In recent weeks, Red Bull has been testing a new, lighter chassis for the RB18, although it ultimately fell short of its debut at last weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix.
The team appears to have made the decision to field that new chassis at the Singapore Grand Prix, so it will not be used during the first hat-trick after the summer break consisting of Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy. News about the new Red Bull chassis has already circulated in the paddock and the Austrian team’s rivals already seem to know what they will introduce in a few weeks.
At the end of the race at Spa-Francorchamps, Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto made his opinion known about the supposed new lighter chassis that the RB18 will debut soon.
“I can’t know what they are doing, whether they have a lighter chassis or not. In general, the budget limit is always a concern,” admitted the Italian team manager.
Binotto has emphasized the problem that the FIA scrupulously controls the expenses of the teams. Exceeding the budget cap would yield considerable benefits, provided the teams found a way to do so while escaping the scrutiny of the governing body. A matter of sports equity.
“I think we have already talked about it during this season, because now we have the technical, sporting and also financial regulations, which can make the difference between the teams due to the way they are interpreted and executed, and we know that the FIA has to be very hard to have a proper approach, otherwise the regulation itself will not be fair and equitable”.
According to Mattia, Ferrari could not introduce a lighter chassis or make changes to the plan made since the beginning of the season precisely because of the budget limit, so the question mark over the Red Bull chassis is increasingly uncomfortable.
“Now I can’t judge them on the lightness of a chassis. But we at Ferrari will never be able to introduce a lighter chassis or switch to a different strategy over the course of a season, simply for budget reasons, and I would be very surprised if another team could do it”.
“The reasons must be found in the regulations themselves: is it fair enough, is it equitable enough, is the control efficient? There are many questions. As we have said, at the moment it is a very green regulation, the number of people who control it within the FIA it is very low, so that has to improve for the future.”
“It would be really bad news if a Formula 1 world championship was somehow dictated by financial regulations and not technical and sporting regulations,” Binotto concluded.
