The FIA has declared the Bib affair surrounding Red Bull over and does not want to carry out any further investigations into this matter.
The association had attached seals to the car before the weekend in Austin to ensure that the racing team did not obstruct the front part of the underbody under parc ferme rules.
The competitors had these fears because the team supposedly had a device with which the height of the vehicle could be adjusted from the cockpit – which Red Bull denied.
The FIA then took a closer look at the system in Austin and appears to be happy with what they saw. Although head of technology Nikolas Tombazis says that it is impossible to determine whether Red Bull has used the tool illegally in the past, he does not believe it is necessary to pursue the issue further.
“Can I say with absolute certainty whether there has ever been anything irregular? No. Can I say the matter is closed? Yes, absolutely,” he emphasizes.
“It is difficult to prove retroactively what exactly happened and we do not believe we are able to investigate the situation two years from now,” he says, referring to the demands of McLaren managing director Zak Brown, who is one Wanted to clarify the past.
“Since the design is not illegal…”
And he sees no reason to carry out further investigations based only on speculation: “If we decide to escalate the matter and go to the stewards or the tribunal or whatever, we usually want to have reasonable leads that not just based on hearsay or speculation,” he clarifies.
“Because the design is not illegal, we believe the right action is to say, ‘Well, okay, certain things need to happen to make sure there are no ongoing concerns.’ But we also have to draw the line and say that there are certain things that we can’t dwell on.”
Tombazis says that it would not be realistic to think that an analysis of surveillance cameras in the garage would be enough to have evidence of a violation: “It is allowed to check things on the car and it is a question of how easy that is,” he says.
“If you had to remove the entire body and do 50 things, then of course it would be visible on camera. But for something as simple and quick as this, I don’t think you can realistically check that with cameras or virtual images.”
According to Tombazi’s surveys, it doesn’t make sense
While some senior paddock figures have suggested that the FIA should formally speak to Red Bull employees or seek out potential informants to be absolutely certain that it has never been used in the past, Tombazis does not believe this is a way forward it’s worth pursuing.
“We always have to remember that we are dealing with people,” he says. “We’re dealing with people whose conditions are changing: with loyalties – old loyalties and new loyalties. So you have to be a little careful about how you escalate that.”
“We also don’t want to attach lie detectors to people and conduct interrogations under bright lights or anything like that. That’s not what we want to do here,” said Tombazis.
“I’ve worked in teams in the past and hired people from other teams. I think sometimes you tend to say, well, where I’m from, we did XYZ. And sometimes you really, really need those comments interpret carefully.”
“You can’t just base an escalation on a few comments like that.”
Source: www.sport.de
