Ferrari and Red Bull feel they are being punished by the rule makers, even though they have not broken the rules.
Ferrari and Red Bull have been better than Mercedes on the track since the beginning of the season. EPA / AOP
The top teams in the F1 series, Red Bull and Ferrari, are fed up with the FIA’s attempt to change the rules in the middle of the season.
From the camp of the teams leading the World Series, claims are made that the rule changes would help Mercedes get back to the top fight.
Loophole in measurement
The big talking point of the season has become the violent bouncing of the new cars as the ground effect absorbs and releases the car from the track surface one after another.
This has caused a lot of trouble for some stables. Surprisingly, Mercedes has been one of the most troubled. In addition to performance, the team’s drivers have suffered from back pain when the car hit the track surface violently.
The International Automobile Federation FIA addressed the problem in June during the Canadian GP. Autosport’s umbrella organization announced that it would quickly make rule changes for safety reasons.
During the Canadian and British GPs, the FIA studied the bouncing of each team’s cars, and then created new guidelines for, for example, the wear and flexibility of the bottom plate of the cars.
Just before last week’s British GP, the FIA published a document in which the suspicion of some teams operating in the gray area of the rules was raised.
According to The Race website FIA meant Ferrari and Red Bull.
At the moment, the FIA has set a tolerance for how much the car’s bottom plate can flex when hitting the track surface. In the rulebook, the flex margin is given as two millimeters.
In the rule book, the flex test is performed in two places on the front of the base plate. The test is not performed on the back of the disc.
According to the FIA, some teams take advantage of this loophole. Ferrari and Red Bull, two of the most efficient users of ground effect, probably flex more from the rear of the bottom plate, which allows for less ground clearance and thus better downforce.
The FIA does measure the wear of the bottom plate over the entire length, but thanks to the greater flexibility, the bottom plate does not wear as badly as if the tolerance were two millimeters also at the back of the board.
Since Red Bull and Ferrari comply with the rules from the official measurement points of the flex test, they are legal based on the rulebook.
Will the rule change?
The FIA and especially Mercedes have a different opinion on this. The roofing association’s idea when drawing up the rules was to mean the entire board with a two-millimeter flex tolerance, but some stables took advantage of the opportunities opened up by the measurement locations.
– When this issue came up, we realized that the rule opens up possibilities that we didn’t realize, Mercedes technical director Andrew Shovlin granted to The Race.
The FIA intends to address the situation by presenting clarifications to the rules in the middle of the season. One change would be to add measurement points to the back of the bottom plank as well.
Red Bull and Ferrari are against this. In their opinion, the umbrella organization must not change the rules in the middle of the season, especially unilaterally.
Teams discuss and vote on rule changes in connection with the Austrian GP. Usually, the changes require the vote of eight teams to support them, so Ferrari and Red Bull can prevent the rule change from happening.
However, if necessary, the FIA can push through major rule changes citing safety. If bouncing the cars is considered such, Red Bull and Ferrari are at risk of having to make changes to their cars.
Red Bull team manager Christian Horner is disgusted by the thought.
– I think changes should be made to the cars of teams whose drivers have suffered from the health effects of bouncing, Horner stated, referring to the Mercedes drivers.