FIA ruling may have stopped Ferrari engine advantage
World champion Lewis Hamilton suspects the FIA might be getting to the bottom of Ferrari's engine power advantage.
Ever since the Maranello team took a giant leap forward with its 2019 power unit, rumours have swept the paddock that its technical secret may be illegal.
"They should protest!" Ferrari's Mattia Binotto said this week.
"Then we could all see how stupid their allegations are and the rumours would disappear."
In Austin, Red Bull-Honda stepped up the efforts to curb that controversial advantage.
The energy drink-owned outfit asked the FIA to officially clarify a potential technical trick that might allow a manufacturer to get around fuel flow limits.
"We only want clarity," Dr Helmut Marko told Auto Motor und Sport.
"Ferrari's lead with the advantage is just too blatant. The request has been around for some time, but because we did not hear from the FIA, we have intensified it now."
In response, the FIA issued a technical directive that makes clear that such a technical trick regarding the measurement of fuel flow is not allowed.
Mercedes thinks the technical directive could be why Ferrari's engine advantage is suddenly not so great in Austin.
"It's just a fact that we have again taken a pole position for the first time since Hockenheim," team boss Toto Wolff said in Austin, according to Germany's Motorsport-Magazin.com.
Lewis Hamilton added: "This weekend has been pretty interesting. Obviously they have lost some power so we'll have to see how it is in the race."
And Red Bull's Marko commented: "Our deficit in top speed to Ferrari is not so bad. On the long straight, it is now three to four tenths. On Friday, we lost twice that amount."
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So as long as Mercedes is on pole then everything is ok, otherwise someone is cheating. Hamilton is a crying baby.
Mercedes have dominated for years... anyone check them ?...
Ferrari should bring the FIA in court. The only logical action to take. Justice must have its day.
Everyone has been complaining about Ferrari cheating, even going back to Michael's time... other teams just don't like to be beaten by them!!!!! Grow up ?!
So everyone is upset with Ferrari now that Mercedes isn't running away with every award this year. Stop crying. Mercedes pole, Mercedes win , Mercedes fastest lap for every race this year is what they want
Lol. Why bother watching F1.
All of these comments are valid. Here's the deal. If you think that they are cheating, file a proper
protest. Otherwise, shut your pie holes. It might help if the press would stop the click bait questions.
I didn't see complain from any other team when red bull and mercedes were winning year after year and suddenly Ferrari start to win in the mean time mercedes and red bull can't stop complain.
yap like somebody sad it's time to grow up and stop complain.
Ferrari needs to clear house, new technicians, new engines, new designer, in other words terminate all current employees related to Formula one...Ferrari is turning in his grave...disgraziati
Rolando, I love Ferrari and their history but face facts. They "clean house" more than any F1 team in history. If they would simply put one person in charge and let him/her run the team (ala Todt for 14 yrs.) they would succeed.
This is a typical beat up from the English media that can't bear Ferrari winning and beating Hamilton. They got the best car but the worst managers. Something has got to change and quickly.
Ferrari were doing something tricky since F1 returned from the summer break- fact. Pre - break your car can get off the line but cant keep up with Merc . Then post the summerbreak your car has power like it is Apollo 2019- nearly 1 sec ahead of the field- tricky!!!
Well they have been found out now and Austin proves that that have changed the oil combustion trick but not yet completed this transistion effectively - hence Charles Lec oil leak which nearly blew up his car in FP3 and his 4th final position because he couldn't catch up all of a sudden!
RB got a formal notice published in Austin and Ferrari are now back to pre- summer break form!!
Mattio needs to go!!!
Hammer is 5th time World Champion without cheating and using pure skill- well done Lewis!
Hammer is now 6th time WC! Needed to correct this number in the last sentence of my last post!
Good post, but doesn't your argument suggest that MB has been "tricky" for five years?
Red Bull complain but most of the letters on here moan its Mercedes and Hamiltons fault?? It just shows that its Hamiltons skin colour that people dont like and to blame him for the red teams sudden power loss is nonsense. Ferrari has been cheating and has now been found out. suck it up..
ZAK, playing the race card is nonsense. This is F1, not BASHCAR.
You cant be that old if you forget that RICHARD and his special friend Tiepin used to always disrespect Lewis by calling Lewis "LULU" pretty much every day on another F1 site. Obviously clear their rascist remarks made to humiliate Lewis.
C'mon ZAK, goat getter remarks are not necessarily racist. I don't know who this RICHARD is, but he obviously got yours.
Found out by who?...... Max the brat, Toto the ass hole and let's not forget Horner..... Get in there Lewis.....
Amazing all the people moaning and about Red Bull and Hamilton questioning Ferrari's improvement. Just looks like all the questions have now been answered after Austin,
Ferrari broke the rules, got caught out, changed the car to make it legal and got a damn big thrashing, watch it and weep.
Looks like LH, Red Bull and Mercedes were right all along!
OK then, are we talking about the same race? VET broke his suspension on a mogul and LEC finished where he started with fasted lap. Where's the thrashing? HAM drove one of his brilliant races, BOT held station and VER cried his way to nowhere. ZERO evidence of Ferrari cheating.
Vet was going backwards at the time. He and Leclerc were beaten by Bottas (Hamilton had a bad one obviously) in Qualifying (which Ferrari had recently owned since suspicions arose). Hamilton only needed to finish in top 8 so if Leclerc had been close he'd have let him go by, but he was nowhere, 50 secs behind at the finish is poor result. Fastest Lap means nothing which is why you only get 1 pt
'Zero evidence' because FIA had made a ruling!
Suggest you re-watch qualy and race
Hey, I didn't watch the first time! I'm just here to counteract the bias. :-)
..with your own bias
Having read all the comments above, it is clear that some of you have more inside info & knowledge about the "findings" than the FIA, regarding the Ferrari "engine advantage"...
Great observation. Often we read to support our personal opinions rather than to gain info. Tough way to learn, but sometimes a catharsis.
To all F1 fans, as a Ferrari supporter and not a driver supporter, if Ferrari was or is cheating then i will be very disappointed.
Mercedes and Red bull are in it together to find out, HAS ANYONE QUESTIONED MERCEDES POWER , NOOOOOOOO. .HONDA ENGINES GOING STRONG, LAST YEAR NOTHING?????
All teams are cheating by some means, If one looks at the front wing of the Merc. you can see how it deflects flat at high speeds and at low speeds it returns to its normal down force position. is this not cheating. Mr Ross Brawn, please get rid of the engineers that control the performance from the pits. Lewis won 6 titles, AGAINST WHO????????? .
Franco, you're spot on the English mafia operates on the basis that no one is supposed to challenged MB. But I might add that the bias against Ferrari doesn't stop with the brand, it extends also to its drivers. Vettel has been penalised unfairly the whole season, to the extent they took away a legitimate win in favour baby Hamilton. Leclerc was deliberately driven off the road in Austria by Vestappen which was totally illegal and nothing happened. F1 HAS BECOME VERY CORRUPT!
What a lot if nonsense, Ferrari was cheating in Lauda.s time when it was proved they were breaking the rules of car specs. Then With M S time with Ferrari they too was using a wing that flattened at high speed but returned to legal specs at lower speeds. I remember that Scumi cheated loads of times like drinking loads of water just before being weighed before races and driving Damon Hill off the road robbing him of the WDC.
Hydrating is cheating??? Call me a cheater. I loaded on Gatorade for several hours before every race.
Zac, how tragic. Ferrari is always cheating at the expense of an English car/driver. When are the English media stop trying to discredit Ferrari whenever they beat an English car/driver, especially baby L H. Why do you think that without Ferrari there is no F1 championship?
The issue is the one at present not years ago, as I said all teams are cheating. They all want to beat Ferrari and what If the MB was purely based and HQ was in Germany, what would the English have to say then.
Good point, Franco, but can we please put nationalism and race aside. One of the great things about our sport is that it is international.