FIA steward recants after spicy comments about 'cheating' Ferrari
10:50, 26 Feb 2021
7 Comments
Mika Salo has caused quite a stir with statements on his Twitch channel. The Finn made salacious statements about Ferrari cheating but is now backing down.
It is an open secret that Ferrari cheated with the engine in 2019. Following cues from Mercedes and Red Bull Racing, the FIA drew up new regulations and Ferrari fell way back. When a statement also came out in early 2020 that there was an agreement between the FIA and Ferrari, everyone knew quite enough.
Salo falls by the wayside
However, the news has long since returned and after a dramatic 2020, Ferrari seem to have been punished enough in principle. The news all came up again though, through a Twitch Livestream in which Mika Salo along with rally driver, Kristian Solberg, spoke about Ferrari's situation. ''Those teams (customers of Ferrari) have suffered because of Ferrari's cheating and could use less fuel,'' Salo revealed.
Salo, an employee of the FIA, caused a lot of reactions with this. On his Instagram account, he now scratches back a bit. ''I have not been completely understood. I want to make it clear that I don't know the details of the agreement between Ferrari and the FIA. We were talking about what was announced by the team and the media on that stream. It was a stupid joke in a normal conversation between two friends. I have no knowledge of that agreement and if I did I certainly wouldn't be talking about it'', concludes the Finn.
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It is common knowledge now on what Ferrari did to their engine in 2019 to make it more powerful.
The regulation stipulates that the engine can only inject a max volume of fuel. However, the readings are only taken at 'pulse intervals' and these readings are recorded by the fuel flow sensor and FIA monitors to ensure that these read-outs are within their regulation.
The ingenious engineers therefore programmed their injectors to squirt more fuel in between these pulses.
The engine therefore is more powerful as it gets more fuel than what the readings show, but it is not 'totally illegal' as the values when they are recorded is within the specs.
FIA therefore cannot proof that they have actually exceeded the amount of fuel in the rules and they therefore have not openly gone against the regulations.
FIA therefore couldn't ban Ferrari or give them an even harsher punishment, so were given a slap on the hands to pay a few $$Millions in fine and told not to do so again.
So, it that classified as "Cheating"? You be the judge!
In Engineering terms, its called 'circumventing the regulations' or 'creative engineering'.
If the car reaches the finish line with allowed amount of fuel, then that car is overall efficient.
One could oppose the instant amount of fuel exceeds the maximum allowed, but istant fuel amount is quite a questionable matter, since present F1 can use extra energy from the stored one in the electric section of their PU.
This "rule" is a blatantly in favour to engines (PU) with better energy recover, while an ICU with better efficiency is instead penalized.
the fuel flow sensor was there to guard the rule, fooling the sensor does not mean you don't break the rule and therefore cheat.
Whoever said Finns were dry and boring should also recant their statements.
They are a colourful character in their Finnish way.
Did FIA ask you to change your statement ..or else you were gonna be fired??
That makes better sense... we get you.. you've to eat!
The question which was not transparently answered after the findings of the Ferrari F1 engine investigation.
Did Ferrari F1 cheat?
???
Yep... you dont get to be fined for doing things by the book...