Mattia Binotto, Ferrari, 2020

Ferrari’s rivals rubbish Binotto’s claim they have also lost power since last year

2020 Hungarian Grand Prix

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Ferrari’s rivals have denied their engines have suffered as a result of changes made to the technical rules following the FIA’s investigation into the Scuderia’s power units.

The FIA reached a private settlement with Ferrari after investigating its power unit last year. The sport’s governing body said at the time it would “improve the monitoring of all Formula 1 power units for forthcoming championship seasons” as a result of its investigation.

Last week Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto admitted the rules changes and technical directives arising from the FIA’s investigation were at least part of the reason why his team has slumped since the end of last season.

However, he added, “I don’t think it was only the case of Ferrari, I think looking at the power output of this season I think most of the other manufacturers somehow had to adapt themselves.” This claim was firmly rejected by Ferrari’s rivals during the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend.

Asked by RaceFans whether his Honda had lost power since last year, Red Bull driver Max Verstappen said: “No, definitely not. We clearly have more power than last year.”

“It feels very normal, like it has always been doing and it feels OK,” he added.

Daniel Ricciardo said his Renault also hadn’t lost power since last season, but pointed out the team’s priority had been to improve its reliability.

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“I would say it doesn’t feel worse,” he said in response to a question from RaceFans. “So I’ll draw a line in that one, the engine doesn’t feel slower or worse.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull, Hungaroring, 2020
Verstappen said his car clearly has more power
“I think we’ve improved a little bit. But certainly one thing which Renault addressed over the winter was reliability. And that was really at the top of the priority list. So we knew that there wasn’t promises of 50 more horsepower or anything like that to start the season, it was a reliability thing, that was a priority.

“I know the kilometres they did on the dyno were, I think – I don’t know if I’m allowed to say but I think they broke a few records there, so it was certainly focussed around that.”

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said any suggestion the technical directives had affected Mercedes’ power units was “complete bullshit”.

“There is a clear regulation on power units. There had been clarification in Austin what is allowed to do or not, which were important, but nothing that was in any way surprising because if you comply to the regulations that was anyway clear.

“I think the irony of the story is that we were pushed by some of our competitors to absolutely new levels. It brought us to almost burnout last year to develop and innovate in a way to be competitive on track. And here we go, I think we made a substantial jump in performance from 2019 to 2020 because we needed to last year. And that is a little bit ironic for me.”

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66 comments on “Ferrari’s rivals rubbish Binotto’s claim they have also lost power since last year”

  1. playstation361
    21st July 2020, 11:58

    We will probably have to wait and see further races to decide how exactly the Car was.

    1. Judging by Austria Binotto is correct but Honda might be the exception. Mercedes is an enigma because Wolff pretty much said they have found something special. I presume merc has an new exploit .

      1. playstation361
        25th July 2020, 13:34

        Things are always the same when things begin I think.

  2. This was inevitable and Binotto is probably regretting those particular words now.

    If you make a claim like that when it’s not accurate, someones going to say ‘Ah, well actually….’

    Mercedes are certainly quicker this year, but they’ve shown that refining the design of the car and improving the engine is the best way to go and something they were pushed to focus on to compete with Ferrari’s pace last year. Granted, Ferrari’s pace often seemed to only really be there in qualifying and then dropped off over the race distance, but the pace was certainly there.

    You only have to compare lap times and speed trap figures this year compared to last year to see that most of the other teams have either improved or have maintained their performance. Only the Ferrari powered cars sem to have dropped off noticeably.

    1. Biskit Boy (@sean-p-newmanlive-co-uk)
      21st July 2020, 12:26

      The claim was not accurate because other engine manufacturers didn’t need a non-disclosure “agreement” to hide their cheating.

  3. Toto is just awesome :D

    Personally I blame TDs – you can’t be running totally legal engine and then suddenly be forced to install new sensors!
    These sensors are so pesky, they take out all of the performance out of totally legal engines…
    :D :p

  4. A lot has been said about Binotto and that he should be replaced. I don’t quite see it that way, he’s had a tough time and his drivers crashing in Austria exaggerated the perception of the situation. But if there is one thing to blame him for was Binotto’s handling of the engine situation, mainly last year. Ultimately he is responsible for giving the green light to such engine tricks, and as an experienced engineer he would’ve understood the grey or black area the entered into. Right after the summer shut down, they made a massive power step, and it has come back to hunt them to the extent that they now carry a disadvantage into a lock-down of PU development.

    1. Just to potentially play the devil’s advocate here, last year’s engine wasn’t found to be illegal….
      In that sense, whatever they did was very clever.

      Rules will never be changed or ‘clarified’ if no-one is bending them.
      F1’s had more rules and amendments than any other sport for that reason. Isn’t that what the ‘F1 purists’ want? Technical innovation lives on the extreme outer edge of the regulations…

      1. There a difference in innovating to achieve the maximum within the rules such as Mercedes power unit having likely the highest efficiency of all four, and ‘innovating’ to clearly do something against the rules like using more than the permitted fuel but finding clever ways to prevent that being detectable

        It’s not an innovation at all because there’s nothing clever about more fuel giving more power, everyone knows that. It’s plain simple deception to do so with an engineered solution to hide that you are doing

        1. @philipgb +1
          And here we can recall the Ferrari outrage over McLaren’s industrial espionage in 2007. Good thing their rivals today haven’t the same degree of vindicativeness.

          1. @david-br Couple things on that. The whole debacle started with disgruntled Ferrari employee Stepney stealing technical documents from Ferrari. That Coughlin from McLaren (with help from his wife) got hold of and possessed the documents proved he was shady for sure, but the bulk of Ferrari’s outrage would/should have gone towards traitor Stepney from the getgo.

            As to teams’ vindictiveness today over Ferrari’s secret fuel flow issue, I think they have expressed their outrage and done all they can but for legal documents between F1 and Ferrari that will ensure they will never know the answers. It would seem the teams are not ready to sue Ferrari or FIA over this like Ferrari sued Mac for possession of documents that one of their own stole.

          2. @robbie

            It would seem the teams are not ready to sue Ferrari or FIA over this like Ferrari sued Mac for possession of documents that one of their own stole.

            That’s precisely my point. In the end RBR, Mercedes and the other teams presumably want Ferrari to stay in F1 and want to maintain a degree of cordiality and cooperation, without souring relations by suing.

        2. As I said, Ferrari’s engine was not deemed to be illegal. Regardless of the ethical or moral approach Ferrari took – like it or not, agree with it or not – they made something that was very clever.
          Edgy? Definitely. Illegal? Possibly. Innovative – absolutely.

          The end result was that the FIA found another way to get rid of Ferrari’s (probably illegal) engine anyway. Exactly as they should have done.
          Problem solved.

          1. Robbing a bank in a original fashion is “innovative”. And illegal. But if there is no direct proof you did it, but the judge makes a secret deal with you, it’s really fishy…

          2. @erikje
            If in law, outside of sport, the judge can’t determine guilt ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ with the evidence available then they are forced to declare it not guilty. There is no facility to find another way to achieve some level of justice.
            For good or ill, the FIA does not work the same way as the legal system.

            Regardless – I wasn’t personally arguing the engine was legal, only that Ferrari did something innovative – in the strictest definition of the word.

          3. There’s nothing especially clever about using more fuel and getting more power. It may have taken a clever approach to break the rules in a hidden manner, but that isn’t the kind innovation sport is meant to be about, it’s actually incredibly unsporting

            As for them not officially being deemed illegal, it doesn’t require much deduction that a confidential settlement, followed by an immediate dip in performance aren’t the result you’d expect from a legal solution

          4. Ferrari found a way to beat the technical checks, scrutineering processes and FIA sensors. From an engineering standpoint, I maintain that it does indeed require innovative thinking. It may not be legal or ethical but that’s not my argument.
            Ferrari owns the IP to whatever they were doing and gets to keep it for their own commercial uses should they wish to. Nothing suspicious about that aspect of the private agreement.

            Innovation of any kind is a feature that attracts many to F1 and runs deep in the management and decision making processes. We could debate for hours about exactly which innovations or technical systems F1 is actually about – but the bottom line is always whether it is judged to be allowed or not according to the arbitrary technical regulations of the time, by the FIA inspectors and race stewards at the time.

            In regard to your final comment – if you take any performance-affecting sub-system out of the car it will obviously affect total performance. That, in itself, has nothing to do with legality.
            If the FIA had proven and declared the system illegal, they would need to publish the technical IP details, which they don’t own. It doesn’t surprise me at all that a private settlement was the outcome.

          5. S, with regards to your comment about the wider legal system, it depends on the legal system you operate within – for example, the Scottish legal system also offers a judge or jury the option of a third verdict, which is “not proven”.

            In that case, the “not proven” term is technically an aquittal, but one that suggests the court believes the accused is probably guilty of the crime on the basis of the available evidence – just that the court cannot conclusively prove beyond reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty.

            The way that the FIA has described the situation around Ferrari suggests that they are applying a verdict that is more along the lines of “not proven” than “not guilty” i.e. that the overall balance of evidence points towards Ferrari having broken the regulations, but that it is not possible for them to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that they have done so.

        3. @philipgb if it was that “clearly” why wasn’t FIA able to find any illegality and it was Ferrari that agreed to sign the agreement? I don’t understand that logic. Or is it that only Mercedes is good and truthful and the others are always crooked? The only mistake Ferrari did was to sign anything. They should have owned the tech they developed and if the FIA was unhappy with it, then they should have taken Ferrari to court.

          1. @nunof

            If there was no illegality why was there a confidential settlement needed and why can’t Ferrari still run with the same power levels they used to have?

      2. Except they got caught out by “clarifications” and their engine power is so abysmal now they have a snowball’s chance in hell of competing legitimately for podiums as of right now.

        Now if they had just come off of a WDC or WCC, then yes, that might’ve been worth it, but they didn’t even make it to the top 3 last year in the former and there’s an argument to be made that had RBR found a better 2nd driver for the season, they’d not have that 2nd place in the WCC either.

        Now they’ve been cheating longer than that, of course, all with no significant end results (HAM wrapped up most of his titles well before season’s end). Had they actually invested into properly improving their engine (as Honda has, and even Renault has) into a proper contender, perhaps they could’ve been closer to Merc now and Binotto wouldn’t be begging to keep his job.

      3. If the reports are true, then Ferrari’s engine was no more “illegal” than the Red Bull flexing wings of 2011– they had been designed, not meet the intent of the rules, but rather, to conform to the measuring system that was in place to make sure you weren’t violating the rules.

        You might as well say that VW didn’t build cars with “illegal” emissions because the testing algorithms said they were legit, while ignoring the fact that the VW engines were designed to cheat the testing algorithms.

        Unfortunately, we won’t know what Ferrari did until (and if) someone writes a book.

    2. I think Binotto should carry the full blame on the engine debacle. Keep in mind he was CTO before his current position. Ferrari developed that engine under his eyes.

      The way they brought Leclerc is also very much on his conto. It’s not that they shouldn’t have promoted Charles to Ferrari, but they went from ‘support Vettel’ at pre-season testing to number 1 driver in 2 races. And that lack of (mental) support for Sebastian was visible trough the entire season. With Brazil as an all time low.

      Now they tossed Seb out like he is old junk. They should have noticed him at the end of 2019, so he would have been able to sign a contract at McLaren, Mercedes or Red Bull for example. Now they’ve brought him in a situation where his career could end.

      And that’s all on Binotto. Should he be replaced? If I were Ferrari and would look back on the last two years, I’d say yes. They went from title contenders to a wasp nest with shady practices, fighting in the midfield.

      1. F1oSaurus (@)
        21st July 2020, 17:09

        @montalvo They gave Vettel plenty of support. Race 3 they ordered Leclerc to let Vettel pass. Even in Spain race 5 they still let Vettel take the place ahead of Leclerc.

        It was just clear that Leclerc was the better driver so it made no sense to keep disadvantaging him to support the lesser driver. Even though Ferrari gave Vettel 5 races to show that he deserved his extra support.

        In fact even in Russia they were still trying to help Vettel with team orders. Alas he abused the help he got and ruined it for the whole team.

        Maybe they should have told Vettel that he was no longer welcome after the stunts he pulled in Russia and Brazil, but they probably were still dealing with Sainz. Maybe even considering to give Vettel yet another chance.

        To be honest 2017 and 2018 should have been enough to see him sacked.

        1. Without reliability issues, Vettel would have finished in front of Leclerc.*
          And in 2017, the Mercedes was clearly the best car considering the number of poles, 1-2s and wins by more than 30 seconds.

    3. Personally I dont think any single thing he has done is bad enough for him to get fired but combine all of them and it would be. The team is in a mess.

    4. If you can cheat and there’s a good chance you will get away with it, why not cheat? F1 teams have always thought like this.

  5. So it’s all about chassis and they’re going to enter frozen chassis era with that.

  6. Toto, I think it’s called schadenfreude in your native tongue and mine!

    1. Yes yes yes, shadenfreude, comeuppance, retribution, just deserts, coup de grace and karma in bucketfulls for an overly arrogant entitled organisation. A period of humility and honest endeavour is required, not PR speak.

  7. If Ferrari had thought they’d found an exploitable loophole in the engine regulations, as Mercedes did with DAS, but FIA nevertheless ruled out the innovation, as it has done with DAS after this season, then Ferrari would now be blaming their performance drop on having their innovation ruled out (banned). But that’s not the case, is it? They found a trick to bypass the sensors ensuring fuel regulations weren’t being broken, which is something else entirely. Cheating, not pushing the regulation boundaries. And that’s something neither they nor FIA can admit (or else we’d maybe see other teams demanding they lose all their points for last season and who knows how far back). So we now have a pantomime of denials that Ferrari slugging it out in the midfield isn’t down to the engine – despite the speed trap evidence, all the Ferrari-powered cars now underperforming, and Vettel and Leclerc being lapped by Mercedes at Hungary. What a mess.

    1. If Ferrari had thought they’d found an exploitable loophole in the engine regulations

      I’m not sure it was a loophole, @david-br.
      I’m in the camp which beleives that they merely found a way to not be detected when cheating as mentioned by @philipgb above. It’s a bit like undetected tax evasion rather than tax avoidance.
      I’m not even sure that their way of not being detectable was very innovative.

      1. @coldfly Actually I agree with you. Maybe I didn’t write very clearly, I meant had they thought they’d found a loophole, then they would now feel aggrieved and blame FIA etc. for their drop in performance. But the fact they cheated the sensors means that they can’t really complain about, or even admit to, their loss of engine power. Hence the denials.

        1. Thanks, @david-br.
          Reading your initial comment again I can see that we are actually saying the same (the first sentence confused me a bit).

  8. For a teamboss that got super upset when Max Verstappen, as it turns out later: accurately, accused them of cheating, you’d expect him to not open his mouth with such nonsense statements to begin with. But I guess that only applies when it’s a statement that’s negative to Ferrari.

  9. Adam (@rocketpanda)
    21st July 2020, 14:15

    It’s rather terrible to think that the only time Mercedes so far have been soundly beaten was because Ferrari were playing a little dirty with the engine. I’d be curious to understand the relation between the potentially rulebreaking engine was to its aerodynamics – as in, does limiting the engine power negatively affect the aerodynamic philosophy? Would that explain why all three Ferrari powered teams – that were doing relatively well last year are nowhere now? Has the shady PU been all behind Ferrari’s strength, and without it their poor aero is exposed?

    Ferrari’s claim that everyone’s engines have taken a step back is obviously untrue though, given the Mercedes has jumped into a different category and both Honda and Renault’s have improved so Ferrari not only lost their advantage but their rivals moved forwards.

    1. The more power and torque the engine produces, the more downforce (ie drag) they can run on the car.
      So yes, less power does drastically affect overall car performance beyond just straightline speed.

    2. @rocketpanda
      Ferrari combined its potent qualifying modes with a low drag concept. They figured out that the time gained on the straights with such combination would suffise to be outright fastest on the lap and then leading from the front would be easier than having to catch Mercedes.

      That’s why Leclerc was raking up pole positions through the season and Ferrari should have scored more wins if it wasn’t for bad reliability issues and drivers errors. Example : Bahrain, Austria, Canada, Russia, Japan, Baku. Once new directive was issued, they lost the power advantage and have to redesign the entire PU in a hurry over the winter to comply with new rules. The low drag concept then would not make any sense without the colossal power.

      Ferrari’s claim that everyone’s engines have taken a step back is obviously untrue though

      There were two technical directives issued by the FIA with regard to ERS deployment and oil burn, Mark Hughes said that they were the fruits of the collaboration between Ferrari & the FIA as part of the settlement and which were aimed at RBR. As mentioned by anon in a previous post, Honda were indeed investigated by the FIA after the 2019 Brazilian GP and their PU was confiscated as part of the process. Binotto might have a point though.

      1. @tifoso1989 interesting read, thanks! I wonder how is the ERS involved in all this though.

        1. @spoutnik
          The new directive is about fitting a new sensor for the ERS system in order to ensure the limit of 120 KW (max MGU-K power) is not exceeded.

  10. This is a side-effect of promoting an engineer to be the public face of the team.

    I’m sure we all remember how, when presented with strict emissions tests (that were only ever going to reduce engine performance), engineers at several motor manufacturers decided that, instead of harming performance, they would simply cheat the tests?

    Engineers from any walk of life, more-so those in a competitive environment, rarely view cheating as a problem. Infact, cheating, fudging or bodging a problem is often the way to get the best results. Plus, it’s only officially cheating if you’re caught, right?

  11. Well, that was always going to backfire. Even if the other teams have less power than last year, they’d never admit it, because of all the secrecy surrounding the investigation at Ferrari.

    That aside, Binotto’s desperate claims remind me of the constant talk by Honda when they were powering the McLaren that they were on level with Renault or whatever and they were clearly struggling hard.

    1. Evidence points to that being the case by the third year at least. I’m a McLaren fan but they clearly messed up their aero concept for that period which seriously damaged their top speed. Binotto is just trying to save his job at the moment, he’ll be gone at the end of the year.
      Ferrari need to take a leaf out of McLaren’s book for the last couple of seasons, shut up, be humble and keep working on the problems.

  12. For me it looked like that even during the last few races with the latest clarifications in place Honda PU also lost a considerable chunk of their power, in fact it was enough that a two race old Honda engine could’t keep up with a seven or eight race old Mercedes engine around Abu Dhabi. Neither does Renault look like they are any faster so go figure.

    1. it was enough that a two race old Honda engine could’t keep up with a seven or eight race old Mercedes engine around Abu Dhabi.

      How ‘old’ was the Honda in Gasly’s car when he outsprinted Hamilton at the end of the Brazilian GP?
      My recollection of 2019 is that Honda was making constant improvements all the way to the end.

      1. @coldfly it’s difficult to tell – whilst we know that Gasly went through seven engines during the 2019 season, it’s not immediately clear which engines were used for what races.

        There is also the caveat that, whilst the Honda engine did look good in Brazil, that circuit is also, at between 740-780m above sea level, at an unusually high altitude. In 2019, it was noted that the Mercedes engine and their cars did seem to be more noticeably compromised by being at a higher altitude – don’t forget that, in the 2019 Austrian GP (which also around 780m above sea level), Mercedes were struggling for pace.

        People listening in to their radio chatter during the Austrian GP noted that the drivers were sometimes being told to lift and coast up to 400m before the end of the straights to manage their cooling issues. Now, Mercedes did introduce an update at the German GP that partially solved some of their cooling issues, but it seems their 2019 car was still more heavily impacted by high altitudes than Honda powered cars were – so there is the question of how much of that was down to Mercedes’s engine being compromised in the Brazilian GP and how much was down to Honda being less impacted at high altitudes.

        1. +1 Other things worth remembering is that the STR pretty much always had a higher top speed than Merc last year because it was a significantly lower downforce and lower drag car. The Mercedes was usually towards the bottom of the speed traps last year even though they generally had the fastest car around a circuit.

        2. Honda got help from their Aircarft engine department to help them with the Turbo. When they got the update turbo the engine was instant stable and reiable and working at ANY height without loss of powerefficenty. The effect was even more in Mexico where all the Honda engines were performing very well. If Bottas didn’t clip Max i think Max would win that race easy.

  13. If Ferrari had pushed the boundaries of the regs, and the FIA had cleared up the regulations to stop them using whatever clever trick they had come up with, all teams would have been notified, to prevent them going down the same route. Like DAS, which has been passed for this year becauseit wasn’t directly prohibited, but immediately written out the regs for 2021. And all teams know about it. Surely the conclusion for Ferrari has to be cheating, not pushing boundaries within the existing regulations.

  14. This is a funny claim, what rivals is he speaking off? All made slipery car with extra downforce comming from aero efficiency and lowered drag?

    Officially Ferrari were not cheating, unofficially it was quite blatant.

    Now that that is literary settled.

    Binnoto was an engine guy, their chassis was low downforce, amazingly fast, but ultimatley tiny bit slower than Mercedes.

    This is what happens next: Mercedes fearing best competition in years step toggether, develop the best Formula 1 car ever imagine. Lead the field by more than 1% in pace advantage.

    Meanwhile, Ferrari make a high downforce draggy car. And loose a big chunk of engine power. Wham.

    Ferrari will not win any championships, who knows what kind of cheating Mercedes do, just to win?

    I bet, they are pushing a considerable amount of rules.

    1. It’s only cheating when you get caught. And MIA isn’t catching Mer anytime soon

    2. If the rules limit your ability to do something, be it chassis, aero or power unit design, if you want to win, then you push right to the limit of those rules. All the teams do it and the FIA expects it.

    3. Let me state that them pushing the rules in extremely elaborate way is just fine and in spirit of Motorsport.

      But now when that was closed off, their real issues of poor underlying foundations have been revealed.

  15. And they helped a 2014 Mercedes dominance again. It just goes a long way to show how high Mercedes is really operating at.

    1. @lems The F1 site has an article on how Mercedes’ big innovation this year is actually less visible than DAS, namely the rear suspension, which improves air flow and downforce at the rear of the underfloor. A frighteningly high level they’re operating at (well for everyone else).

      1. Jup it is amazing, that car looks like it’s out of this world, watching onboard.

      2. @david-br , it’s just crazy to think even their closest rival (REDBULL) in 2020 are always chasing shadows. I mean, case in point Hungarian GP, if Lewis didn’t pit for those softs, he would have lapped everyone bar Bottas and Max!

    2. @lems

      It just goes a long way to show how high Mercedes is really operating at.

      Agree. You know Mercedes is on top of it’s game when their biggest rival, who spends more on it’s F1 program than even Mercedes does, resorts to cheating to catch up and still falls short on mounting a championship challenge. Ferrari might as well throw in the towel, as there’s no way they’ll win a championship with Mercedes on the grid.

      I thought that the Red Bull of 2010 to 2013 was the best team I’ve ever come across, but Mercedes has just taken it to another level. Honestly, Mercedes and Red Bull are just leagues above every other F1 team on the grid.

      1. @todfod , wholly agree. When you thought after all these years since 2014 rivals will catch up, they step it up a notch higher, DAS, engines, aero you name it. It would have been easier to rest on their laurels after this many years of dominance. This team, and Lewis will go down in sports history as a colossus whose supremacy is a textbook example of how excellence and the maintenance of it should be done.

        1. Part of that level comes from constantly pegging down their competitors back through FIA investigations and such. Period from 2014 to 2016 comes to mind when we were told by Merc and the British media that their dominance was all down to split turbo set-up when 2017 came and suddenly Ferrari engine pulled right along or even ahead at times Merc somehow knew Ferrari was using oil for combustion and learnt to use it to a greater effect than Mercedes themselves thus they blew the whistle and had the regulations clarified. Who can forget them introducing latest specification of their 2017 engine in Spa, just before Monza where the strict oil usage regulations was supposed to come into force. Mercedes is just a guilty as anyone else but they are good at hiding it as well as manipulating FIA to suit their needs. All of that as it stands is part of F1 and has been for a very long time but usually the balance of power shifts in FIA and sometimes the rule-makers decide to less lenient towards their favorites and this is how new dominant eras are born. For some reason current administration hadn’t had a change of heart for a very long time now bags to wonder who is benefiting from all this the sport certainly isn’t.

          1. Merc somehow knew Ferrari was using oil for combustion and learnt to use it to a greater effect than Mercedes themselves thus they blew the whistle and had the regulations clarified.

            Still shows that Ferrari started the cheat, other teams figured it out and did it better. Got to hand it to Mercedes, even their cheats are a league above what Ferrari pulls off.

            Every top team pushes the limits, but to dominate the sport while their rivals cross the limit and blatantly cheat just gives Mercedes all that more credibility.

            When it comes to political influence in the sport, no team can trump Ferrari, so I have no idea how you can tell us that Mercedes is using its political power in the sport to dominate. It’s just not true, and I don’t see how you can try and reduce what they’ve achieved by your claims of the FIA being lenient towards them.

            Give credit where it’s due. They’re smashing every other team to bits, and they’re doing it because they’re better than them.

          2. Still shows that Ferrari started the cheat, other teams figured it out and did it better. Got to hand it to Mercedes, even their cheats are a league above what Ferrari pulls off.

            Sorry, fail to follow, from what I hear Mercedes are the OG oil burning team and it was only since they fell behind in utilization of the trick they cried foul. Even then they continued to use more oil towards the tail end of the season through virtue of introducing a never engine earlier despite all the engine manufacturers agreeing not to do so.

            As for the political influence not since Jean Todt days have Ferrari ever used their weight to their advantage, except for getting more money from the sport. Wonder what their mission statement actually is win or make more money… For example everyone and their mother could see that despite what British media wants you to believe 2019 rule change to the front wing was going to hurt Ferrari a lot more than Mercedes. British media loves to point out that Brawn was the original innovator of the “outwash” type front wing and they are right of course but through whatever means Ferrari’s 2017 and especially 2018 wing surpassed the Mercedes design and was a critical part of their performance make-up. Suddenly FIA decides that this wings are no longer viable and bans them despite Red Bull pointing out neither would it slow the cars down enough (for safety reasons as FIA claimed) not would it be cheap in any ways in fact it would need more financing to tune the car concepts to the new wing philosophy. Ferrari could very well veto the new wings but did they? Guess who came up worse with that change. Ferrari are alright in their tech department in fact a lot of modern design trends come from their cars but they are rubbish at negotiating with FIA and have been for nearly 15 years. Make Christian Horner Ferrari team principle would see Mercedes dominance end in a heartbeat as he likes to get involved in politics just like Toto.

  16. @todfod , well answered, nothing more to add.

    1. You guys seem to be casual fans and don’t follow a lot of the inside tech squabbles that only an engineer or a lawyer would pick-up. That’s alright the more fans the better.

      1. No one knows the inside tech squabbles… and that includes you. The whole point is that Mercedes should be given credit where it’s due. Saying they’re playing the political game better than Ferrari is an unfounded claim.. and saying that they blatantly break the rules to the degree that Ferrari does is also untrue. You can be a Ferrari fan if you want.. but just like all Ferrari fans, maybe stop with the whining and excuses for getting beaten year after year by far superior teams.

        1. How do you know where I work?!

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