VETTEL BID BACK ON AS F1 CHIEFS CLEAR FERRARI
SEBASTIAN VETTEL’S world championship bid was put back on course last night when Formula One’s rulers exonerated Ferrari in the ‘cheat’ storm that has cast a shadow over the 76th staging of the Monaco Grand Prix.
FIA race director Charlie Whiting revealed the potentially season-shaping verdict in the control tower above the track on which, half an hour earlier, Daniel Ricciardo produced the fastest lap ever driven here to take pole position for today’s race.
‘We are now satisfied everything is in order,’ Whiting told The Mail on
Sunday, dismissing concerns Ferrari get an extra power boost through an illegal battery construction. ‘The matter was exacerbated by unsubstantiated allegations that went through the paddock like wildfire. It came from a Ferrari engine man now at Mercedes, but his information would be the length of his gardening leave old.
‘If we had a hard case, we would’ve gone to stewards. If they (Mercedes) felt they’d anything substantial to question, they could have made a protest.’
Whiting identified the ‘Ferrari engine man’ as Lorenzo Sassi, and, more explosively, revealed that the matter was brought to the FIA’s attention by Mercedes’ technical director James Allison prior to the fourth race of the season in Baku.
The revelation over Mercedes’ involvement in the whispering campaign is likely to embarrass the world champions because they have allied themselves with Ferrari in the wider debate over the sport’s future beyond 2020.
It seems Mercedes have tried surreptitiously to campaign for Ferrari to be investigated without making an official protest.
Lewis Hamilton, who leads Vettel by 17 points, is the man set to be most directly impacted by Ferrari’s clean bill of health. He starts third today, a place behind Vettel. Asked after qualifying if he thought his rival’s car was legal, Hamilton said: ‘I keep my ear close to the ground. I know what’s going on.’
Whiting said the matter was so complex he relied on the FIA’s new engine expert, Frenchman Cedrik Staudohar, formerly of Honda and Renault.
‘We had concerns in Baku that we couldn’t explain,’ added Whiting. ‘In Spain (the race following Baku, held a fortnight ago), Ferrari showed us things that helped satisfy us that they were inside the rules.
‘We looked at data. We had to understand whether Ferrari’s explanations were valid. We were never in doubt things were above board, but by Friday we were convinced. We have some clever guys working for us to spot this kind of thing. We’ll probably ask Ferrari to run new hardware at future races to make it easier for us to monitor, but we have a system in Monaco to establish what is happening without an additional sensor.’
Many observers will snort with derision, claiming Ferrari always get away with it. FIA president Jean Todt knows he comes in for criticism in this regard as a former Ferrari team principal. But he defended himself, saying: ‘We try to maximise good governance.
‘It is unprofessional to make this allegation.’
On track, Ricciardo’s time of 1min 10.810sec was decisive. What an example the Australian was to Max Verstappen, who crashed out in practice — the Belgian’s fourth smash here in five years.