Mercedes knows what they do with their engine is 100% legal, they also know what sort of performance is possible within the regulations. They also know that the sort of improvement needed to make the jump Ferrari did would take multiple years of development, if it was even possible. The Jump Ferrari made, from everything I've read, the performance of Ferrari's engine was impossible given the fuel flow limit - that's why they, Mercedes and Redbull(plus others), knew Ferrari were cheating.
They first thought it was a oil exchange via the inter-cooler, as Ferrari use a oil-air inter-cooler, then when this was debunked they looked at everything and concluded it was nefarious, read illegal, what Ferrari was up to. So then they looked at ways that could be used to cheats and they saw the weak point being the single fuel flow sensor, if they got around that then they could use more fuel - happy days. The problem was Ferrari were too greedy! They, instead of just adding 20HP, a massive jump at this stage of engine regulations, they used in the order of 50HP+ on occasion, read quali' and some race laps, so that made it obvious to anyone that had their GPS traces. They tried to say it was the aero perfomance of their car, being low drag concept, but that was rubbish. For 2020 they have added another fuel flow sensor, in the fuel tank if memory serves, that cannot be tampered with.
Then Ferrari say that this years engine will be slower than last years as they've prioritised performance - yeah okay then... https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/148501/ferrari-2020-engine-not-as-strong-against-rivals
Other teams have cheated in F1, so Ferrari join that illustrious list, others have massively bent and otherwise bent the rules, and others have just gone against the 'spirit' of the rules. What I find amazing that people in Ferrari thought that 1)the risk was acceptable this late in stable engine regs that sort of gain is unheard of. and 2)That they would get away with it. They have sort of gotten away with it as no-one official has said that Ferrari cheated in 2019, but they did the next best thing with that press release - all but saying it *if* you read between the line a little bit.
As for insider information, I do have one person I know in a team but I don't have anything official, or otehrwise, from him that I can say, only that a lot of people are VERY angry about this situation behind the scenes. I've seen some reports of this in the news but not to the extent that my friend has reported - we will see if that changes over time.
They first thought it was a oil exchange via the inter-cooler, as Ferrari use a oil-air inter-cooler, then when this was debunked they looked at everything and concluded it was nefarious, read illegal, what Ferrari was up to. So then they looked at ways that could be used to cheats and they saw the weak point being the single fuel flow sensor, if they got around that then they could use more fuel - happy days. The problem was Ferrari were too greedy! They, instead of just adding 20HP, a massive jump at this stage of engine regulations, they used in the order of 50HP+ on occasion, read quali' and some race laps, so that made it obvious to anyone that had their GPS traces. They tried to say it was the aero perfomance of their car, being low drag concept, but that was rubbish. For 2020 they have added another fuel flow sensor, in the fuel tank if memory serves, that cannot be tampered with.
Then Ferrari say that this years engine will be slower than last years as they've prioritised performance - yeah okay then... https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/148501/ferrari-2020-engine-not-as-strong-against-rivals
Other teams have cheated in F1, so Ferrari join that illustrious list, others have massively bent and otherwise bent the rules, and others have just gone against the 'spirit' of the rules. What I find amazing that people in Ferrari thought that 1)the risk was acceptable this late in stable engine regs that sort of gain is unheard of. and 2)That they would get away with it. They have sort of gotten away with it as no-one official has said that Ferrari cheated in 2019, but they did the next best thing with that press release - all but saying it *if* you read between the line a little bit.
As for insider information, I do have one person I know in a team but I don't have anything official, or otehrwise, from him that I can say, only that a lot of people are VERY angry about this situation behind the scenes. I've seen some reports of this in the news but not to the extent that my friend has reported - we will see if that changes over time.
