The 'traps' of Ferrari in the face of Mercedes

[Juppitèr]

Lorenzo Sassi was an engineer responsible for the Ferrari test bench . He was fired by Sergio Marchionne , for many in Italy for his failure in the development of the Italian engine. Once passed the compulsory period away from F1, was signed by Mercedes. Almost a year after his dismissal, the FIA has investigated Ferrari for an alleged irregularity that allowed to squeeze more power to his engine. Relationship cause effect?

The controversy jumped on Thursday when the official website of Formula 1 reported that the FIA had asked Ferrari to "execute an additional piece of hardware" to be able to monitor its system. The rivals had expressed concern that Ferrari could be gaining power beyond the allowed limit . In recent weeks there was speculation that Ferrari might be using a battery system that delivered more power per lap than allowed. 

After the follow-up carried out, the FIA announced that there is no illegality in the SF71H. But it does not close the case here. Solve the doubts in the design of the battery of the Ferrari took too much time, so it will incorporate an additional monitoring for Montreal. "What we are going to have for Montreal will be a better system, which will help us do things faster than now."

In the Federation they said they were satisfied with the checks made on the SF71H engine. However, its technicians want to incorporate more sensors in 2019 to improve their supervision. Charlie Whiting said that the FIA had initially seen "some things in the data that we could not explain at all: we processed it with Ferrari and they gave us explanations that were not particularly convincing. We wanted to get to the bottom of everything and two weekends ago they took some steps to make sure we understood more. " It should not be ruled out that the FIA had found irregularities in the Italian power unit. After all, the information came from a well-informed source because of its relationship with Ferrari. And we must also think that the delicate political situation of the Italian team with Liberty does not advise putting the finger on the wound.

Is Sassi behind the pursuit of Ferrari?

Lorenzo Sassi signed for Mercedes earlier this year. The investigation began with a request from the technical director of Mercedes, James Allison, after the arrival of the Italian engineer. Whiting denies that Sassi did anything out of the ordinary since his arrival in Brackley, "It was wrong to say he was a snitch , he just, like many engineers do, comes to us and says" this guy started working for us ", he tells us that this team could be doing that, "summarized Whiting.

Toto Wolff did not hesitate to come out in defense of his engineer. "One of my jobs is to protect my people and if certain workers are mentioned in the wrong context, then that bothers me.The teams consult the FIA every day, I think it is not important to get this person to question a topic If you say that a team has done that, that's fine, it's the modus operandi, but pointing people is not the right thing to do . "

" It is routine for engineers to make this type of request , especially when they have had staff members who come from another team.We must not forget that their information is from eight months ago, which in F1 is already old. very detailed and meticulous way to get to how the system works and gave us the comfort we need, "added the executive director of Mercedes. Sometimes, when the river sounds, water carries.