F1 | Ferrari-FIA: whether victory or defeat depends on “renunciation” – Federico Albano

The Federation’s response letter to the 7 teams that had published a very tough communication requesting clarifications regarding the FIA ​​- Ferrari agreement is clear and leaves no room for maneuver. The FIA ​​and the teams have the option to close a dispute by agreement and to keep the terms of that agreement in secrecy, and this is explicitly sanctioned by the regulation.

We will then see how the teams led by Wolff will respond, but for now the game appears closed. Instead, what remained on the field was the question of whether for the redhead such an agreement was a victory or a defeat. Binotto’s words on the subject of engine power (lower than in the past due to the “reliability program”) leave some doubts, at least until you seriously get on the horses on the track. But let’s start with some simple facts. The dispute ends with a “settlement“, An agreement between the parties, that is, it has not reached the final technical outcome of the investigation. In legal matters, each word has a precise weight and by definition an agreement of this type provides for a waiver of something by both parties involved in order to reach the stipulation. Secrecy lies entirely in what each party has renounced to sign this agreement.

The Federation stops the investigation, but the question is in exchange for what
For part of the Federation, it seems quite simple to deduce that the “renunciation” was to continue further investigation. The FIA ​​then, in exchange for something by Ferrari, agrees not to investigate further, not to hypothetically risk the results (and the related cash prizes) of the past season, and not to publicly question the Ferrari name and brand if any real evidence emerges of irregularities on the power unit of the redhead.

Although this investigation was technically difficult and in all probability very difficult to conduct even economically, the fact that it ended with a “settlement“Means that some proposal from Ferrari must have arrived. If this were not the case, the dispute would not have ended with any agreement but, simply, with the final outcome of the investigation, whether conclusive or inconclusive.

The question, on whose answer the balance of this agreement completely depends, is therefore what the Maranello team actually renounced to reach the agreement and close the matter.

Some hypotheses about what Ferrari may have left on the field
It is not possible in any way to know this obviously, and those below are just some hypotheses that in common sense seem plausible, but will hardly ever be reflected:

• Ferrari, however, feeling out of the regulation, has renounced the use of that system, that component or that methodology under investigation. This hypothesis alone is possible, but not entirely probable: if the FIA ​​investigation is really as complex as it is reported, it is unlikely that Ferrari spontaneously gave up the use of “suspect” systems in exchange for just stopping the investigations. On such a delicate issue, some resistance from the team is plausible, which goes to leverage on the objective difficulty of the Federation in finding technical answers in a field in which the Federation itself declares itself openly in difficulty in facing the progress of the teams.
• Ferrari renounced the use of that system / component / methodology under investigation in exchange for an endorsement of other systems / components / methodologies that exploited other gray areas of the regulation. It is known that in the extreme complexity of the technical regulations and the related gray areas, the teams engage in real negotiations with the Federation, inclusive of do ut des where it is established which technical situations will be considered within the regulatory deadlines and which will be “voluntarily” abandoned by the teams. This may be another applicable hypothesis, also in view of 2021, remembering that the new single-seaters have already been in the planning phase for some time and whoever starts the cycle with the best car, will benefit from an advantage even for more than one season.
• Ferrari has not given up anything on the PU, but other aspects not necessarily related to the investigation. If this hypothesis is plausible, it will be understood only after the first races. For now, Binotto’s words in terms of Power Unit performance are quite clear and describe a power lower than last year. As mentioned, Binotto attributes this to the “reliability program”, but if a concrete drop in engine power is noted, then the probability that the Ferrari waiver was on the PU increases significantly. However, it will remain impossible for those unfamiliar with the terms of the agreement to deny or confirm the words of the red team’s Principal.

In conclusion, if the agreement is a victory or a defeat for the Maranello team, it is impossible to establish it from the outside. However, it must be remembered that if at the beginning President Camilleri appeared shy and not very incisive, from the second half of the past season onwards he made a series of political victories on fundamental even if not of the media foreground (the conditions of the Pact of the It agrees on all), and it is not said that this is not the continuation of this positive streak.