Schumacher tells Ferrari to ‘keep your mouth shut’ after 2019 fuel flow saga
Ralf Schumacher: You could have thought of this idea yourself.
Remember Ferrari’s fuel flow controversy from 2019 that had rivals crying foul and Ferrari entering a secret agreement with the FIA?
Well, Ralf Schumacher does, and he’s told the Scuderia to “keep their mouths shut” when it comes to the alleged loophole that Mercedes and Red Bull have found in the wording of the new engine regulations.
Ralf Schumacher to Ferrari: You could have thought of this idea yourself
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Even before the first laps have been turned in anger this season, there’s controversy in the paddock with two teams reportedly having found a loophole in the wording of the engine regulation relating to compression ratio.
Article C.5.4.3. of the 2026 Technical Regulations states that: “No cylinder of the engine may have a geometric compression ratio higher than 16.0.
“The procedure to measure this value will be detailed by each PU Manufacturer and executed at ambient temperature.”
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However, it’s being alleged that the wording has resulted in two of the power unit manufacturers, said to be Red Bull Powertrains and Mercedes, interpreting this as the compression ratio has to be met when being measured in ambient conditions, but that it can run at a higher ratio on track. The loophole could be worth as much as 15bph, equating to four-tenths a lap.
Technical experts met with the FIA earlier this month, but there was no resolution with a further meeting on the cards.
Ferrari‘s power unit technical director Enrico Gualtieri told PlanetF1.com that they “trust” the FIA to manage the situation.
“We are certainly trusting them for managing the topic in the proper way, going through the procedures and the governance that is in place by regulation, and we completely trust that the process could come into an ending in the next days and weeks,” he said.
However, former F1 driver Schumacher reckons Ferrari should probably sit quietly given its 2019 fuel saga in which rivals suspected the Italian stable of exceeding the maximum fuel flow. That led to a number of technical directives, with Ferrari entering a confidential agreement with the FIA that negated its engine’s advantage.
“I think Ferrari, of all the teams, should keep their mouths shut,” Schumacher said on Sky Deutschland’s latest Backstage Boxengasse. “I still remember well that in the past, fuel also came from places it shouldn’t have come from.
“If a rule is written in such a way that there’s room for interpretation, and someone is clever enough to exploit that and it holds, then that’s also a risk you take. Five FIA engineers are trying to stop 2000 engineers from finding a better idea. That’s always been Formula 1.”
The German applauded the brilliance of the engineers who found the loophole, saying that’s simply “innovation”.
“You put a lot of time and money into something like this, and it can completely backfire,” he added. “The engineers at Mercedes will have weighed this very carefully.
“I take my hat off to that. This is Formula 1. Innovation.”
Schumacher reiterated to Ferrari: “Keep your mouth shut and work on it. You could have thought of this idea yourself.”
The German’s comment comes amidst unsubstantiated claims that Ferrari could protest the result of the Australian Grand Prix over the engine controversy.
However, the FIA is determined to ensure the matter is laid to rest before the teams take to the track at the Albert Park circuit.
“I don’t think there is any discussion of people specifically breaching, as such. Indeed, we don’t even know what people’s solutions are, so I think there is a bit of some people jumping the gun and making noise,” the FIA’s single-seater technical director Nikolas Tombazis told Racingnews365.
“I would say the word loophole has quite a few meanings, and I think it is fair to say that there are areas in which the rules are not clear to everybody.
“The number one objective is to make sure this gets completely put to bed in a totally absolute black and white way before the first race, so we don’t have any further discussions.”
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