Formula One has during its history seen the FIA interfere with the fair competition of Formula One and during the years of Ferrari domination the sport’s governing body earned itself the nickname the “Ferrari International Assistance”.
Of course Felipe Massa is currently learning how the FIA under the leadership of Max Moseley was influenced by Bernie Ecclestone to initially cover up “crash gate” which directly influenced the result of the 2008 F1 drivers’ championship in favour of Lewis Hamilton.
FIA influenced to change regulations
Many have accused the FIA of being complicit in a conspiracy to deny Lewis Hamilton of his eight world championship yet no evidence has ever been presented that the race director in Abu Dhabi who made the controversial call was acting under instruction or dictat or any sort.
Mercedes did successfully influence the FIA to act last season when their persistent complaints about the health and safety of their drivers due to extreme bouncing forced the governing body of Formula One to act.
Ironically, it appears the new car design regulations for this year coming from that review have negatively impacted Mercedes more than their rivals – as was presumably hoped.
At the Miami GP Red Bull Racing’s consultant Dr. Helmut Marko has called into question the “manipulative tricks” he feels are being used to affect the team negatively.
Mercedes shocked by Red Bull DRS
This year’s play from Mercedes appears o be rooted in the comments made by Lewis Hamilton following the second round of the season in Jeddah.
“I’ve definitely never seen a car so fast,” Hamilton told reporters after finishing fifth in the Saudi GP. “When we were fast, we weren’t that fast.
“That’s the fastest car I think, I’ve seen, especially compared to the rest. I don’t know how or why but he came past me with serious speed.
“I didn’t even bother to block because there was a massive speed difference.”
Alpine CEO launches scathing attack
Wolff adds his opinion
Toto Wolff has since added his opinion: “They opened up a speed advantage on the straights with the DRS, which is just mind-boggling.”
Toto and Lewis are of course referring to the speed of the Red Bull with its DRS deployed. This is where an F1 car opens the slot in its rear wing and dumps a load of drag to increase speed in a straight line.
DRS was introduced into Formula One to mitigate the fact they had become increasingly difficult to follow or get close to due to the vortices of air created by the car in front. Even a car up to two seconds a lap quicker was struggling to overtake the slower car in front.
Hamilton’s comments about the Red Bull DRS have led to a host of technical F1 guru’s studying the RB19 in an attempt to explain its phenomenal overtaking speed.
Red Bull has a ‘triple DRS’ design
Sky F1’s pit lane reporter nick named it the “super duper DRS” and ex F1 car designer Gary Anderson believes it works hand in hand with the diffuser and the beam wing – calling it the ’triple DRS’.
As of yet no one is suggesting Red Bull Racing are doing anything illegal but as always when one car has super performance, there is enough suspicion for the FIA’s technical wizards to start asking deeper questions.
Having added a DRS zone to the notoriously difficult to overtake Albert Park venue in Australia, the FIA the decided to cut the length of the DRS zone short a month later in Azerbaijan.
This led to a mostly processional race in Baku with drivers complaining about the difficulty they now found in making an overtaking move.
Norris surprised at Bizarre FIA decision
Despite this, the FIA again shortened the DRS zone for the Miami race something Lando Norris found particularly peculiar.
“In my opinion, there were no overtakes last year [in Miami], hardly any, and they still shortened them [the DRS zones],” said the McLaren driver.
Norris revealed the drivers tried to impress this point to the FIA’s representative at the briefing on Friday, but to no avail despite there being “enough evidence this year to prove racing is more difficult than in previous years. There are differences.”
FIA attempt to ‘nobble’ Red Bull
Marko accuses FIA of meddling
Helmut Marko is convinced the FIA’s recent obsession with shortening the DRS zones is to nullify the advantage the Red Bull cars have in this area.
“Overtaking has always been difficult but especially when the DRS zones are shortened. And we know why that happens,” Marko explained to Motorsport-Magazin.
When asked whether this change in approach from the FIA was designed to curb Red Bull’s advantage, Marko was succinct in his response replying “exactly.”
Marko blames Mercedes
Dr. Marko places the blame fairly and squarely at Mercedes’ door for influencing the FIA to act.
“We have to stop intervening with these kinds of manipulative tricks, it is bizarre that Mercedes of all teams, is moaning.
“For years Mercedes had the superior engine and they were much further ahead of the competition than we are now. And then when you deliver a flop of a car two years in a row, you might be wise to focus on that.”
The problem with shortening the DRS zones to reduce Red Bull’s advantage is that it makes it more difficult for everyone else to pass the cars they are battling with too, hence the processional Baku race.
FIA set to meet with drivers
The FIA is set to meet with the drivers following their concerns at the upcoming meeting of the Sporting Advisory Committee to discuss there issue of DRS.
Its likely that the FIA need to be more sophisticated in how they analysis how to reposition DRS zones and not just look at the effects from a previous years race.
The teams are running less downforce this year as they have realised they can improve downforce underneath the car without adding a big draggy rear wing on top. This means at the higher speed circuits, DRS is less effective now because there is less drag to be dumped by the opening of the rear wing.
So it could be argued for somewhere like Baku, the DRS zone should be increased because the effect is now lower with the reduced drag aero packages run by the teams.
READ MORE: Horner taunts Mercedes and Ferrari
Do you think @GeorgeRussell63 enjoyed this move? 😜#MiamiGP #F1 @MercedesAMGF1 pic.twitter.com/39aVmyQWIy
— Formula 1 (@F1) May 8, 2023
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And wasn’t it “Mercedes” who thought that sub 2sec pitstop were dangerous?
Honda engine is the best engine out there.
Bullpoo. Hamilton would be an 8 time world champ and MaxV would have one if Merc had that much influence. They don’t.