Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz insists that he has no knowledge of the claims levelled against the Scuderia after the controversial fallout from the Pirelli tyre test in Imola.
Having been knocked out of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at the start of the race by Daniel Ricciardo, Sainz joined Charles Leclerc in a prototype tyre test at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari to gather information as Pirelli begin putting next year’s rubber together.
The Maranello squad were joined by AlphaTauri, Alfa Romeo and Alpine as the cars were sent out to do some running in the week that followed the race in Imola.
READ: FIA concludes investigation into Ferrari wrongdoing
Due to the fact that not all of the teams were present, and owing to the fact that the test is designed solely to gather information on tyres, the FIA rule that the engineers have to put the same spec on the car that they have run during the season up to that point.
“Cars at these tests must only use components of a specification that have been used in at least one (1) race or TCC [testing of current cars] during the current Championship year. These cars must fully comply with the provisions of the Technical Regulations,” they say in Article 10.8 of the sporting regulations.
READ: Carlos Sainz warns he will face uncharted waters due to hefty crash
However, there are suspicions that the Scuderia installed a new floor onto the car in Italy, leading to a brief investigation by the motorsport governing body, at the end of which they concluded that there had been no contravention of the rules.
Ahead of the Miami Grand Prix weekend, Sainz maintains that he does not know anything about the particulars of the investigation.
“I’m not aware of any of that at the moment,” he said.
“For the specifics of the floor, whatever we ran in the Imola test, you can ask Pirelli or Ferrari what we did. I have nothing to say right now. I have no idea.”
Sainz qualified second for the race in Florida just behind team-mate Leclerc and, having suffered misfortune in qualifying in Melbourne and Imola, he affirmed that he “will take” that starting position having also found the wall earlier this weekend and had limited running as a result.