Ferrari says Red Bull’s strong start to the season is partly due to being “very lightly” punished for breaking Formula 1’s budget cap.
Ferrari team principal Frederic Vissor says Red Bull have done a “very good job” but the penalty they were handed last October was “too little”.
Red Bull was fined $7m (£6.07m) and given a 10% reduction in permitted aerodynamic research for a year.
The fine was imposed for breaching the sports budget cap of £1.86 million in 2021.
Red Bull dominated the start of the 2023 season by winning all three races.
“I still believe the fine was too light,” Vissor said at a news conference Thursday.
“If you consider that we’ll improve [the car’s performance] by less than a second over the season in terms of aero, [and] you get a tenth of that penalty, that’s a loss of 0.1 seconds.
“Since it’s not a linear progression, it’s probably less, and as you’re allowed to spend that money elsewhere, on weight savings, etc., the penalty for me is minor.
“I don’t want to say they didn’t do a good job because, honestly, they did a very good job on the car. I’m not trying to make any excuses, but if you ask me what the penalty is too light. I say yes.”
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner described the punishment at the time as “extremely harsh” and “pretty harsh”.
He added at last month’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix: “It was very important for us to be able to fight that penalty to have a solid starting point.
“It was very important for us to come out of the blocks competitively. The reduction in the wind tunnel has been in place since last October so we couldn’t afford to miss the target because you never have a way out of it with that. Will not be able to make it. Disabled.”
An appeal against Saenz’s sentence has been launched.
Visor revealed that Ferrari has asked governing body FIA to reconsider the five-second penalty given to its driver Carlos Sainz at the end of Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix.
The Spaniard was penalized for pitching Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin into a spin at the final restart of the eventful race.
The penalty dropped Sanz from fourth place to 12th and out of the points, and was awarded within minutes of the incident with no chance for Sanz to give his version of events to the stewards.
Ferrari has launched a “petition for the right of review”, a process by which the team has to convince the FIA that there is new evidence that was not considered at the time.
If accepted, the event will be reviewed by the same responsible group.
Vasseur pointed out that what he said was an inconsistency in dealing with three different incidents at the same corner in that final restart.
After the two collided, the stewards decided to take no further action against Alpine drivers Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly and threw them both out of the race.
And an incident in which Williams driver Logan Sargent punished Alfa Tori’s Nick de Vries in a similar fashion to the way Sainz hit Alonso.
Vissor said he did not want to comment on the specifics of Ferrari’s case, but said he expected an “open dialogue” with the FIA, adding: “[It’s] for the good of the sport. This type of decision should be avoided where you have three cases on the same corner and not one decision.”
Visor added that it would “make sense” to investigate the post-race incident before imposing a penalty because the race was over and it had no impact on the podium.
Can Ferrari progress?
Ferrari have had a difficult start to the season, struggling with both competitiveness and reliability as they hope to mount a title challenge.
His best result is Sainz’s fourth place in the opening race in Bahrain.
He is fifth in the drivers’ championship while team-mate Charles Leclerc is only 10th after two retirements in the first three races and a 10-place grid penalty for engine overload in the second.
Vasseur said Ferrari plans to introduce upgrades to the car in the coming races, adding that the new parts, which were originally designed for the Spanish Grand Prix in June, for the Emilia Romagna race in May. Will be ready, two races before Barcelona
The Frenchman added that he believed he had seen signs of fluctuating form in Australia last weekend, with Sainz able to make up the field after an early pit stop until he was able to overtake Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes and Alonso. was not at the tail end of the battle for second place between .
“We’ve made some adjustments in terms of balance and attitude, and it was a lot better in Melbourne,” Vissor said. “We will continue in this direction.
“It’s not a ‘B-spec’ car. We’re not going to come up with something completely different. We’ll keep updating it and we’ll try to update it massively.”
He said the fact that two of Ferrari’s customer teams, Haas and Alfa Romeo, introduced their second internal combustion engines of the season in Australia was not a cause for concern.
Drivers are only allowed three engines for the entire season, but Vissor said the change was “by plan” and the strategy was to test the first engines before reintroducing them to the race.
