A revealing article regarding the ongoing war in F1.
By Spyros Pettas
Ferrari's SF70H of 2017 was a truly revolutionary car. It featured a floor that contained the gearbox's liquids and nobody could explain how it worked warm, in an area where you need low temperature for underpressure (suction).
Fia, the governing body of the Sport, declared after pressure from Mercedes and Red Bull that in Canada 2017 this type of floor would be banned.
Later in 2018, the Fia ruled that Ferrari's extremely powerful bipolar ERS (or MGU-H) would be banned after Spa along with the contractive suspension baring hydraulic dampers that worked beautifully in Sector 2.
In 2019 Pirelli brought “a la carte” tyres for Mercedes and the continuous directives fought against Ferrari's 50-60 BHP advantage of that time. Rumors have it that Ferrari put liquid from the intercooler in the engine and Fia prohibited that possibility.
The problem is that all these years Ferrari under the direction of Maurizio Arrivabene and later Mattia Binotto never really fought against those changes. Where is a… Jean Alesi when you need him!...
They are probably happy with the bonus that their team gets for being the more historical team of the Sport and the road car sales.
F1's phenomenal war took another twist in 2020 when Fia ruled in favor of Mercedes using DAS system when it's utterly illegal with the suspension settings changing while the car is in motion. Fia's excuse that DAS is part of the steering system is simply ridiculous.
Red Bull again was the only one that fought against DAS but in vane.
Mercedes has in the pocket the next two championships (2020-21) and F1's product is a truly boring one...