According to Motorsport Italy, the agreement between Scuderia Ferrari and the FIA means the Maranello team provided full acces to the federal technicians on secrets affecting the gray areas of the regulation regarding the power unit, but also on different other aspects, starting with how flexible wings really work.
The example is a good one: hackers are hired to help the government prevent others from interfering with their protection systems.
The FIA, after admitting that it did not have sufficient tools for in-depth technical checks to evaluate the conformity of the Ferrari engine, it seems has turned to the Ferrari technicians to enter the gray areas of the F1 regulation.
The men led by Nikolas Tombazis do not have the resources, nor the tools to counter the firepower of the top teams who have a thousand people to develop two cars. And so in the secret agreement between the FIA and Ferrari, in addition to the availability of working on the study of the future engine and synthetic fuels to contribute to research on the reduction of carbon emissions, it appears that Ferrari has “opened” the doors of its technological Sancta Sanctorum to the federal technicians who have been invited to Maranello.
What does this mean? That Mattia Binotto has made available to the FIA the opportunity to participate in … full immersion courses not only on the power units, but also on all the other aspects of an F1 car that can be interpreted starting from the flexible wings, but not only. In short, it seems that Ferrari has decided to provide full access to the computers of the Racing Department for a different purpose: to inform the FIA technicians about the state of the art of a top team in the intriguing of a complex and interpretable regulation starting right from the solutions of the power unit.
If what is reported by Motorsport Italy is true, Ferrari has offered details on how the fuel system of the internal combustion engine works, and the management of the electricity generated by the MGU-H and supplied to the MGU-K without going through the battery. Very complex processes, which are practically impossible to recreate from the outside. The secrecy of the agreement, fully claimed by the FIA in yesterday’s statement, evidently does not only concern the past, but also the present.
Starting from the firrst race of the 2020 Formula 1 season in Melbourne, the FIA will introduce a second flow meter in the F1 tank to check with its own sensor calibration the instantaneous fuel consumption which by regulation must not exceed 100 kg / h at 10,500 rpm.
Some claimed that Ferrari was able to increase the flow between one reading time and the other, thus increasing the power in peaks that were not controllable. Cunning, genius or cheating? When you enter the gray area of the rule it becomes difficult to separate things.
Certainly in Maranello they have been able to take advantage of certain solutions (the GPS data were clear on this) and it will be interesting to see what the effect of this “confession” will be without the excommunication expected from Mercedes and Red Bull.
The choice of Mattia Binotto could have two effects: first raise the threshold of attention on all areas of F1, perhaps touching the gray areas of other teams, secondly dismantling the desire for complaints of those who are holding cards that are the intellectual property of Ferrari.
All this work, however, risks collapsing if the SF1000 proves to be a single-seater unable to fight for victory in 2020, because it will lead to speculation that Ferrari had to give up the “tricks” of 2019. Still, the team principal made no secret of the fact that Ferrari is the result of an immature project, but not a wrong one. Mercedes and Red Bull are ahead: an estimated half second is credited to the W11 and a couple of tenths to Adrian Newey’s car.
The SF1000 generates drag and used a power unit with limitations during the two testing sessions in Barcelona, (where it excelled last year), which means that the speed on the straights disappeared in favour of better cornering and less tire wear. How it will end we will understand it only in Australia, maybe..
