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Red Bull and Mercedes now make each other's lives difficult in the pit lane too

22 November 2021 at 15:00
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  • GPblog.com

It's not just on and off the track that Red Bull Racing and Mercedes are at loggerheads; there's also a war going on in the pit lane. The title rivals are doing everything in their power to make each other's lives as miserable as possible. The battle between the two teams has now reached a new high or low (open to interpretation).

The pit crews of both Mercedes and Red Bull refused to remove the air pressure cables for each other in Qatar. As a result, Max Verstappen had to steer a lot sharper than usual for his pit stop, while Lewis Hamilton was somewhat hampered by his World Cup rival's team when pulling away.

Unwritten rule

Normally, teams always remove these cables when others make pit stops, but it's not as if this is a rule recorded in the book of F1 regulations. It's more of an unwritten rule, but Mercedes and Red Bull no longer care about that at this stage of the season. It has been reported that Mercedes started this 'tactic' in Brazil and Red Bull decided to copy that behaviour at the Losail International Circuit.