Ferrari is preventing the FIA from revealing details of the settlement reached over the legality of their 2019 engine, president Jean Todt says.
The governing body confirmed at the end of February that an agreement had been reached with the Italian team following a technical investigation into whether their power unit was breaching the fuel flow limit by tricking the sensor placed on every car.
Later, it was clarified the reason for the slap on the wrist was the FIA could not definitively determine whether Ferrari’s engine was illegal despite their suspicions but Todt has come under pressure himself because of his prior role as team boss at Maranello.
“If you ask me, I would love to be able to give all the details of the situation, but they [Ferrari] opposed,” the Frenchman told Autosport this week.
“So, I mean, they have been sanctioned but we cannot give the detail of the sanction.
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“Clearly we could have said nothing, but we felt that it would have been wrong not to say that the Ferrari case had been discussed and that there had been a sanction,” Todt noted.
“Honestly, it’s very simple. Very simple. We have put so much effort to come to our conclusions, which they [the teams] do not agree.
“Unfortunately, it is very much a fait accompli of technical matters because our technicians say ‘we cannot for sure demonstrate as much as we should that they [Ferrari] were not legal’.”
Despite the FIA’s best explanations, seven teams initially threatened possible legal action against them to try and obtain more details, that number is now six after Mercedes left the group.
And Todt has tried to ease their concerns, first through writing a letter to those outfits.
“I have spoken individually with some of the seven teams,” he said.
“One of them [Mercedes] decided it was completely out of it, despite having been one of the leaders.
“Since then, I never heard about any other state of [change of heart], but I read in the press that it was a discussion between two chairmen.
“I received a letter in answer to my letter, where they confirmed they understand the position of the FIA,” Todt added.
“But it didn’t mean they were happy of the position of the FIA and they would love Ferrari to allow the visibility of the case, which I would love too. But we can’t.”