Red Bull asked the FIA questions about design elements of the Mercedes F1 engine, as the team found a way to find super cool air in the plenary for a boost in performance.
The Formula 1 regulations state that there is a minimum temperature for the air in the plenary, while Mercedes insists that it doesn’t do anything out of the ordinary.
Red Bull is now waiting for answers from the FIA as to whether Mercedes is doing something wrong or not.
But while the matter was discussed in public and among teams as well, it did not fuel the kind of drama Ferrari faced in 2019 when it too was subjected to a clarification of the engine rules by the FIA.
At the time it was believed that Ferrari was using a clever system to bypass FIA fuel controls, which were eventually abolished by the governing body with the introduction of additional sensors.
And while the Ferrari design was the subject of an investigation by the FIA, the governing body could not prove that the Italian team had violated the regulations.
As a result, and because the FIA did not want a lengthy legal process, a secret agreement was reached whereby Ferrari helped the FIA improve the monitoring of F1 engines.
This result sparked a huge outcry from the rival teams, with some teams threatening to move the matter further to find out more about what Ferrari was up to.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc leads Lewis Hamilton in a Mercedes, Hungarian GP 2021
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
The affair also led to strained relations between Mercedes boss Toto Wolff and Binotto as they disagreed over the implications of the FIA’s technical guidelines at the time.
But in the midst of a 2021 season that was being followed by exactly the same technical guidelines that addressed the Ferrari engine matter, Binotto has asked why a number of FIA interventions this year didn’t come close to delivering the kind of “attack” that his team faced two years ago.
When asked if he saw a great contrast between the technical sagas of Ferrari and Mercedes, Binotto said: “Without going into the Mercedes engine, I would rather address other familiar topics: flexible wings and tire pressure management, the technical one Guidelines required.
“The FIA measures [technical directives] were necessary because there were some who interpreted the principles of the regulation differently. And all of this is no different than in 2019.
“Why are there differences in attitude? Maybe then we were exposed to the media too much and were attacked by our competitors. But that is now a thing of the past.
“I think getting to the type of tone that was used in 2019 is still wrong. But I think it is important to emphasize that what happened then is no different from what is happening now and has always happened in Formula 1. “
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Binotto said Ferrari had not asked the FIA any questions of its own about the Mercedes system, but confirmed that it had spoken to Red Bull boss Christian Horner about it.
When asked whether Ferrari was involved in an FIA action, Binotto said: “No, we haven’t, although, like all teams and manufacturers, we try to understand what our rivals are doing; we analyze the images and look at the GPS data.
“We had some doubts and discussed them with Red Bull. I spoke to Christian Horner personally, but we didn’t ask the FIA any questions for clarification. ”
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