The cross between Formula 1 team leaders that ignited the controversy of the “White Ferrari”

This weekend Formula 1 will play the fourth date of the season with the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at the legendary Autodromo Enzo and Dino Ferrari in Imola. Every time you run on the historic track it is special and now a thick atmosphere is added by the controversy of the “white Ferrari” that continues to raise its temperature. These are the cars of the Haas team that made a quality leap this year and are under the spotlight for the information they share with Ferrari, the squad that dominates at the start of the championship.

Scuderia provides engines to the American team, which has a subsidiary in the Italian team's factory in Maranello, as Motorsport revealed. After the strong statements of McLaren director Andreas Seidl, who demanded that such partnerships be banned, now Toto Wolff, head and shareholder of Mercedes, spoke, who in the first three races did not fight for victory, something striking since it is the squad that won the Constructors' Championships from 2014 to 2021.

“I think reform is needed, because we want to avoid these kinds of discussions that we have now and the controversy of the last few days or weeks. Everyone deserves to perform well, and people should be recognized when they have done a good job,” said Wolff in a series of testimonies that were also collected by Motorsport.

“But some of the changes of work or entity in the same premises are only creating arguments that are not necessary for the sport. As for us, we had the case of the wind tunnel with Aston Martin in the wind tunnel that we had two years ago. What a shitstorm was generated. But we have been managing it with the utmost diligence,” he added.

“But in the future, if we were to compromise our, say, earning capacity, we must keep an eye on it, because none of the teams should be able to cooperate in the way we are seeing today,” concluded the Austrian team-manager.

Ferrari provides engines for Haas and Alfa Romeo. While Mercedes does the same with Aston Martin, McLaren and Williams. Aston Martin also buys Mercedes gearboxes and rear suspension, but performance director Tom McCullough said last month that “the whole package of radiators and the cooling side is not something they tell us. Honda delivers boosters to Red Bull and Alpha Tauri and Alpine uses Renault braces.

Seidl returned to the charge and said: “It is clear to us that F1 should be a championship of 10 constructors, or 11 or 12, which means that there should be no transfer of intellectual property related to the main performance. The most that should be allowed to share is the power units and the internal parts of the gearbox. That's all, no infrastructure should be shared, etc.”

“When you allow that, there will also be a transfer on the side of the car and we know from the FIA that it is difficult to monitor. And if something is not possible to monitor it, it must be banned,” he said.

“And it has to be done for two reasons: because it makes B teams too competitive compared to teams like us and, at the same time, because A-teams benefit from that too, which is even more worrying for us,” he justified.

“We only hope that with all the dialogue that is taking place with F1, with the FIA and also between several teams, we will finally see some action in the coming years to correct this situation,” he said.

However, not all teams share that relations have to be changed. Alfa Romeo boss Fred Vasseur said that current regulations are effective. “I'm not sure we need to change the regulation, it's exactly the same story as the financial aspect: we have to apply the rules,” he said. “And the rules are strict enough to make it fair. And if you rely on the rules, it's more than okay.”

“That's why I think we're trusting the FIA, because they have to do the job of regulator and they're doing it, they're on it. And for me, it's okay like that,” he said.

While Alpine director Otmar Szafnauer aligned himself with Seidl's statements that the key to the matter is that the FIA can adequately control any transfer of knowledge between teams. “I agree with Fred, in an ideal world, the rules are quite clear. The difficulty is to keep an eye on it,” he said.

However, he called for more presence of the governing body, the International Automobile Federation (FIA): “If monitoring those rules is impossible, then I think we should change the rules that can be monitored to make it fair. So I think we need more discussion with the FIA, and maybe a little reform of the rules so that they can be controlled.”

Although one of the most sought after voices was that of Haas boss Gunther Steiner, who lowered his decibels and argued that, in the end, all that matters is that the FIA is satisfied with his team's relationship with Ferrari. Asked by Seidl's criticism that partnerships between teams are limited only to the gearbox and engine, Steiner said: “Yes, fortunately Andreas does not lead the FIA. So he can suggest it, but there is an established government that will define that. Sometimes there are things in the rules that if they don't suit you, you can't go and change them.”

“Mercedes won the world championship eight years in a row, they had a very strong engine and well for them, they did a good job. But no one said 'oh, now we have to change the engine rule, because Mercedes is winning everything, 'he repaired.

“There is a governing body there. And if certain people believe that they can change everything just by talking, I don't think that's going to happen,” ended the head of Haas whose cars were named in the Máxima environment as the “white Ferrari”, because of the performance they had on the first three dates.

In 2020, something similar happened with the “Mercedes Rosas”, as Racing Point cars were named because of their resemblance to the German monopostos. After complaints from some teams, the FIA carried out an investigation in which it was found that the brake lines and were the same as the Silver Arrows of 2019. The English team (today Aston Martin), was sanctioned with the removal of 15 points and 400 thousand euros.

One of the Haas drivers, Kevin Magnussen, scored 12 points and the North American team ranks seventh in the Constructors' Championship, but came third after the start in Bahrain. In 2021, the team finished last, without any units with an uncompetitive car driven by Mick Schumacher, who is next this year, and Nikita Mazepin, who had to get off due to international pressures due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the FIA's sanction for Russian drivers to run with licenses from his country in events supervised by the governing body.

After three dates, Ferrari is the team that leads the way with two wins for Charles Leclerc, in Bahrain and Australia. The Monegasque leads the Drivers' Championship and the Scuderia the Constructors' Championship. In the second race Max Verstappen celebrated, with Red Bull.

It should be recalled that this year F1 released a technical regulation that drastically changed the aerodynamics of cars. In the race for who has the best chassis and especially its pontoons to allow perfect airflow, Ferrari put first, but the design of the Haas car is different from that of La Rossa. That is why the suspicions that there would be internal elements to the cars that both squads would be sharing.

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