It’s “case closed” as far as Fred Vasseur is concerned as rivals continue to call for rethink on starts.
In much the same way that Max Verstappen was way ahead of the game in questioning how the rules overhaul would affect the racing, Ferrari was on the ball in terms of predicting that race starts were going to be an issue.
Both the Dutchman and the Italian racing team were ignored, yet proven right.
Rival teams, along with the FIA, clearly thought the Maranello outfit was up to something and blocked any attempt at change.
Then came pre-season testing and immediately it became clear that starts were going to be an issue… however, not for Ferrari, whose engine featured a smaller turbo and thereby aided a quicker, cleaner getaway.
Whilst safety was the main point, it was clear that rivals were miffed by Ferrari’s advantage and argued for a change to the regulations, which the Italian team promptly vetoed.
Step forward George Russell.
“Unfortunately, sometimes when you’re trying to make changes for the good of the sport, if a team has a competitive edge, like Ferrari at the moment with the race starts, they wouldn’t wish to see anything changing.
“I think half the grid got caught out by a quirk in the rules for the race start in Melbourne,” added the Mercedes driver, who was mysteriously silent during the compression ratio saga, other than to repeatedly insist that Ferrari was the benchmark power unit.
“We now know that, but because there was some resistance from some teams to change, we’re just going to have to work around it,” he added.
Ferrari had already agreed to a change to the start procedure – allowing an extra 5 seconds to the process in order to build turbo power – but draws the line at changing the regulations further.
“I think that we already changed massively the rule of the start with the five second story,” says Vasseur. “One year ago I went to the FIA, I raised the hand on the starting procedure to say guys it will be difficult.
“The reply was clear that we have to design the car fitting with the regulation and not to change the regulation fitting with the car,” adds the Frenchman.
“We designed the car fitting with the regulation, the change of the five seconds, the blue light story, didn’t help us at all, but I think at one stage enough is enough.”
Asked if this means that, as far as Ferrari is concerned, further changes to the start procedure was essentially “case closed”, he replied: “For me, yes.”