quote:

F1 steward Mika Salo has told fellow Finn Kristian Sohlberg that Ferrari was made to “use less fuel” as part of their punishment from the 2019 “cheating” scandal.

Ferrari courted controversy in 2019 when rivals raised questions about the Scuderia’s much-improved power unit.

Blatantly accused of “cheating” by Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, the FIA launched an investigation that led to Technical Directives being issued regarding fuel flow and oil burning.

Ferrari’s engine lost power and the Scuderia – as well as its customer teams – suffered as a result.

Months later, prior to the start of the 2020 season, after what the FIA called a “thorough technical investigation”, motorsport’s governing body reached a secret agreement with Ferrari.

As to be expected, Ferrari’s rivals were not happy and to this day want details of the settlement to be revealed.

One part of that may have just been leaked by former driver turned steward Salo.

Speaking to Finnish rally driver Sohlberg during a Twitch stream interview, the question of what went wrong for Ferrari and its customer teams came up.

Last year, all three Ferrari-powered teams struggled to match their 2019 pace, losing the most lap time of all the teams on the grid.

Soymotor quotes Salo as having said: “They suffered from Ferrari’s cheat last year because they had Ferrari engines and were forced to use less fuel, so I think so Alfa Romeo may be in a good position if they can perform at their best in the race this season.”

Sohlberg: “So Ferrari’s getting out a new engine, right?”

Salo: “I don’t know if it’s a new engine but they’re allowed to use it to its full power. They were not allowed last year because of Ferrari.”

Ferrari slumped to sixth in last year’s Constructors’ Championship, the Scuderia failing to win a single grand prix, while Alfa Romeo were eighth and Haas P9.

Alfa Romeo boss Fred Vasseur believes Ferrari will “recover” a lot of last year’s lost pace.

“The collaboration with Ferrari is, I think, going very well,” he said at the launch of the C41.

“We had a strong meeting, a long meeting over the winter to cover the points of last year when perhaps we didn’t do the perfect job.

“We are on a good path. I think on their side, they will recover probably a large part of the issue we had last year, and collaboration is getting better and better.”

quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:
RE: Ferrari PU:

https://www.planetf1.com/news/...ed-cheating-scandal/

quote:

F1 steward Mika Salo has told fellow Finn Kristian Sohlberg that Ferrari was made to “use less fuel” as part of their punishment from the 2019 “cheating” scandal.

Ferrari courted controversy in 2019 when rivals raised questions about the Scuderia’s much-improved power unit.

Blatantly accused of “cheating” by Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, the FIA launched an investigation that led to Technical Directives being issued regarding fuel flow and oil burning.

Ferrari’s engine lost power and the Scuderia – as well as its customer teams – suffered as a result.

Months later, prior to the start of the 2020 season, after what the FIA called a “thorough technical investigation”, motorsport’s governing body reached a secret agreement with Ferrari.

As to be expected, Ferrari’s rivals were not happy and to this day want details of the settlement to be revealed.

One part of that may have just been leaked by former driver turned steward Salo.

Speaking to Finnish rally driver Sohlberg during a Twitch stream interview, the question of what went wrong for Ferrari and its customer teams came up.

Last year, all three Ferrari-powered teams struggled to match their 2019 pace, losing the most lap time of all the teams on the grid.

Soymotor quotes Salo as having said: “They suffered from Ferrari’s cheat last year because they had Ferrari engines and were forced to use less fuel, so I think so Alfa Romeo may be in a good position if they can perform at their best in the race this season.”

Sohlberg: “So Ferrari’s getting out a new engine, right?”

Salo: “I don’t know if it’s a new engine but they’re allowed to use it to its full power. They were not allowed last year because of Ferrari.”

Ferrari slumped to sixth in last year’s Constructors’ Championship, the Scuderia failing to win a single grand prix, while Alfa Romeo were eighth and Haas P9.

Alfa Romeo boss Fred Vasseur believes Ferrari will “recover” a lot of last year’s lost pace.

“The collaboration with Ferrari is, I think, going very well,” he said at the launch of the C41.

“We had a strong meeting, a long meeting over the winter to cover the points of last year when perhaps we didn’t do the perfect job.

“We are on a good path. I think on their side, they will recover probably a large part of the issue we had last year, and collaboration is getting better and better.”

quote:

Originally posted by Dwill104:
I don’t get why they changed the color of the MB cars to red. Silver has historically been the Mercedes color.

quote:

Mercedes, who have supplied the official Safety Cars since 1996 (and are sharing Safety Car appearances for the first time since then), have a new look this season with their AMG GT R Safety Car and C 63 S Estate Medical Car both dressed in red, which is synonymous with the German marque's Rote Sau racing car.

quote:

As a sandstorm engulfed the Bahrain International Circuit on the afternoon of day one of pre-season testing, Max Verstappen went fastest for Red Bull – but Mercedes struggled with a gearbox issue and then a lack of pace, finishing the day with just 48 laps, the fewest of all the teams.

Verstappen enjoyed the whole day in the Red Bull RB16B – with team mate Sergio Perez set to drive on Saturday – and finished the morning third, before improving under the floodlights to take first with a fastest time of 1m30.626s on mediums. Bar a spin in the first session, Verstappen's Friday was incident-free.

When afternoon running began the wind was whipping up sand all over the track, robbing the drivers of grip. But later in the day, as the floodlights punched through the darkening sky, conditions cooled and grip increased leading to a late flurry of fast laps. That left Lando Norris second overall for McLaren on mediums, Esteban Ocon third for Alpine on soft tyres and Aston Martin's Lance Stroll fourth with a late effort on prototype Pirelli mediums. Morning leader Daniel Ricciardo finished seventh overall for McLaren.

As for Mercedes, a gearbox issue in the morning meant 17th-place Valtteri Bottas could only complete six laps overall – much to the chagrin of Team Principal Toto Wolff. Lewis Hamilton (10th fastest) took over in the afternoon but added just 42 laps to Mercedes' total, as he failed to make use of the favourable evening conditions and seemed to be struggling for grip and pace. Verstappen, on the other hand, managed 139 laps in all.

Ferrari's Carlos Sainz also improved under the lights and finished fifth, having taken over from 11th-place finisher Charles Leclerc in the afternoon. Behind Sainz was sixth-place Alfa Romeo driver Antonio Giovinazzi, who ran in the afternoon after 12th-place Kimi Raikkonen took the morning session.

AlphaTauri's productive day continued with rookie Yuki Tsunoda making his pre-season testing debut in the Honda-powered AT02. He took ninth overall, half a second off eighth-place team mate Pierre Gasly who ran in the morning.

Sebastian Vettel kicked off testing for Aston Martin in the morning and finished 13th overall, ahead of Williams' sole day one runner, test driver Roy Nissany.

Haas revealed their VF-21 in the morning and Mick Schumacher then set his first times, albeit with a gearbox issue hampering his running. He managed just 15 laps to finish 16th, with new team mate Nikita Mazepin taking over in the afternoon to complete 70 laps and finish 15th fastest.

Bottas, who only managed to turn six laps with aero rakes on his car, rounded out the standings in P17. The Finn returns on Saturday afternoon as Hamilton takes the wheel in the morning.

Soon, Bahrain's floodlights will switch off and give way to a bright Saturday morning, in which Fernando Alonso will make his Alpine debut, Sergio Perez will take the wheel of Red Bull's RB16B and Nicholas Latifi will drive for Williams – while reigning champions Mercedes have it all to do.