A well-known test, within the regulatory parameters, aroused reactions from Frédéric Vasseur. The fact: we are in the week before Spanish Grand Prix. Red Bull presents itself in Imola with a 2022 RB18 to carry out a series of tests which clearly have the aim of understanding some operational dynamics that are not working on the RB20.
Data accumulated to be compared with those resulting from the mid-May Grand Prix won by Verstappen, who two weeks ago had climbed into the cockpit of the first ground-effect Red Bull to lap between the curbs of the Enzo and Dino Ferrari.
Milton Keynes exploited that part of the normative corpus that speaks of TPC, that is to say Testing of Previous Car. Teams are allowed to carry out private tests with older cars for training or to allow young drivers to become familiar with the cars. A bit like what Mercedes is doing with Andrea Kimi Antonelli who, according to Toto Wolff, will not make his debut in a free practice session until he turns 18, which will happen on August 25th.
![Ferrari Red Bull](https://www.formulacritica.it/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Red-Bul-RB18-jpg.webp)
Ferrari vs Red Bull: the TPC system "exonerates" Milton Keynes
From this year, the 2022 single-seaters can also be used for testing. To prevent the cars from being used as laboratories to transfer technologies onto the 2024 models, all components mounted on board must have been used at least once in an official test session or on a race weekend. Basically this serves to prevent teams from circumventing the rationale of the regulation by testing new parts.
Well, Red Bull respected these provisions exactly. But this thing, despite its procedural lawfulness, caused some annoyance for Fred Vasseur.
“This approach to testing is clearly development-focused. A difference could be made between tests conducted with regular drivers or with young drivers. In the first case, for me, it has more to do with development also because you do it a week before a race“. Point of view that smacks of accusation? No, Fred is keen to point out:
“I'm not complaining about Red Bull, I'm completely within the rules." Case closed? Nope: “[…] But that test was more development than anything else. It's clear that it was about development: what you can do with a young driver is another approach. Giving them the opportunity to put in the miles on the simulator and then develop them is another matter. We should divide these tests between days with the starting drivers and those without starting drivers“. So he closed the manager to the notebooks of The Race.
![Ferrari Austrian GP](https://www.formulacritica.it/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Vasseur-2-jpg.webp)
Why doesn't Ferrari operate like Red Bull?
In practice, Vasseur outlined Ferrari's operational plan: to have young people use the simulator drivers and then, based on the experience gathered, take them to the track with old cars. But the rules do not say that this is the only possible way nor do they place limitations on the use of registered drivers.
In short, Red Bull was not guilty of any infringement. Neither procedural nor ethical if someone started to raise doubts about the alleged spirit of the regulation, a concept that was very fashionable at the dawn of the 2022 season and, honestly, quite made you smile.
Ferrari is free to use the F1-75, the 2022 single-seater, with Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc to collect data and perhaps use it to promote some improvements to the SF-24. Why doesn't he do it? Wanting to be provocative, purely technical questions could be raised.
The principles defined with that model were largely disavowed by the Italian team which went in other directions with the versions of the 2023 and 2024 cars. Red Bull, on the other hand, continued in conceptual continuity, increasingly refining that vehicle.
Perhaps, behind Vasseur's complaints, lies the frustration of not being able to consider the F1-75 as a coherent technical benchmark. But this is just a personal and somewhat bad conjecture of the writer. Only those who work in Maranello know if it is true.
The fact is that the controversy, because that is what it is, has no reason to exist. And if Red Bull still excels, even if with difficulty, it is certainly not because of one or more test sessions carried out with the RB20 on a track that, all things considered, does not even have the characteristics of Montmelò. The advantage, perhaps, is the result of knowing how to make good use of every aspect of the current regulations. Thus hegemonic groups were created, without complaining about the status quo.
Crediti foto: Oracle Red Bull Racing, Scuderia Ferrari HP