Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko is expecting another year of Mercedes dominance this season, saying the current engine regulations prevent teams challenging the reigning champions.
After winning four constructors' championships between 2010 and 2013, Red Bull slipped to second place in 2014 and down to fourth in 2015 -- 516 points shy of Mercedes. But while the Austrian-owned team has struggled with its supply of Renault engines, Ferrari has closed the gap to Mercedes and is targeting an assault on the championship in 2016.
In order to help Mercedes' rivals catch up, the engine regulations will again allow in-season upgrades this year and are not as restrictive as was originally planned under the cost-saving token system. Nevertheless, a month before the cars run for the first time at the opening test in Barcelona, Marko has gone on the record predicting more Mercedes dominance.
"If nothing changes, there will be the usual Mercedes superiority", he told Salzburg Nachrichten. "The current regulations are unfortunately so restrictive that you cannot come from behind. We need engines with more power."
Red Bull will run TAG Heuer-branded Renault engines in 2016, but its plans beyond next season are not clear. Formula One bosses rejected a plan to introduce a budget engine built to different regulations next year and are instead working on ways to make the current power units cheaper for customer teams by 2018. But Marko, who supported the budget engine plan, believes Formula One should work towards an engine with more power and a louder exhaust note.
"We need engines with brute force and sound," Marko added. "And the driver should determine with the throttle how he performs, not the engineers in the background."