The FIA has issued a technical directive to close the loophole exploited by Red Bull at the German Grand Prix last weekend.
This was predicted by The F1 Times on Monday after a technical working group (TWG) meeting took place to discusss the matter.
The directive, whilst not public, will force Red Bull to revert to an engine map used at a previous race which doesn’t infringe upon the rule clarification.
Ahead of the German GP, both RB8 cars were reported to the stewards by FIA technical delegate Jo Bauer for what he believed to be an infringement of Article 5.5.3. of the technical regulations.
However, a few hours later the stewards cleared the cars to race after agreeing that the engine map in question went against the ‘spirit’ of the regulations, but the way in which the specific regulation was written, meant the cars were in fact legal.
The directive is believed to specify that a team must elect a ‘standard’ engine map used at one of the four opening races, which must then be approved by the FIA.
The torque curves above 6,000rpm must not vary by +/- two percent from that ‘standard’ engine map.
It’s not certain how this will affect Red Bull’s pace as figures haven’t been released on what exactly the outfit were doing which caught the eye of Jo Bauer.
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