Ferrari say Red Bull’s strong start to the season is partly due to their being given a “very light” punishment for breaking Formula 1’s budget cap.
Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur says that Red Bull have done a “very good job” but the penalty they were given last October was “very low”.
Red Bull were fined $7m (£6.07m) and given a 10% reduction in permitted aerodynamic research for a year.
The penalty was for breaching the sport’s budget cap by £1.86m in 2021.
Red Bull have dominated the start of the 2023 season, winning all three races.
“I am still convinced the penalty was very light,” Vasseur said in a news conference on Thursday.
“If you consider we will improve [the car’s performance by] a bit less than one second over the season in terms of aero, [and] you get a penalty of one tenth of this, it is [equivalent to a loss of] 0.1secs.
“As it is not a linear progression, it is probably less, and as you are allowed to spend this money somewhere else, on weight saving and so on, for me the penalty is marginal.
“I don’t want to say they didn’t do a good job because, honestly, they did a very good job on the car. I am not trying to find an excuse at all, but if you ask me if the penalty is too light, I say yes.”
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner described the penalty at the time as “very harsh” and “pretty draconian”.
He added at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix last month: “It was vital for us to be able to cope with that penalty to have a solid starting point.
“It was so critical for us to come out of the blocks competitively. The wind tunnel reduction has applied since last October so we couldn’t afford to miss the target because you’d never be able to engineer your way out of it with that handicap.”
Appeal launched against Sainz penalty
Vasseur revealed that Ferrari have asked governing body the FIA to reconsider the five-second penalty given to their driver Carlos Sainz at the end of Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix.
The Spaniard was punished for pitching Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin into a spin at the final restart of an incident-filled race.
The penalty dropped Sainz from fourth place at the finish to 12th and out of the points, and was given within minutes of the incident with no chance for Sainz to give his version of events to the stewards.
Ferrari have launched a “petition for a right to review”, a process by which the team have to convince the FIA there is new evidence that was not considered at the time.
If that is accepted, the incident will be reviewed by the same group of stewards.
Vasseur pointed out what he said was an inconsistency in the handling of three different incidents at the same corner at that final restart.
Stewards decided to take no further action against Alpine drivers Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly after the two collided, taking both out of the race.
And an incident in which Williams driver Logan Sergeant punted Alpha Tauri’s Nick de Vries in similar fashion to Sainz hitting Alonso was not investigated at all.
Vasseur said he did not want to comment on the details of Ferrari’s case, but said he expected “open discussions” with the FIA, adding: “[It is] for the good of the sport to avoid to have this kind of decision where you have three cases on the same corner and not the same decision.”
Vasseur added that it “would have made sense” to investigate the incident after the race before applying a penalty “because the race was over and it was not affecting the podium”.
Can Ferrari progress?
Ferrari have had a difficult start to the season, struggling with both competitiveness and reliability when they hoped to mount a title challenge.
Their best result is a fourth place for Sainz in the opening race in Bahrain.
He is fifth in the drivers’ championship while team-mate Charles Leclerc is only 10th after two retirements in the first three races and a 10-place grid penalty for excessive engine-part usage in the other.
Vasseur said Ferrari were planning to “speed up” the introduction of upgrades to the car in forthcoming races, adding that new parts that were originally planned for the Spanish Grand Prix in June would instead by ready for the Emilia Romagna race in May, two races before Barcelona.
The Frenchman added that he believed he had seen evidence of an upturn in form in Australia last weekend, with Sainz able to make up ground after an early pit stop until he was on the tail of the battle for second place between Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes and Alonso.
“We made some adjustments in terms of balance and behaviour, and it was much better in Melbourne,” Vasseur said. “We will continue in this direction.
“It is not a ‘B-spec’ car. We will not come with something completely different. We will continue to update this one and we will try to update it massively.”
He said that the fact that the two Ferrari customer teams, Haas and Alfa Romeo, had introduced their second internal combustion engines of the season in Australia was not a cause for concern.
Drivers are allowed only three engines for an entire season, but Vasseur said that change was “as per plan” and that the strategy was to check the first engines used before reintroducing them in a race or two’s time.