basti313 wrote: ↑25 Feb 2021, 23:28
RZS10 wrote: ↑25 Feb 2021, 14:12
Schippke wrote: ↑24 Feb 2021, 14:39
I won't say much on Salo's comments; Despite him racing for Ferrari in the past, I find it very hard to believe he'd have access to that sort of inside information...
Exactly, and even if (and that's a big IF) he had access to the details of the agreement, i highly doubt he would disclose details in such a manner considering that afaik he's still on the list of FIA stewards and would potentially even make himself open to lawsuits.
Isn't it more likely that this is his own interpretation based on the very limited information that is available?
And technically it's a very short and simplified version of what supposedly happened: they exceeded the fuel flow, had to lower the fuel flow thus ran the engine in a non-optimal way and are now back to fully utilising it sans trickery.
I do not think that this is the point. If they tricked the fuel system, this was an extremely precise trick. There is no reason why such a precise system would give them less fuel if they tune it to normal behavior.
I am more puzzled now by the symmetry. If I think back to 2019 how Ferrari passed other cars or could defend on the straight was quite similar to how cars passed Ferrari in 2020.
Furthermore Alfa and Haas gained, but was not directly to punish...
So my interpretation is a hidden penalty. The FIA found out, that Ferrari is using like 3% more fuel flow. So they restricted Ferrari engines by 3% in 2020.
For some reason I find this very unlikely, Ferrari was not directly cheating but sort of working around the rules (which happened several times in the past by other teams as well) so if I were them I would have never accepted this kind of penalty.
What in my opinion is more likely is that the complete system (like turbocharger and MGU-H size) was optimized for the higher fuel flow and therefore power, which was sub-optimal for lower fuel flow and power. This is sort of confirmed by the rumors that the new engine will be equipped with a smaller turbine, which might work better with the lower fuel flow to extract as much energy as possible from the exhaust gas.