Seven teams threaten legal action over FIA’s ‘private settlement’ with Ferrari

Seven Formula 1 teams have released a joint statement expressing their shock and surprise by the statement released by the FIA on Friday as pre-season testing came to a close, saying they had reached a “settlement” with Ferrari following an analysis into the Italian team’s 2019-spec power unit.

F1’s governing body the FIA have spent several months analysing Ferrari’s power unit, which had emerged as the class of the field in 2019, giving Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc a big advantage – sometimes as much as 0.5s on the straights.

Rivals had theories about how they were gaining that advantage, but Ferrari denied any wrongdoing. A series of technical directives – documents which move to clarify the rules should there be any ambiguity – were issued and a new double fuel flow sensor rule put in place. Following the conclusion of the analysis, the FIA said they had reached a “settlement” with Ferrari and that the “specifics of the agreement will remain between the parties”.

This has frustrated seven of their rival teams (McLaren, Mercedes, Racing Point, Red Bull, Renault, AlphaTauri and Williams) who want answers. The septet, which did not include Ferrari engine customers Haas and Alfa Romeo, released a joint statement on Wednesday morning.

“We, the undersigned teams, were surprised and shocked by the FIA’s statement of Friday 28 February regarding the conclusion of its investigation into the Scuderia Ferrari Formula 1 Power Unit,” it read – “An international sporting regulator has the responsibility to act with the highest standards of governance, integrity and transparency. After months of investigations that were undertaken by the FIA only following queries raised by other teams, we strongly object to the FIA reaching a confidential settlement agreement with Ferrari to conclude this matter. Therefore, we hereby state publicly our shared commitment to pursue full and proper disclosure in this matter, to ensure that our sport treats all competitors fairly and equally. We do so on behalf of the fans, the participants and the stakeholders of Formula One. In addition, we reserve our rights to seek legal redress, within the FIA’s due process and before the competent courts.”