'Some have won championships by pumping oil into the combustion chamber'

Scuderia Ferrari’s Team Principal Mattia Binotto responded to the controversy over the legality of the Prancing Horse’s power unit, and added: “We were the most controlled team, but there were never any doubts about our legality”.

In 2019 Ferrari didn’t have to deal only with its rivals on the track. The matches played took place on several courts, starting from the negotiations for the new ‘Concorde Agreement’ 2021-2025, to the controversies that emerged after the Canadian Grand Prix in the ‘Vettel-Hamilton’ case, up to the defence from the more or less veiled accusations that grew in proportion to the performance of the Prancing Horse’s power unit.

Mattia Binotto is not happy and stressed that “today we have the best engine in Formula 1”, challenging openly the rivals who have tried to undermine the integrity of Ferrari without making any complaint in the appropriate forums.

“If I look at the whole season, we have been one of the most-checked teams — both before and after the technical directives had been worked up,” he said. “And when you have got a performance advantage — and certainly we had it for the whole season, because we’ve had a power advantage compared to our competitors since the first race — being checked is normal and it is somehow good because through the checks you are proving your legality after the technical directives has been issued.” – he explained, as reported by Motorsport Italy.

Complex regulations, necessary clarifications
During the weekend of the U.S. Grand Prix, the FIA issued to the teams a new technical directive on the power unit front regarding the use of the flowmeter, and immediately a message to Ferrari was spoken of. But Mattia Binotto doesn’t agree with this hypothesis: “We have a very complex set of rules, and therefore not easy to manage. Each team has always tried to interpret the rules in order to extract maximum performance from its engine, and the need for clarification is demonstrated by the more than 40 technical clarification directives sent by the FIA during the season, both on the engine and chassis front. This confirms how complex the issues we face are, and how necessary it is still to clarify aspects despite the fact that these engines are used from 2014”.

“For our part – continued Binotto – the technical directives are always welcome because they serve to clarify, as well as the checks. We have been checked many times, and there have never been any doubts about our legality. In the past, without wanting to accuse anyone, we have talked a lot about the consumption of oil in the combustion chamber. Some have won championships by pumping oil into the combustion chamber, then everything has been clarified with technical directives that have subsequently become part of the regulation. This shows how much complexity there is, and how the issue of legality cannot always be reduced to a black and white comparison.” – he added.

“I believe that Ferrari has never pointed the finger in the direction of the opponents, but in times of difficulty we just realized that we have a lot of work to do to overcome a performance disadvantage of our engine. I remember in 2014, we had a big gap to Mercedes, which I remember was above 80 horsepower at the time and we recognised it. We put a lot of effort and investment into our power unit to try to address it and to improve. And today we have got a smaller advantage compared to what they had at the time, and simply because we worked very hard as a team. I think I am somehow very happy for what we achieved.” – the Scuderia Ferrari Team Principal concluded.