What F1 learned from Ferrari's fuel breach

The finger-pointing over whether Ferrari is simply very good at what it's doing with its power unit package, or pushing the grey areas of the regulations a little too far, continues.

This was ramped up by Ferrari being fined for incorrectly declaring the amount of fuel onboard Charles Leclerc's car in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

The performance pattern is continually evolving, so to get some idea of what's going on I've analysed the speeds and sector times of the fastest driver of each of the top three teams from qualifying - expressed as percentages.

As Lewis Hamilton took pole position, his time and speeds are the datum - so for times and speeds a plus means slower and minus means faster. At the end of each sector, there's a speed trap, with the main trap on the back straight on the approach to Turn 8.

If you take the speed at the end of sector two, which is at the end of the second straight, there's a 4.8km/h difference between Hamilton and Leclerc. Yes, that figure is 6.1km/h through the speed trap at the end of the previous (and longer) straight, but between the two cars it's only a shift of 1.3km/h, so I don't see any major power performance advantage - just a car that isn't carrying the downforce and in turn drag.

You can apply that across all of the speeds other than at the end of sector three, which is the finish line. There, Ferrari has a little bit extra and that's probably down to having a little more battery energy left at the end of the lap. If anything is left after the finish line, it's wasted, so the way I would look at that is Ferrari should have used it a little earlier on in the lap.

The major difference is in the last sector and I'm pretty sure that's because Mercedes was running that little bit of extra downforce. It hurts Mercedes on the straights, but the drivers are able to look after the rear tyres just that little bit better and when they get there, they have better rear-end turn stability and traction.

This all mounts up to the overall lap superiority of Mercedes. In the race, this pays a double dividend in that it looks after the tyres better and it can run longer - as Hamilton proved when he did the fastest lap three laps from home on the hardest tyre with 26 laps already completed.

Summing all this up in simple terms: the Mercedes, especially in Hamilton's hands, is simply the quicker car in qualifying. In the race, that just gets exaggerated because of the tyre management advantage. End of story.

By just fining Ferrari the FIA has set a questionable precedent that now opens a gap for abuse

All of this doesn't really matter, because in qualifying Ferrari once again showed its strategic-decision vulnerability, as Leclerc didn't make it in time to get a second run. Yes, it was because others backed up, but if you put yourself in that position then you must do something about it during the lap.

Leclerc held onto his fourth-fastest time from his first run, but it could have cost a few grid positions. You can't keep making those mistakes because sometimes it will cost you dearly. It's the old saying, 'the difference between being clever and stupid is a fine line' - in this case it was about two seconds.

But that problem was nothing beside what happened to Ferrari before the race.

Each team must tell the FIA how much fuel it's putting into a car prior to the race start - with the maximum usable between the lights going out and the chequered flag 110kg. The FIA will, at random, weigh and check some of the cars to ensure the teams are being honest - but I'm not sure 'F1' and 'honest' fit in the same sentence.

The FIA discovered what it called a 'significant' difference on Leclerc's car of 4.88kg. An investigation took place after the race.

But I do wonder what the consequences would have been had Leclerc wiped out a few cars at the first corner. Fortunately, that didn't happen and the stewards fined Ferrari €50,000 for this breach, leaving Leclerc with his third position.

We are going to hear more about this from other teams, some of which suggested Ferrari should have been disqualified. Also, by just fining Ferrari the FIA has set a questionable precedent that now opens a gap for abuse. Money should not be the penalty for regulation infringements, otherwise the big-budget teams have yet again found a way to overpower the smaller outfits.

Things need to change at Ferrari. To say it's a rudderless ship would be an exaggeration, but it's heading that way. I don't want to point the finger at anyone, but Mattia Binotto has been handed the reins and, as we can see, far too regularly it's not working. He is not to blame, it's the top management that put him there.

If I had anything to do with it I would pull him back into what he's good at, which is managing the technical side of the operation, and either promote or bring in someone to handle the politics and business side.

If Ferrari doesn't do something like this now, then I'm pretty sure 2020 will go down the pan just like '19. When you consider that the technical changes required for '21 are just around the corner, the stakes are high.

But Ferrari's fuel controversy wasn't the only thing that cropped up over the weekend.

Ferrari's twin wastegate pipes

Ferrari trialled split wastegate pipes on Friday, presumably a design that is being evaluated for 2020.

The turbo system on a current F1 car is just a bit more complicated than a normal turbo engine. On a normal turbo engine, as the engine is running the exhaust gasses drive the turbine side of the turbo.

Ferrari tested a twin wastegate exit - with the outlet of these as high as possible. This doesn't change the wastegate function but what it does do is help with the rear wing airflow reattachment

This in turn mechanically drives the compressor side of the turbo, which increases the inlet pressure - making a small cubic capacity engine think that it's a larger cubic capacity engine and produce more power.

The wastegate is connected to the exhaust pipes. As in the name, it wastes that exhaust gas as required to make sure the engine doesn't get over-pressured by the turbo.

On an F1 car there is also the MGU-H, which is connected mechanically to the turbo. Basically, it's a kind of alternator, but in this case it can generate electric energy or drive the turbo. So instead of just opening the wastegate to release the exhaust gasses, this alternator holds the turbo from overspeeding and/or producing too much pressure in the engine. This, in turn, would require more fuel flow, which is limited by the regulations, to produce power.

In normal conditions, when everything is what you might call a steady state (which it never is) this system can control the boost pressure and, while doing that, generate electrical energy that can either charge up the battery pack or go directly to the MGU-K. So, it's a plus-plus.

The problem is when spikes in intake pressure happen when the driver closes the throttle. That is when the conventional wastegate comes into play.

Going down a straight, if everything is working at its best, the turbo should be running near its maximum allowable speed of 125,000rpm. The engine should be using its maximum allowable fuel flow and the MGU-H will be holding everything stable and producing electrical energy.

But then to confuse it all, the driver sharply lifts the throttle and everything tries to react. That's when the wastegate pops open and releases the exhaust gasses, which in turn reduces the spike in intake pressure.

So, from running a single wastegate exit, Ferrari tested a twin wastegate exit - with the outlet as high as possible. This doesn't change the wastegate function, but what it does do is help with the rear-wing airflow reattachment at the end of the straight by blowing the wing's undersurface.

Not many things happen at the same time in F1, but the one thing that does - when the driver lifts the throttle and hits the brakes, especially in qualifying - is that the wastegate pops open at just the same time as the DRS closes. Any little difference you can make to enhance this airflow reattachment means that you can run a rear wing design that is much closer to airflow separation in its normal state.

DRS Failure

I am not a fan of the dreaded overtaking system and I think that until lap 18 we did see a few genuine driver-driven overtakes. Sure, they were difficult, but they shouldn't be easy.

Once the DRS came into play it was just 'mirror signal manoeuvre' passes, and the drivers could just wait until they got to the straights.

Really, this diminishes the driver's talent level and something needs to change.

Perhaps F1 should allow the DRS to be used until you close to within a second of the car in front - that way the cars would not get so strung out. Then, an aerodynamic package that was better in traffic would be required and actual overtaking would then be down to the drivers.

Tyre modelling moans not a big deal

It's always nice to think that your windtunnel model and CFD model are as near the real thing as possible, and that's why the F1 teams are a bit upset about this current tyre situation for 2020. But, in reality, it's not that big a drama.

The tyre profile, and especially the shoulder area where the tread meets the sidewall, does affect the way the airflow spills off the tyre - especially with varying steering lock. This is a condition that I always say is aerodynamically critical to how an F1 car achieves a balance through a corner. You play tricks with the aerodynamics with varying steering lock, but only if your modelling is correct. If not, it can bite you in the bum very quickly.

But as we see, especially from some of the superb slow-motion TV shots, the tyres move around a lot under lateral load and oscillate dramatically over the kerbs. No team models this tyre deflection and this is happening just when you want the aerodynamic characteristics of the car to be as stable as possible.

F1 teams will always strive for perfection and they will always complain if they feel they are being held back from achieving that. I used to do exactly the same thing when I was in that position, but sometimes you need to just get on with it and put a question mark beside some of the results that you think might just be influenced by this lack of tyre detail. If you do that, these areas can be revisited in slightly more detail later, but at least some of the other research can be more or less put to bed.

As for the stiffness, again that's critical to the car's vertical stiffness. But all this is adjustable and part of the set-up requirements for the different circuit characteristics - so adapting to the final detail is no big drama.

During my time in F1, I was with teams that went from Goodyear to Bridgestone and then from Bridgestone to Michelin. Just putting them on and making any required ride-height changes to cope with the different diameters and they were fine. Yes, a little change in set-up to optimise the characteristics brought slightly better performance, but not a night-and-day change.

Rear-view mirrors vs cameras

One thing I have never really understood is why the FIA hasn't introduced a small rear-view camera that attaches to the top of the DRS actuator. The teams all design their own actuator and aerodynamic covers, so just a simple mounting system and you're away.

MotoGP uses a seat camera and it gives a really good shot of the following bike. It would be great for F1

Road cars have them and they work very well. With a small display set either in the chassis where the dash used to be or on the trailing edge of the front of the halo, I'm pretty sure it would give a driver more rearward view. This would reduce the blocking problems during practice sessions.

It would also have helped reduce the risk of an incident like the Bottas/Grosjean thump during FP2, and might even improve the racing because the driver who might just want to try to pull off an overtaking move would have more confidence that the driver in front had seen them.

Yes, it would need testing and sorting out, but surely it's not beyond F1's expertise to make something like this happen? F1 is supposed to be capable of leading the technology race but, in reality, it's lagging dramatically behind when it comes to simple things like this.

MotoGP uses a seat camera and it gives a really good shot of the following bike. It would be great for F1 as well and the shot we'd see would be the same as the drivers' rearward view - if they ever looked.

Finally, to come back to what happened in Abu Dhabi, Hamilton was in a race of his own for Mercedes.

From the outside it looked easy, but pole position, fastest lap and every lap led shows the young upstarts coming through are not yet a match for the man who's going to challenge to equal, or even surpass, what once seemed to be Michael Schumacher's untouchable records.