The Red Bull and McLaren F1 drivers have reflected on the latest technical directive with regards to the former’s device attached onto the floor.
In the lead-up to the F1 US GP, reports about FIA dialogue with Red Bull came to light regarding the bib/t-tray attached to the team’s floor. The allegation was about the F1 team adjusting its ride height under the parc ferme between qualifying and the grand prix.
It is unclear who complained, but the FIA acted upon it and together with Red Bull, they agreed upon a plan which Motorsport Network reported, that they should be able to modify it by Brazil GP. The officials were spotted checking the device post FP1 in Austin.
The device is said to be a open-source thing and the FIA insists that there is nothing illegal at the moment despite the checks of all the F1 teams and potential seals done. The part is embedded in the Red Bull car and so it is not visible to the naked eye.
But with the other F1 teams, who also have the adjustment device, it is more visible to the eyes. The discussions led to reactions from both McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, while Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez had their say too.
Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton chimed in too, while McLaren’s Zak Brown, Red Bull’s Christian Horner and FIA’s Nikolaz Tombazis opined to Sky Sports F1. The American feels there should be transparency and nothing should be hidden when other outfits have done so.
Here’s what they said –
Norris: “I mean, it’s one thing having it on your car. It’s another thing on how much you exploit it and use it, which we have no idea on. If it has been helping them, if they’ve been utilising it in the way people think they have, then maybe it will shift in our direction. But, I mean, when you talk about things like that, it’s not going to gain them… They’re not going to have got several pole positions or wins just because of such a device. I don’t think it really will change anything in the scheme of things. But when we look at maybe certain qualifyings and we look at the gap in certain races this year, when it’s been split by hundredths of a second in qualifying or even thousandths, then you might say, ‘OK, well, maybe this has helped in that direction or this direction’. But I think it’s good that the FIA are doing such a thing. There’s a difference between black and white stuff like this, and there’s a difference between Formula 1 and pushing the boundaries and creating new things and innovating within the space that you’re allowed to innovate. And I think that’s what we as McLaren have done a very good job in. But we’re sure not to go any further than that.”
Piastri: “I didn’t know that Red Bull admitted to it. It’s not really for me to get involved in. I don’t really know much about it. We’re obviously pushing the boundaries of the technical regulations. Everyone is, and that’s what makes F1, F1. But from what I’ve heard and been told, something like this is not pushing the boundaries: it’s clearly breaking them. I haven’t heard which car it’s on, or if it’s on any car, and obviously there’s the reports of it. But if it is something that’s being used, it’s clearly not been pushing the boundaries. It’s been out of the grey area and into a black area. If there’s a big difference in performance, then clearly there’ll be some questions. If it’s not…well, you don’t know. Our mini-DRS was legal. Even though we’ve had to make some changes, it’s not revolutionary for the car. We’ll see if it makes any impact.”
Perez: “There has been nothing that we were doing. We never actually talked about it. It was impossible. If anything, for example, I remember here that last year it was a sprint event, so we ended up with the ride height [close to] the moon. It was completely out of it because we were concerned about something like what happened to Mercedes [and Ferrari, being disqualified for excessive underfloor plank wear] that could happen to us. I knew it existed but it was not available to us [to be used]. I think it is down to the FIA to draw a line whether it is legal or illegal. They are the ones who control the sport so at the end of the day it is up to them to decide.”
Verstappen: “It is open source, right? Everyone can see it. For us it was just an easy tool when the parts were off. It was to adjust, but once the whole car is built together you cannot touch it. So for us it doesn’t change. When I read it, I was thinking about other teams doing it and then I found out it was related to our team, and we never even mentioned it in the briefing. And no, [it doesn’t have an impact on performance].”
Hamilton: “I only just heard about it before I got here. But I think the name of our sport is all about innovation. Red Bull have been the leaders and they’ve innovated. Ultimately all the teams look at the rules and try to find how to massage those rules and get the most out of it, even if it’s just over the edge a little bit. You just need to continue to evolve and be better policed. At the end of the day they did a better job. God knows how long they’ve had that, and they’ve been winning championships. Maybe that stops now… I don’t think that’s the one thing that’s going to stop them. But I think everyone else, we’ve got to continue to be innovators and leading rather than trying to catch up.”
Brown: “Why would you design it to be inside the car, when with the other nine teams it’s designed to be outside the car? Ingenuity is part of Formula 1, and then there are black-and-white rules. You cannot touch your race car, other than things like driver comfort — they chose their words very carefully, saying ‘when the car is fully assembled,’ but you’re allowed to not have the car fully assembled in parc ferme when you’re working on driver comfort. Also, what doesn’t quite stack up is the comment that you can’t modify it. Well, then why does the FIA feel they need to put a seal on it? If it’s not accessible post or during parc fermé, then why put a seal on it? So, I’m very happy to see the FIA is on it. I think it needs to be a very thorough investigation because, if you touch your car from a performance standpoint, after parc ferme, or in parc ferme, that is a black and white material, substantial breach, which should come with massive consequences.
“Touching your car after parc ferme is highly illegal within the rules. So I think the FIA needs to get to the bottom of were they or weren’t they? Why would you design it to be inside the car when the nine other teams haven’t? So I think it’d be unfair of me to say… Of course, I have an opinion on whether I think they have or haven’t. But I think the FIA needs to be very diligent in their bottoming out whether they think they have or haven’t. When you see cleverly worded comments like, ‘You can’t do it when it’s fully assembled’ but I know the car isn’t always fully assembled, and then the FIA feels they need to put a seal on it, why would the FIA need to put a seal on something if it wasn’t accessible? I think transparency is critically important in today’s day and age. So I still have questions. I know from talking to other team bosses, they still have questions. So, until those questions are answered, I think it is still an ongoing investigation to bottom out what we know.
“I’d like some more answers before I’m prepared to kind of go, ‘Right, I guess they were or they weren’t,’ but I think the FIA will bottom it out. I think they probably had no choice, because there’s published what are called open source components — OSC — where all the teams can see what each other are doing. You have to submit the drawings to the FIA, and all the teams have access if it’s an open source component. So anyone, every team, which is what we do — we look at it and you can see it. So I think there was no denying that they have the ability to access their front bib from inside the car. That’s undisputed, so I think they had no choice but to say, ‘Yes, we can.’ We know we can’t — we don’t have the access, it’s not designed that way — and from what we see in the other eight teams, [they] don’t. So I think they had no choice.”
Horner: “Every car has a tool that they can adjust the front of the bib, what we call the front of the floor being the bib, and ours is located at the front, in front of the footwell. It’s been there for, I think, over three years. You’ve got to have the pedals out, andother panels out in order to be able to get to it. So it’s like any other adjustment on the car. It would be easier to adjust a rear roll bar than it would be to get to, than it is to get to that component. It’s all part of the packaging and in the front end of the chassis. Why now? Because I think there’s been a bit of moaning from one of our rivals that, and it’s the FIA’s job to look into these things and it’s on a list of the open-source components, so it’s been publicly available, for, as I say, the last three years.
“The FIA are happy with it, I think, just to satisfy, perhaps, some paranoia elsewhere in the paddock. I feel that it’s, sometimes, to distract from, perhaps, what’s going on in your own house, then sometimes you try and light a fire somewhere else. Well, look, there was an awful lot of noise about rear wings. The McLaren had to change their rear wing yesterday. They say that’s not the case. But, yeah, look, it’s part of Formula One and, yeah, you know, I’m sure there’ll be other stuff that comes up between now and Abu Dhabi.”
Tombazis: “At the previous race it was pointed out to us that certain designs could allow a change of the height of the front of the car, which some people call a bib, in parc ferme. And we didn’t have any indication or any proof that anybody was doing something like that. That would be clearly illegal under park firmware regulations. But, as I say, we didn’t have any clear indication that somebody was doing such a thing. So we said that from this race onwards there must be no possibility to do such a thing at all. I think it’s certainly not a story from now on. I think we’ve done all that’s needed to stop there being any accusations.
“Of course, it is a tight championship and people get rather excited about each other’s cars and so we can’t definitively close the previous races or any insinuations there may be between teams in a very competitive environment. But in the present situation, we believe it’s a non-story, yes. We are talking really something like a couple of millimetres or something like that, potentially. We’re really talking about very small numbers. I don’t think it’s something that we could go and check. But also, we don’t have any indication or proof or anything like that about something untoward having happened before.”
Here’s FIA, Red Bull dialogue
Here’s Andrea Stella on potential complaints from McLaren
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