Why the end of "party mode" won't crash Mercedes' festivities

When Formula 1 draped an "under new management" sign over its doors upon its takeover by Liberty Media, many fans were hoping for an end to the knee-jerk decision making that had perhaps become customary over the previous few years in a bid to peg back teams getting too big for their boots.

Perhaps it falls more into the domain of the FIA to make those calls, but still, most were hopeful of more consistent governance with regards to the rulebook.

So when it became clear over the Spanish Grand Prix weekend that F1 and the FIA were planning to ban qualifying engine modes, necessitating the use of a common engine setting for qualifying and the race from the next grand prix at Spa-Francorchamps, many would be forgiven for thinking "oh cripes, here we go again". Or, as they say in France: plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

Let's call the ban on "party mode" for what it is - an attempt to strip the all-conquering Mercedes team of one of its most potent tools. On the face of it, to give the competitive order a bit of spice on Saturdays, Mercedes could do with reining in. On average, compared to the next-fastest constructor in qualifying so far this season, a Mercedes polesitter has been 0.890s quicker than the rest of the pecking order - a monumental chasm between the Silver Arrows and the others.

The rule change will now strongarm Mercedes into using the same engine settings in qualifying as it does in the race, forcing a compromise between outright pace and race management. "Good," you might retort, presumably beset by a case of perpetual ennui at the prospect of yet another Mercedes display of dominance.

But on delving a little deeper, it might not entirely upset the competitive order in qualifying and, sorry folks, it might only serve to exacerbate the situation.

For those uninitiated, what's the difference between a qualifying and race mode? In qualifying, an all-out battle of speed, the teams will want to make use of the entire power band available. That means churning through more fuel, with maximum revs on the straights and maximum deployment from the energy recovery systems.

Compare that to the race, where the engines are faced with an endurance contest, the power unit maps will open up the amount of ERS harvesting that takes place. In return, the revs are turned down to reduce the amount of stress that the engine is under, meaning that the array of 'race modes' are a slower alternative.

Mercedes, believed to be the biggest beneficiary of a devilishly powerful qualifying mode, is expected to be hit hardest by this. But that does a disservice to the brilliant minds in the Mercedes High Performance Powertrains camp, and they'll seek to find a compromise with a mid-range setting that delivers enough performance for both.

Relatively speaking, the other manufacturers don't have qualifying modes as potent as Mercedes - and although they'll take a few hits in the crossfire, it'll ultimately affect the other three too. Even if Ferrari professes not to have a qualifying mode, having been clipped of its own wings by one of 2019's technical directive, the Maranello outfit will still have to make compromises as it has to pick a single engine mode and stick with it.

"It's obviously to slow us down but I don't think it's going to get the result that they want, so that's totally fine if they do" Lewis Hamilton

But forcing Mercedes to select a single engine mode for both qualifying and the race won't close that nearly one-second gap it has in hand on Saturdays to the rest of the teams. It might knock a couple of tenths out of the single-lap pace that Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas have used to such great effect this year but, if the likes of the Honda-powered Red Bull will also lose a little bit of potency, it'll be unlikely that the upcoming technical directive will change the order too much.

What it's more likely to do, and some of the drivers have already attested to this, is make the races a little more one-dimensional. We're accustomed to drivers sticking the car in "overtake" mode - a more powerful setting - when they have a car ahead that they need to pass. That won't be possible under the new rules, meaning that drivers have fewer tools at their disposal to mount an assault upon the car ahead. It removes some of the tactical element involved, and the latitude that drivers have available to build a race.

Also gone will be drivers turning up the wick during a pit phase to counter another car attempting to undercut them, so there's a chance that strategic calls will have an element of predictability to them.

"It's impossible to know with other engine manufacturers, how much they can actually gain when they do it all-out in qualifying and if we're gaining more or not," Bottas explained in Thursday's Spanish GP press conference. "We are not panicking about it, if that regulation comes it's the same for everyone.

"When I heard about it for the first time, the first thing came to my mind [was] that in races if it could be the same engine mode for everyone, I think there could be less overtaking because everyone is just running the same modes instead of playing with them and trying to maximise every situation with sometimes using more power, sometimes less.

"In the end it would be less things for us to do while driving. Obviously it's not up to us, but we'll take it if it comes."

Hamilton was much more blasé about the potential for Mercedes to be hamstrung, and suggested that the FIA's overtures towards cutting the gap between the Brackley outfit and the rest of the field were rather barking up the wrong tree.

"It's not a surprise to us, they're always trying to slow us down," he said. "But it doesn't really change a huge amount for us so it's not a problem. The guys on our team have done such a great job with the engine; it's obviously to slow us down but I don't think it's going to get the result that they want, so that's totally fine if they do."

Now, one could interpret that as the Mercedes drivers attempting to call the FIA's bluff. But both drivers seem to have the measure of the impending technical tweaks, and are sufficiently confident in Mercedes' selection of engine modes that they can make the most of the power unit in both qualifying and the race.

Any compromise will surely serve to strip a little performance out of the de facto qualifying mode and give the race pace a comprehensive boost. A situation where Mercedes has even more of an advantage in race trim - which was only threatened at the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix when heavy tyre wear was a factor - would be a real concern given how effortless Hamilton's victory in Spain seemed to be, having legged it to the finish line with a near-25s advantage over second-placed Max Verstappen.

PLUS: The "shock" that gave Mercedes its edge back in Spain

In theory, Mercedes will simply be able to gun it in the races, delve into the trusty lift-and-coast to regenerate energy while preserving engine and tyre life, and rout the field with arguably the field's strongest power unit. Although in Mercedes' worst case scenario it might let Verstappen get a couple of sniffs at pole position, the increased race performance that the team would likely gain could put events on a Sunday beyond all reasonable doubt.

On the flipside, there's an element of risk management in deciding which modes are suitable for the race. Run the engine at too high a mode for too long and the spectre of unreliability will begin to sharpen its scythe more enthusiastically, thus giving the powertrain engineers a puzzle on choosing the mode that offers the best of both worlds.

That said, Mercedes principal Toto Wolff explained in Mercedes' post-race media session that a lower mode for qualifying will preserve the life of the engine for longer, meaning that the team can potentially afford to take a few more liberties in running the race engine at a higher setting.

"We don't lack performance on Saturdays," Wolff enthused. "We had until now quite a margin. We struggled in some of the races where we were quite limited in powerful engine modes, and if Formula 1 were to ban, in-season, certain power unit modes, then I think it will actually help us in the race.

"Even if it may hurt us more in qualifying, which I'm not sure, and it's a couple of tenths, then it will hurt all the others in the same way" Toto Wolff

"If you can avoid to damage your power unit in those few qualifying laps that you have available, in Q3 and then the odd lap in the race, the damage metrics goes down dramatically. So five laps of quali mode not being done gives us 25 laps of more performance in the race, and that is something we believe will give us more performance.

"You must take into effect even if it may hurt us more in qualifying, which I'm not sure, and it's a couple of tenths, then it will hurt all the others in the same way. But for us, we are always very marginal on what we can extract from the power unit, and if we were to be limited in qualifying modes, then well, we will be stronger in the race."

In reality, the restrictions in engine modes probably won't change a great deal. It might conspire to downgrade Mercedes' current qualifying advantage from "colossal" to "considerable" but, as its key personnel suggests, this gives the team a chance to recover from that in race trim. Besides, races are tyre-limited more often than not, and so the drivers will probably offset the expected technical changes with managing their Pirelli rubber.

Regardless, it's not all about the engine - Williams also has the Mercedes power unit, but currently resides towards the back of the grid. The FIA's restrictions might be a small inconvenience to Mercedes in the grand scheme of things, but it shouldn't halt the irrepressible dominance of the W11 car. It's just a little bit too good for that.