Red Bull has denied claims the ‘floor hole’ saga will hurt the team’s performance in Canada this weekend.
Despite team boss Christian Horner insisting the RB8 was fully legal when Mark Webber won the recent Monaco grand prix, the FIA has ruled that the holes in the floor ahead of the rear wheels were in fact not compliant with the rules.
“There are other cars running in similar situations,” Horner was quoted by the Mirror. “As I say, we’re totally comfortable with the car, that it complies with the regulations and we’re not going to change it.”
He said that, however, before Charlie Whiting wrote to the teams late last week, clarifying that any car with offending holes in the floor will have to be modified ahead of Montreal.
Gary Anderson, a former F1 technical boss who is now a pundit for British television BBC, said that prior to the clarification, the governing body was simply wrong to tell Red Bull its solution was legal.
“I think there has been a system breakdown at the FIA over the issue,” he said. “It’s not Red Bull’s fault, nor that of the other teams.”
Dr Helmut Marko, who reports directly to Red Bull’s team owner Dietrich Mateschitz, denied the saga has dented Webber and Sebastian Vettel’s chances of performing well this weekend in Canada.
“We had not planned to use this floor in Montreal anyway,” he is quoted by setanta.com. “Therefore we do not need to modify the cars in Canada.”
And according to Spain’s Marca, the rule clarification will apply to “other teams as well”, Marko added.
Source:GMM
