The FIA are understood to have closed the engine-mapping loophole that Red Bull were perceived to have exploited in order to gain a performance advantage.
Rules tightened following Red Bull furore at Sunday's German GP
The FIA are understood to have closed the engine-mapping loophole that Red Bull were perceived to have exploited in order to gain a performance advantage over their rivals.
Having been reported to the stewards by FIA technical delegate Joe Bauer on the morning of last Sunday's German GP, it was made transparent in the stewards' subsequent report that Red Bull had only escaped punishment because of the regulation's wording.
In his latest column for
Sky Sports F1, Mark Hughes explained:
'Going by what the regulations were supposed to have meant, Red Bull had contravened them. Going by what they actually said, they had not. Reducing the torque demand at full throttle from one race to the next is very different from reducing the full-throttle torque demand of the engine on that day as a certain engine speed is reached.
'Red Bull chose to read the regulation in a way that meant the latter - and its map did not contra-vene that reading. The FIA meant torque demand relative to what the engine is ultimately capa-ble of. Red Bull chose it to mean torque demand relative to what that engine was capable of with that map on that day - and on those terms there was no reduction, and therefore no offence.'
However, it's now understood that, as expected, the governing body have issued a 'clarification' of Article 5.5.3 that will limit the changes a team can make to its engine torque map on a race-by-race basis.
The big question as yet unanswered is to what extent the closure will hinder Red Bull. One paddock insider has suggested to Sky Sports F1 that the 'ruse' may have been worth as much as two-tenths of a second per lap.
Sky Sports F1 HD's Ted Kravitz feels that the rule change will cost the team lap time, but says pushing the limits is what wins championships.
"I think it will cost them a few tenths of a second," Kravitz told
Sky Sports News.
"I think the first thing to point out is that Red Bull were not cheating as such. They just found a big loophole in the regulations with regard to the engine map, and an engine map is just simply how an engine behaves throughout the race.
"They have taken the rules that were changed last year to mean something completely different to what other teams thought. The FIA, the sport's governing body, have managed to convince them that they should stick to the spirit of the regulations and by doing that they have changed the wording of the regulations.
"I must say it is in conjunction with Renault, who are Red Bull's engine suppliers, so Renault have to share some of the focus for this.
"But, they weren't doing anything covertly illegal - it was just an interesting interpretation of the rules shall we say.
"Red Bull and Adrian Newey are a team that push everything to the absolute limits and exploit every loophole they will get. And that is what the history books show in Formula 1 that to win races and to win Championships, it is only the teams that do that, that get the edge on the other teams."
