The Ferrari team principal was categorical
On the eve of the Chinese GP there were discussions regarding Departureswith some teams who would have liked further changes to the procedures to overcome the insurmountable problems linked for example to the size of the turbo and the times required to bring the turbine to a sufficient speed to have a good starting point when turning off the traffic lights.
The FIA did not go beyond the five second ‘pre-start’ already granted in the inaugural weekend in Australia and in China Ferrari was once again very quick to exploit its start’slingshot‘ to take the lead on the first lap in both the Sprint and GP.
The team principal of the Scuderia di Maranello Frederic Vasseur in the press conference he was categorical in explaining why it would be extremely unfair to further penalize Ferrari with adjustments to the regulations to help rival teams: “I think we have already substantially changed the starting rules with the five second pre-start. A year ago I went to the FIA warning everyone that the start would be difficult with these rules and I was told that we need to design the car so that it complies with the regulations, not modify the regulations to adapt them to the car. We designed the car to respect the regulations and already the five seconds penalize us. Enough is enough. For me the question of starts is closed.”
