FIA to keep a monitoring eye on Ferrari in Montreal

Following its investigation into Ferrari's energy recovery system, the FIA confirmed the legality of the Scuderia's SF71-H, but the governing body will continue to monitor the team's ERS in Canada next week.

Ferrari was suspected - mainly by Mercedes - of running an ERS capable of producing more than the 120kW energy limit delivered to the MGU-K.

While it was believed the FIA had fitted an extra sensor to the SF71 to monitor its ERS, F1 race director Charlie Whiting denied the claim, and said a more complicated monitoring procedure had been used in Monte Carlo.

A simpler software-based procedure shall be implemented for Montreal where the FIA will be keeping a watchful eye on Ferrari's ERS.

"Via a complex routine we were able to be satisfied that the Ferrari was OK but we don’t want to have to go through that all the time in order to make sure, so we would rather additional measurements are made," Whiting told Motorsport.com.

"What we will have for Canada will be a better system which will help us get things done much, much quicker, because it’s taken us a couple of races to get to the bottom of it.

• Wolff 'disturbed' by FIA disclosures in Ferrari ERS case

"We want them to put extra monitoring on, but at the moment we’re having to do it in a painstaking way.

"It takes a little longer than we would like. We’ll arrive at the same conclusion, I would imagine. In Canada they will be providing a change of software," he added.

"What we’re trying to do is to monitor exactly what the differences between the two halves of the battery are. That’s the crux of the matter.

"Other systems treat their battery as one. Ferrari, it’s one battery, but they treat it as two. That’s the fundamental difference, I don’t think it’s a secret I’m giving away there."

©WRI

The difference between Ferrari's ERS and that of its rivals has complicated the FIA's monitoring task, but also its understanding of the system. Whiting admitted there was still a grey area that required more clarity and comprehension for the governing body.

"We really have been trying to get to the point where we are entirely satisfied that the power being delivered to the MGU-K is correct," said Whiting.

"It was difficult to explain exactly what we were seeing, that’s what we kept going through with Ferrari, because it’s a very complex and totally different system to anybody else’s.

"And in much the same way as we do with other bits of the car, we have to understand these things, it just took us a bit longer to understand what was going on.

"Their duty is to satisfy us that the car complies, as you know, but they were finding it hard to satisfy us.

"I think it’s wrong to say that Ferrari didn’t communicate, because they’ve been very helpful the whole way.

"It’s just been very painstaking and detailed work to try to get to the bottom of how their system works, and hence give us the comfort that we need."

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