Ferrari has downplayed the relevance of a tyre test it conducted on Pirelli’s behalf at Barcelona between the Bahrain and Spanish GPs.
Ferrari has justified its involvement in the tyre test in the same way as Mercedes has, in that it was simply responding to a request Pirelli made in a letter to the teams in March last year. As Pirelli’s Paul Hembery told this blog in Monaco, “some replied, some didn’t.”
The key point is that Ferrari ran a 2011 car on behalf of Pirelli, in stark contrast to the later Mercedes test at the same venue with a 2013 machine. Thus there is no question of Ferrari having contravened the FIA sporting regulations by running a current car.
The car was also run at Barcelona not by the race team but by the Corse Clienti division, which takes care of cars owned by wealthy customers, as well as conducting street demonstrations and any other running involving non-current cars, such as young driver tests.
In Monaco Stefano Domenicali made it clear that Ferrari’s protest against Mercedes was focussed solely its use of the W04 – on the basis that the Italian team would be happy to test with its own F138, if that is ultimately deemed legal.
“For a bit more of a year there has been a possibility of performing these so-called 1000kms tests that Pirelli does for its own tyre development,” a team spokesman told this blog. “For Ferrari it has always been very clear that these tests could not make use of a 2013 car. In terms of running an old car, the matter is quite irrelevant, because it is totally within the rules.
“This is something that we have never denied, this was very transparent. All the teams have this possibility. The tyres, the specification of the test, is something that Pirelli knows, not us.”
However, while Ferrari clearly has not broken any FIA rules, rival teams were not aware of the test at the time, and have been somewhat surprised as details have gradually emerged – and thus the issue is more one of a lack of transparency from Pirelli, and as with the Mercedes test, its contractual commitment to the FIA to ensure sporting equity.
Until the Ferrari test Pirelli had conducted its development with a 2010 Renault, run by the Lotus show car team, but with other teams kept fully in the loop about what was going on. They were given clear guarantees that Lotus would not gain any advantage, and sent reports of the test results.
This was not the case with either the Ferrari or Mercedes tests.
Adam Cooper F1 
Wasn’t the Ferrari test used with 2014 GP2 tyres?
Somehow I think not…
When are we going to hear whether the FIA are or aren’t going to refer the matter to the Tribunal? 4 days is quite a wait given the speed of their initial response on Sunday. Have they got to get the WSMC together first to see whether it should progress further first or do they seriously believe the scandal will die down?
11 more days…
If Pirelli had informed everyone beforehand than one thing is sure and that is that the tests would never have been held because teams simply cannot agree on anything. And even though I do understand why teams are miffed about the lack of communication I also understand why Pirelli does not want to communicate too much because of the inability of the teams to agree on anything, especially when it’s about testing and tires.
They have a contractual obligation to provide sporting equity and fairness, and that overrides everything else…
And because it overrides everything and because there is virtually no active involvement from the FIA in this situation F1 finds itself in a constant stalemate …
It’s not right what Pirelli has done but looking at the inability of the FIA and the teams to create reasonable working conditions for Pirelli I understand why Pirelli used this route to accomplish what must be done in order to achieve the objectives of providing every team with tires that work like specified in the contract between the FIA and Pirelli for 2014. It’s not an easy situation for a tire manufacturer to work in. (How can anyone expect from a tire manufacturer to deliver when they have to work in this situation?)
Thank you for being all over Testgate, Adam! More like this, please 🙂
Interesting, given Ferrrari (along with Red Bull) lodged the complaint in the first place.
The complaint is not with the test, if I remember, Red Bull took advantage of these types of tests last year. The complaint is that Mercedes used this years model of car, which gives them a clear advantage. Based on their performance in the last race and how they have performed in previous races, I would agree that they now have an advantage.
I think you’ll find neither Red Bull nor anyone else was involved in ‘these types of test’ prior to Ferrari.
Talk about hypocrisy. Current car or not, they can still see how the tires react to various settings. Their 2011 car is not radically different either, it’s still the same weight and downforce levels. Let’s also not delude ourselves into thinking the corse clienti team wasn’t feeding all their data back to the main team.
The rules state that the 2011 car can be used in such tests. Its funny to see the British media going all out at Ferrari for that, they obviously would love to shield the team that has got a British driver driving for it. British hypocrisy rules once again!!!
Yeah right… This whole saga is Britain against Ferrari. I think you missed the point.