Szafnauer is still urging the FIA ​​to change the basic rules

Aston Martin team principal Otston Szafnauer says talks with the FIA ​​about the technical regulation changes for 2021 are almost complete, but he still feels his team is unfairly disadvantaged.

Because the introduction of brand new technical regulations was delayed by 12 months due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Pirelli was unsure whether a new tire could be developed, the FIA ​​made changes to the ground regulations to reduce downforce and Slowing down cars So this season, last year’s tires would still be usable. In the end, updated tires were made available, and after Szafnauer complained that low-rake concept cars – specifically the Aston Martin and Mercedes – were hit hardest by the changes, he had legal action regarding the FIA’s behavior threatened. But now he’s softened his demeanor.

American F1 drivers desirable, but not realistic in the short term – Domenicali

A stroll takes the Mont Tremblant circuit off the market

Red Bull turned to 100 Mercedes employees – Wolff

“We had good conversations with the FIA ​​to understand the process and how we got to where we came,” said Szafnauer. “The discussions are almost over. I think we made good progress to better understand what happened.

“What we have to do now is that we have to work hard to make up the deficit introduced in the winter. We have a new package for both cars here (in Spain) that was launched in Portimao – but Portimao has a lot of slow corners so we can evaluate what we’ve done here and we have to work hard to get it later in the year obtain further upgrades so that we can return to the level of performance we had last year. “

Günther Steiner (Haas F1) and Franz Tost (AlphaTauri) sat next to Szafnauer and said the floor changes were chosen last year, but the Aston Martin boss disagreed.

“Just to illustrate, it wasn’t chosen – it was done for safety reasons and it was unilateral,” he said.

“No, it has been fixed,” replied Tost. “The technical working group later …”

“Three teams voted against the Technical Working Group, but the Technical Working Group was an indicative vote,” interrupted Szafnauer. “The technical working group has no voting rights anyway. It was just a hint, but then it was done anyway for security reasons. This is just an illustration. “

Szafnauer said Aston Martin objected to the changes in the technical working group, highlighting what he thought was a better solution, which was rejected.

“We objected because they are actually cheaper for high-rake cars, and we objected to them and then proposed other regulations that would be more equivalent,” he said. “The vote in the Technical Advisory Board is only indicative and was seven to three at the time.

“We suggested not having the second changes made because the changes were made one at a time. We felt the first change was enough to slow the cars down. So we suggested just leaving them there. But there were other proposals that were suggested early on, not by us. I’ll give you the example of reducing the size of the rear wing and that would have affected everyone equally, but that was not chosen. “

RACER assumes that the FIA ​​tried to reduce the size of the rear wing at the beginning of the process. However, simulations have shown that this would not have the desired effect, since increases in speed would counteract the reduced downforce.