FIA investigation clears Ferrari of suspicions of cheating

Scuderia Ferrari has been cleared of suspicions of cheating by the FIA following an investigation into the team's energy recovery system.

Ferrari's rivals, namely Mercedes and Red Bull, had expressed concerns over the team's management of its battery system, suspecting the Scuderia's engineers had found a way to deploy more energy than allowed by the rules.

The FIA submitted Ferrari to extra monitoring of its ERS in Monaco, but has finally cleared the Scuderia of any transgression of the regulations.

"We had some concerns in Baku that were difficult to explain and we worked through it with them," explained FIA race director Charlie Whiting.

"(The rulebook) says that it is the duty of the competitor to satisfy the FIA that their car complies at all times and they were having difficulty satisfying us. Here, we are now satisfied."

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Whiting revealed that Mercedes' tech boss James Allison, who left Ferrari in 2016 to join the Silver Arrows squad, had approached the FIA before the Azerbaijan Grand Prix and raised question about Ferrari's ERS.

"The matter was exacerbated by unsubstantiated speculation that went through the paddock like wildfire," added Whiting.

The FIA race director admitted however that the governing body's representatives were left confused by Ferrari's initial explanations of how its sophisticated battery system was managed.

“Some things in the data we could not quite explain...," said Whiting.

"We went through it with Ferrari and they gave explanations which were not particularly convincing.

"We wanted to really get to the bottom of it and in Spain, they took some measures to make sure we understood it more and that we were seeing things that we were happy with."

FIA president Jean Todt lamented the fact that speculation about Ferrari's conformity was left to simmer in the press, insisting any suspicions expressed by a team should have been addressed by an official protest.

"If a team has some doubts, they could have made a protest," he said.

"It would be much more healthy rather than to manipulate the press to address the problem."

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