David Coulthard has once again questioned the criteria used by the FIA to evaluate Formula 1 power units. For the former driver of the category, considering only the combustion engine in the ADUO system does not adequately represent the performance of the whole unit.
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The FIA recently released the results of the second ADUO period, again pointing to Red Bull Powertrains-Ford as the reference among combustion engines. As a result, the manufacturer does not receive an additional development margin, while competing manufacturers can use allowances obtained from previous measurements.
Coulthard believes the analysis should take into account the entire power unit, especially given the growing importance of electrical components: “A power unit as a whole does not involve just the combustion engine. There is also electrical energy. For me, that is really the point,” said the Scot on the Up to Speed program.
The former driver acknowledged that the teams agreed to adopt a simple mechanism but questioned whether this necessarily makes the system appropriate: “It does not seem to be the fairest mechanism to evaluate the performance of a power unit, because it focuses only on the combustion engine,” he continued. Coulthard compared the situation to a sports competition where the limit was defined based on only one part of the body, even though the whole body is used in the contest.
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He also cited McLaren’s experience to highlight the complexity of the electrical part. According to Coulthard, the team received the same power unit as Mercedes but only had access to all the information about its operation the week before the race.
The criticism was extended to other category rules. Coulthard stated that some regulations were created in different contexts and may have lost meaning with the evolution of F1, citing penalties for power unit component changes: “There are a series of rules and regulations agreed upon by the FIA and the teams, which are probably outdated now,” he concluded.
