Red Bull likely 'more annoyed' than Mercedes over Monaco crane incidents

Mercedes believe Red Bull will be more concerned about their floor secrets being exposed, after both cars could be viewed by rivals after crashes during the Monaco Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton's car was hoisted off the track by a crane after crashing at Mirabeau in free practice three, as is the traditional method for recovering cars that have hit the barrier at the tight circuit.

Team Principal Toto Wolff was left unimpressed with the recovery and likened the spectacle to a 'Cirque du Soleil' performance, as it enabled rivals to view their floor design which contributes significantly to the downforce.

Later in the day Sergio Perez also crashed his Red Bull during qualifying, which caused his car to be recovered in a similar manner.

Trackside Engineering Director, Andrew Shovlin, believes that Red Bull would likely be more annoyed than Mercedes that rivals could take a look at their design.

"I suspect they're probably more annoyed about their car being left in the sky than we would be about ours," he told media, including RacingNews365.com.

Shovlin explained that the pictures can be gathered to work out where teams are exploiting areas of the regulations such as weight distribution.

"Years ago when your weight distribution could be anywhere between 48% and 43% [front-to-rear], you paid a bit more attention to where - if they lifted a car - you could try and work out where the centre of gravity was.

"These days, you've got a pretty narrow window to work in by the regulations anyway.

"With these regulations the most important bit is the parts that you don't normally get to see, so the teams will be all over those kinds of photographs, and then Monaco is a good opportunity to get that kind of shot."

Aston Martin: A lot of excited aerodynamicists

Williams Head of Vehicle Performance, Dave Robson, believes it would be tough for any team to digest any information from the Red Bull due to the images only being 2D.

"It seems so complex on a 2D photo, because of the way the light is so curved, you can't really figure any of it out," admitted Robson.

"I guess it's just coincidental they do it all like that because that's how they get the downforce, but it makes it difficult to copy."

While making direct copy's from the images alone would be tough, it still provides teams with clues about the Red Bull's ride height, according to Aston Martin Performance Director, Tom McCullough.

"You learn a lot from just even how the planks wear and from what's touching [the ground]," he added.

"There's a lot of very excited aerodynamicists up and down the pit lane, looking at all those over there."

F1 teams are required to run wooden planks mounted to the floor by the FIA for safety reasons, to prevent them from running too low to the ground.