刘易斯·汉密尔顿说，“这并不是什么秘密”，2021年一级方程式赛季的后底盘规则的改变“已经限制住了梅赛德斯”。虽然各支车队需要将2020年的绝大多数赛车设计延续到本赛季使用，但F1技术规则的改变是要求必须移除后底盘的三角形区域。这是试图将下压力水平削减到2020年汽车产量的10%的一部分，这也包括缩小后扩压器的大小，以降低速度和减少轮胎故障的风险。
在冬季测试中，梅赛德斯在后部的操纵上表现得尤为突出，有迹象表明，与红牛在过去十年所倡导的高制动概念相比，为弥补因后排底板缩小而损失的下压力时，车队所使用的低风口空气动力学概念在被淘汰。
上周五，梅赛德斯负责人托托·沃尔夫证实，这是“绝对”存在的。这种情况也影响了阿斯顿·马丁车队，它改变了从高到低的制动赛车概念，梅赛德斯W11作为去年赛点的RP20灵感来源。
当在排位赛后的新闻发布会上被问到时，沃尔夫说：“这些变化当然是为了阻止我们的进步，这不是什么秘密。”在本赛季开赛的巴林大奖赛中获得了第二名的成绩，排在红牛车队的马克斯·维斯塔彭之后。
这位世界冠军把这种情况于2020年作比较，在意大利大奖赛之前，规则的改变意味着车队不能再改变他们赛车的引擎模式，而且在排位赛和正赛中必须保留一个。
汉密尔顿说：“我们去年对我们的引擎做了同样的改变。但没关系，我们喜欢挑战，我们不会轻视这些事情，我们只是努力工作，尽我们所能。这就是我们要做的。”
汉密尔顿的队友博塔斯也在排位赛后的新闻发布会上被问及。博塔斯不想发表对低制动和高制动的优点的相关评论，而是谈到了红牛有“一套非常完善的整体方案”。他补充说：“他们的动力装置，底盘，和他们的空气动力都很好。他们在冬天的比赛做得很好，所以我们需要做得更好。”
维斯塔本对这个话题做出了回应，他认为，相比与梅赛德斯，红牛在休赛期取得的成绩应该归根于“几个因素”的结果。“当然，这已经是我们很长一段时间的努力了，”他说。“我不认为你能指出(红牛有进步的地方)，我认为有几个因素。就像，我们从去年就知道了自己的弱点，这不仅仅是因为耙。从引擎方面来说，我认为本田一直在努力改进他们的引擎，我认为他们做得很好。”
外文
Hamilton: F1 floor rules change aimed at slowing down Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton says "it's no secret" that the rear-floor rule changes brought in for the 2021 Formula 1 season "have been done to peg Mercedes back".While the teams were required to carry over the vast majority of their 2020 car designs for use this season, changes to F1's technical rules mandated that a triangle-shaped area of the rear floor had to be removed.This was part of an attempt to cut downforce levels by up to 10% of what the cars were producing in 2020, which also included a reduction in the size of rear diffuser strakes, to lower speeds and reduce the risk of tyre failures.
During winter testing, where Mercedes notably struggled with rear handling, suggestions emerged that the low-rake aerodynamic concept the team uses was losing out when it came to recouping downforce lost to the reduced rear floors compared to the high-rake concept pioneered by Red Bull early in the last decade.
On Friday, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff confirmed that this was "definitely" occurring, with the situation also impacting the Aston Martin squad after it changed from the high to low-rake car concept with its Mercedes W11-inspired RP20 machine as Racing Point last year.
When asked about Wolff's comments in the post-qualifying press conference after taking P2 on the grid for the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix behind Red Bull's Max Verstappen, Hamilton said: "It's no secret that what the changes [have done], of course they've been done to peg us back."
The world champion likened the situation to 2020, where a rule change brought in just before the Italian GP meant teams could no longer alter the engine modes on their cars, and must run with just one for both qualifying and the race.
Hamilton said: "We had the changes of course last year to our engine to do the same thing."But that's OK, we love a challenge and we don't look down on these things, we just work hard to do the best we can. And that's what we'll do."
Hamilton's teammate Valtteri Bottas was also asked about the situation in the post-qualifying press conference.Bottas did not want to comment on the merits of low-rake vs high-rake when it comes to the impact of the 2021 rear floor changes, instead saying Red Bull has "a really strong package overall".He added: "Their power unit, chassis, their aero is good. They've done a good job over the winter and we need to do a better job."
When Verstappen gave his response to the subject, he suggested Red Bull's gains over the off-season compared to Mercedes were the result of "a few factors"."It's [been] our philosophy now for a long time, of course," he said."I don't think you can point it out on that [where Red Bull has improved], I think there have been a few factors."Like, we knew our weakness from last year and that's not only to do with rake."I think also from the engine side I think Honda has worked really hard to improve their engine in general and I think they've done a great job."
*外文与图片源自网络