This is exactly what happened during the 2010 campaign of the Great Circus. The RB6 was indisputably the fastest car in the series and, hadn't it been for the countless reliability issues it experienced (along with some driving mistakes from racers Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber), it would have probably secured the world title many races before the end of the season.
Among the illegality claims issued by Red Bull's rivals in 2010 we can recall the adjustable ride height system (which claimed that the height of the car was adjustable between qualifying and race), the flexible floor and wings (which led to tougher flexibility tests from the FIA) and so on. Needless to say, the RB6 was found guilty of nothing.
“It wasn't a distraction, but it was an annoyance. I've got to say I've never known a season quite like this one for the petty finger pointing that's gone on in the paddock,” Newey, the man who designed title-winning cars for Williams and McLaren in the past, told Red Bull Racing's official website.
The latest such claim came late in the season however, when it was rumored inside the paddock that both Vettel and Webber oddly increased their pace by as much as 2 or 3 tenths of a second during Q3, as compared to their lap times in Q1 and Q2.
“It's a myth! I'm not sure our Q3 performance has been particularly different to our Q1 and Q2 performance, to be honest. I haven't bothered looking through statistics, but I think it's one of these stories that starts when once or twice the drivers have improved in Q3 and suddenly everybody writes it and it becomes accepted without any real basis,” added the Red Bull designer.
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