FIA clears Ferrari Formula 1 team of breaking battery rules?
According to
Auto Motor und Sport, a formal protest against Ferrari could be lodged at next week's Monaco Grand Prix, the Scuderia's rivals targeting a complex ploy by which Ferrari is able to extract more than the allowed four megajoules of energy from its battery system.
The scheme allegedly involves modifying the electrical currents in the system and the battery output, allowing for a bypass of the all-important sensor that measures the electrical usage, a ruse reportedly worth an extra 20bhp.
"The alleged trickery is so complicated that FIA engineers are struggling to understand it," said
AMS reporter Michael Schmidt.
Whether the allegations have merit or not remains to be seen, but arch-rival Mercedes has urged the FIA to act more quickly in the future regarding potential cases of illegality.
"Any race in which grey areas remain grey can be a lost race," said Mercedes non-executive chairman Niki Lauda.
The FIA’s Charlie Whiting has been very careful to underline that there has been no evidence that Ferrari has been running its unique double-in-tandem battery arrangement in an unscrupulous way. Data from the first five races is still being analysed by the FIA in an ongoing process, and Ferrari is co-operating fully.
Uniquely, within the Ferrari’s battery casing are twin batteries in tandem – and this architecture is exactly as it has been since the beginning of the hybrid formula in 2014. What has been speculated from this year by rivals is whether this might allow a system whereby a second energy output to the ers-K could be used to momentarily boost the energy flow beyond the 120kW limit, by-passing the FIA sensors, possibly by way of a chip modulating the resistance between the two outputs.
This is what has been vexing Lauda who has been quite outspoken in his calling for the FIA to make a ruling on whether twin batteries are permitted. The FIA is not publicly responding to Lauda directly but points out there is nothing illegal about the architecture of the Ferrari system – and that if any team is convinced that something illicit is going on, it should lodge a formal protest.
