Austin (AFP) – FIA technical inspectors visited the Red Bull garage after Friday’s opening practice at the United States Grand Prix to check on the champions’ controversial ride-height device fitted in the cars’ footwell. Red Bull’s number one mechanic, Ole Schack, showed the scrutineers from the sport’s governing body how the device was installed, worked, and was to be taped over to prevent its use.
McLaren team chief Zak Brown praised the sport’s ruling body for their swift response. He said: “Being able to ride a car lower is a competitive advantage; it makes the car quicker most of the time.” The FIA has done a very good job at identifying an element on a single race team, from what we can see, from having looked at all the open-source components. “It’s the only team that has the ability to adjust the ride height from inside the cockpit – whether they have or haven’t I have no idea, but having the ability to do it raises questions.”
Brown added, “It’s very clear in the regulations, and it’s a material breach that if you modify your race car, anything that you didn’t get permission on or driver comfort, goes very much against regulations – so they’ve decided, from what I’ve read, to put a seal on it.” He mentioned that he had heard from the team that you can’t adjust it when the car is fully race prepped. He concluded that there were still questions remaining that needed to be better explained and understood.
Red Bull responded by pointing out that McLaren had made changes to their rear wing, in an extension of the conversations they had with the FIA after the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, where it was seen to flex on the straight. A McLaren spokesperson said: “McLaren proactively offered to make some minor adjustments to our rear wing following the Azerbaijan GP. We have made minor adjustments to all our rear wings since Baku to varying extents to ensure no further issues in this area.”
Red Bull’s triple world champion Max Verstappen leads the world championship by 52 points over McLaren’s Lando Norris going into the closing six races and three sprints of the season.
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