Ferrari's Frederic Vasseur says that the clear superiority of the Red Bull is proof that the penalty meted out to the Austrian team for exceeding the budget cap was "too light".
Better late than never, while Toto Wolff and Zak Brown made their feelings clear at the time, Ferrari's Frederic Vasseur has waited until three races into the new season before opining that the FIA got it wrong.
For breaking the cap, the Austrian team was fined $7m while also having its aerodynamic testing time allowance reduced by 10%.
The $7m a drop in the ocean for the world champions, it was the reduction in aero testing that rivals hoped wold really hurt Red Bull, especially as this was in addition to the reduction the team was facing as a result of the handicap system introduced in 2021.
Under the system, Red Bull was entitled to 70% of the agreed baseline this year, however, with the 10% penalty this becomes 63% compared to Ferrari's 75% and Mercedes 80%. Williams, on the other hand, which finished tenth last season, is allowed 115%.
From the outset, the Austrian team made it clear that in order to minimise the impact of the reduction it would need to be strong straight out of the box as it would be later in the season that the penalty would really begin to hurt. However, after just three races it is clear that by the time the pain begins Red Bull will most likely have wrapped things up.
"It was not a penalty," insists Frederic Vasseur. "It was very low.
"If you consider that basically, we will improve a bit less than one second over the season in terms of aero, you get the penalty of 10% of this, it's one tenth," he continued. "And as it's not a linear progression, it's probably less, and you are allowed to spend this money somewhere else. But it means that for me the penalty is marginal."
Asked if he thinks the team has done a pretty good job, or the penalty was simply too light, he admitted: "Both, they did a good job. I am still convinced that the penalty was very light.
"If you consider the rate of development that we have during the season, if you consider the fact that if you have a 10% balance at the end, it's not something linear, you are also putting the performance.
"Then that you can spend what you are saving on the wind tunnel, you can spend it somewhere else on the weight saving and so on. I'm not sure that the effect is mega. And if you consider that you have an advantage at the beginning of the season because you spent more the year before.
"I don't want to say that they didn't do a good job, because I think honestly that they did a very good job on the car.
"I am not trying to find an excuse at all. It's not this," insisted. "But if you ask me if the penalty is too light, I say yes."
Like rival teams, Vasseur is particularly impressed by the effectiveness of the RB19's DRS.
"They have a mega big DRS effect, bigger than everybody else," he said. "We have to understand how they're able to do something like this. I think it was probably even more obvious last year, but we compensated part of the gap. But we have still to improve on this."
Whereas Ferrari is strong on single lap pace, but lacking on race pace, the RB19 shows its true superiority come Sunday.
"It's true that on the first three events - and first we need to understand that three events is not the complete panel of the tracks - we always had the feeling that we are not far away and able to fight for the first row with them in qualifying, and it was more difficult in the race
"Perhaps at least on the numbers that we are able to analyse, the advantage in the race in Melbourne was much lower, and I think this is also coming from the capacity of the driver, to drive the car at the limit with different levels of fuel, different tyres, and so on.
"If you have a car be too peaky, perhaps you can manage the situation in qualifying for one lap with new tyres. You know the balance after five sets of soft tyres in qualifying. But all over the race, it's probably a bit more difficult. And we took a little bit this direction over the last couple of weeks."
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