Back in February, a brief statement by the FIA caused controversy, where it appeared a deal had been struck between Ferrari and the sports governing body after an investigation on the 2019 Italian power unit appeared inconclusive.

In the first part of the press release there was talk of an agreement between the Maranello team and the Federation.

“The FIA announces that, after thorough technical investigations, it has concluded its analysis of the operation of the Scuderia Ferrari Formula 1 Power Unit and reached a settlement with the team. The specifics of the agreement will remain between the parties.”

A second and final paragraph, however, passed six months ago almost unnoticed, becomes very interesting again in the light of the FIA’s intention to ban party mode and to ask the teams for clarifications on the operation of the ERS.

To be specific, the part of the FIA press release where it talks about an agreement between the FIA and Ferrari to improve the controls of all the Formula 1 Power Units during the next seasons:

“The FIA and Scuderia Ferrari have agreed to a number of technical commitments that will improve the monitoring of all Formula 1 Power Units for forthcoming championship seasons […].”

The party mode, i.e. the way in which some engines manage to increase the power of the combustion engine in qualifying and in some phases of the race, will be banned already starting from the next Belgian Grand Prix.

Ferrari would have given the FIA a series of indications on how to get different mappings. This led the Federation itself to ask Mercedes, Honda and Renault for clarifications and decided to ban different mappings between qualifying and race.

A similar procedure was also followed for the “investigations” on the functioning of the ERS. Ferrari would have advanced tests to FIA technicians to show how it is possible to increase the electric power in qualifying, masking the measurements of the FIA sensors.

Party mode would mainly affect the Mercedes powered teams while the anomalous use of the ERS could see the two Honda teams among the most penalised.

It appears that Ferrari has switch from ‘bringing innovation and developments’ or cheating perhaps, to trying to hit opponents with the help of the FIA.

FIA instigates full investigation on ALL teams cheating, Ferrari might save their season?

Another little gem from TJ13’s favourite German Formula 1 and motorsport website, Auto Motor und Sport (AMuS), published today detailing an investigation by the FIA on all F1 teams who they suspect are cheating.

Following the announcement that ‘party-modes’ would be banned soon, possibly for Spa at the end of August, it appears that the FIA are beginning to suspect that all teams, not just….. READ MORE ON THIS STORY