09/09/2021
NEWS STORY
As Red Bull questions the legality of Mercedes engine, Mattia Binotto has questioned why the German manufacturer hasn't faced the same level of (public) scrutiny as Ferrari.
In recent weeks, as part of the ongoing war of words between Red Bull and Mercedes, the Austrian team has called on the FIA for clarification over the possible use of air circulating in the plenum on the German power unit being kept below the minimum temperatures set by the FIA.
Such a move would allow those teams using the Mercedes engine to temporarily run the unit at a lower temperature and thereby benefit from a performance gain.
Binotto claims that while the query over Mercedes has been given little publicity, the investigation into the Ferrari engine in late 2019 was carried out in public courtesy of a string of technical directives.
"Like all teams and all manufacturers, we try to understand what our rivals are doing, we analyse the images and look at the GPS data," said Binotto of the investigation into Mercedes.
"We had some doubts and we discussed them with Red Bull - I personally spoke to Christian Horner - but we did not submit any clarification questions to the FIA."
Comparing the current situation with that of his own team in 2019, he said, according to Motorsport.com.
"The FIA measures (technical directives) were necessary because there were those who had a different interpretation to the principles of the regulation. And all of this is no different from what happened in 2019.
"Why are there differences in attitude?" he asked. "Perhaps then we were too exposed to the media and suffered an attack from our competitors. But that is now a thing of the past.
"Getting to the kind of tone used in 2019 is still wrong," he admitted. "But I think it is important to underline that what happened then is no different from what is happening now, and has always happened in Formula 1."
Of course, the findings of the infamous fuel flow limit investigation in 2019 were never made public, the FIA controversially reaching a 'secret' agreement with the Italian manufacturer, a move that caused uproar among rival teams.
While the FIA argued that the reason for the findings not being made public was because nothing could be proven, the dramatic drop-off in performance at the end of 2019, which continued throughout most of 2020, told everyone all they needed to know.