Yesterday, the FIA denied all rumors that Red Bull had used an illegal system up until the Miami Grand Prix, after which they were supposedly forced to remove it from the RB20.
The system in question involves asymmetric braking, aimed at facilitating corner entry. But how did these suspicions arise? Let’s retrace the events before analyzing them.
Red Bull illegal: the backstory
During the free practice sessions at the Hungarian Grand Prix, commentator Antonio Lobato revealed a behind-the-scenes story from the paddock.
According to his statements, two teams had discovered a trick used by Red Bull and subsequently asked the FIA for clarification. Other sources, supported by Peter Windsor, who worked as general manager for Ferrari’s UK base in 1989, claim that the Austrian team indeed benefited from an advantage up until the Miami GP and that the braking issue experienced by Max Verstappen in Melbourne helped to “expose” this solution, which operated in a gray area of the regulations.
This gray area was clarified by the FIA after the Belgian Grand Prix, further fueling doubts about the reason behind such a technical change.
“Excusatio non petita, accusatio manifesta”
Yesterday, the International Federation denied all rumors: “It is not true that any team was using such a system,” they confirmed to Motorsport.com.
It was instead stated that the clarification of Article 11.1.2 was made with a view to 2026, precisely to prevent the use of such a solution.
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Yet the timing of these statements is more than suspicious: as the Latin saying goes, *excusatio non petita, accusatio manifesta* (literally “an unprovoked excuse is a clear accusation”). This is exactly the point: the FIA’s intervention wasn’t requested, but it was made to calm the waters, although it had the opposite effect.
Why the urgency to deny the rumors, if they were just that? After all, how many false news stories circulate in F1 without being addressed by the parties involved? Perhaps the Federation simply intended to provide an explanation to fans, but if that were the case, why not do so at the time of the rule change? Why not immediately share the reasons behind such a decision? In short, there are many questions to which we will likely never get the true answers, but one thing is certain: in this whole situation, there’s (more than) something that doesn’t add up.
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