FIA Single Seater Director Nikolas Tombazis has ruled out the Formula 1 governing body investigating the Red Bull front bib adjuster any further, according to reports.
Red Bull has courted controversy during the United States Grand Prix weekend, with the revelation of a component that can adjust the height of the front bib on the RB20.
Collaboration with the FIA has seen a seal placed on the device, as the likes of McLaren CEO Zak Brown have pushed for a deeper understanding as to whether Red Bull had adjusted the front bib illegally under parc ferme conditions.
Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner put this down to “paranoia,” revealing the part had been installed for the last three years and he explained to Sky Sports that “Every car has a tool that they can adjust the front of the bib with.”
Tombazis also sees this as an open-and-shut case with his latest comments, as reported by Autosport.
“Honestly, can I say with complete certainty about whether there’s ever been anything irregular, No. Can I say that the matter is closed? Yes, absolutely.”
Several factors halting the FIA from investigating Red Bull further
The FIA Single Seater Director went on to explain the governing body’s process behind escalating accusations of technical illegalities.
“Generally, when we decide to escalate the matter, and to go to the stewards or tribunal or whatever, we want to have some reasonable indication – so not based on hearsay or just speculation,” he said.
“As the design is not illegal, we believe that the correct action is to say: ‘Well, okay, certain things need to happen in order to guarantee there’s no ongoing sort of concern.’ But we also have to also draw a line in time and say that there are certain things we can’t go into much more detail [with].”
Brown, when speaking during Friday’s press conference at the Circuit of the Americas, wanted the FIA to look through the entire history of the front bib device, and the manner with which it had been used.
Tombazis ruled this out, however, claiming such an investigation is nigh on impossible to carry out.
“To go and retroactively actually prove exactly what has happened before is difficult, and we don’t think we have the ability to go and investigate two years’ worth of situation,” he said.
FIA proceeding with caution over front bib row
Horner explained that to operate the front bib adjuster, the Red Bull mechanics need “to have the pedals out, and other panels and pipework out, in order to be able to get to it. So, it’s like any other adjustment on the car.”
Such is the complexity in adjusting the device, and its location in front of the footwell, Tombazis ruled out CCTV analysis in the Red Bull garage being able to point out any sort of skullduggery.
“People are allowed to check things on the car, and it’s a matter of how easy that is,” Tombazis explained.
“If you have to dismount the whole bodywork and do 50 things, then obviously it would be visible in the camera. But on something as simple and as quick as that, I don’t think you can realistically check that on cameras or virtual images or so on.
“We also don’t want to be fitting lie detectors on people and doing interrogations under bright lights, or something like that. That is not what we want to do here.
“I’ve obviously worked in the past in teams, quite a lot, and I’ve employed people from other teams. I think there’s sometimes a tendency to say, well, where I came from, we were doing XYZ.
“And sometimes one has to really interpret these comments very, very carefully. You cannot just base an escalation on a few comments like that.”
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