17/07/2020
NEWS STORY
Toto Wolff has previously admitted to being frustrated and tired of Ferrari blaming its poor performance this year on the SF1000's aero.
Like the rest of us, Wolff is of the opinion that the lack of performance, which has similarly affected customer teams Haas and Alfa Romeo, was more about the investigation into the Maranello outfit's power unit last year as rivals suspected hanky panky.
Though the results of the investigation have never been revealed - much to the disgust of rivals - the lack of performance, certainly compared to the team's winning streak following the 2019 summer break, has been remarkable.
Today, for the first time, team boss, Mattia Binotto admitted that his team is paying the price for last year's investigation and the subsequent tightening of the rules.
"The regulations are very difficult and complex," he told reporters. "There are areas of regulations on the power unit where maybe clarifications are still required. It's an ongoing process, which has always existed in the past and will exist in the future.
"Since last year a lot of technical directives have been released, eventually clarifying some of the areas of regulations, I think through those TDs we had to adapt ourselves.
"I don't think it is only the case of Ferrari," he insisted, "because looking at the power output of this season I think most manufacturers somehow had to adapt themselves. But certainly as Ferrari we had to adapt and as a simple output of that we lost some of the performance we had.
"I think that now we've got a clearer situation in some areas of the regulations and that will continue if required for the future."
Sadly for the Italian team, its fans and Haas and Alfa Romeo there is a freeze on performance development so all three teams are stuck with the engine-spec they are currently running. However, Binotto says the team is already looking ahead to next year, whilst pointing a suspicious finger at his rivals.
"The engine or power unit development is an ongoing process that we have never stopped since 2012, when we started developing those engines," he said, "now it is a long time we were developing them. We were doing development as well for this season that we will not be able to introduce during the season itself due to the long shutdown period which has not been the case for all the power unit manufacturers.
"We will still develop and we try to somehow develop as much as we can by the start of next season. I think there are still areas of the regulations that need to be clarified and hopefully that may be so that in the future there is sufficient clarity to make sure we have all the same understanding."
Check out our Friday gallery from Budapest, here.