s engine plight

Norbert Haug on Wednesday said he had no sympathy amid Red Bull’s quest for more engine performance.

Mainly due to having no viable alternatives, Red Bull is staying with Renault power for 2011 but the team regularly complains that engine performance should be equalised because of the development ‘freeze’.

“That (equalisation) is not formula one,” Mercedes’ motor sport vice president Haug told Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.

“In that case we should all go over to GP2.  Competition has nothing to do with equality,” he added.

However, the German said Mercedes has been a champion of reducing costs in F1, after slashing its own budget by “almost 70 per cent” compared to five years ago despite splitting with McLaren in order to head its own works team.

“We were among the pioneers of cost reduction and now we want to see the reward,” said Haug, who insisted that rival bigger teams will now need to scale down.

© RIF | GMM