Red Bull has stepped up the technical row with Mercedes by accusing the German team of breaching a gentlemen’s agreement.
Red Bull and Lotus last weekend threatened to protest the results in Australia, due to Mercedes’ innovative new ‘F-duct’-like solution.

“They are not complying with the agreement of the technical working group,” said Christian Horner.

Adrian Newey also told Auto Bild Motorsport: “The FIA has allowed the system, but Mercedes has gone against the gentlemen’s agreement of the teams.”

He is apparently referring to a meeting last year in which teams informally agreed not to pursue certain technical directions.

The outline of F1′s new technical direction for 2013 and beyond has been essentially decided.

According to Autosprint’s Italian-language auto.it, the sport’s cars of the future will feature so-called ‘ground effect’ aerodynamics and be powered by 1.6 litre, four-cylinder turbocharged engines.

The report said the package has been agreed by the majority of the teams.

A working group, featuring a group of engineers from F1 teams, has been in charge of defining the basic outline of the 2013 regulations, Autosprint said.

The four-cylinder turbo engines will reportedly produce 650 horse power, with drivers to be limited to using just five separate units per season.

Ground-effect aerodynamics, meanwhile, could improve overtaking by having the majority of the downforce generated underneath the car, rather than by the wings and top bodywork which greatly disturb the airflow onto following cars.

The technology was pioneered in F1 in the late 70s, but banned shortly afterwards because while producing immense cornering grip, ground effects made the cars unstable at high speed and relied on ‘sliding skirts’ that often broke.