Stella says McLaren must accept FIA verdict on Red Bull bib tool

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella says he is happy to accept the FIA’s judgement that Red Bull did not break Formula 1’s rules over its front bib adjuster.

The presence of a device below the Red Bull cockpit that allowed a quick change of ride height fuelled suspicions that it could have been used by the team to adjust its front bib during parc ferme conditions – which would be a breach of the rules.

Although the FIA responded to concerns from Red Bull’s competitors about the potential exploitation of this device by fitting seals to it from this weekend’s United States Grand Prix, the governing body insisted there was no evidence it had been used against the regulations.

And on Saturday at Austin, the FIA’s head of single-seater matters Nikolaz Tombazis rejected a call from McLaren to investigate previous use of the device, by insisting that as far as he was concerned the matter was now finished.

“Can I say with complete certainty about whether there’s ever been anything irregular? No,” he said. “Can I say that the matter is closed? Yes, absolutely.”

While McLaren would undoubtedly like the FIA to probe a bit deeper into whether or not Red Bull ever used the device illegally, Stella thinks that it simply has to accept the verdict and now move on.

Asked by Autosport if the issue was now closed to McLaren, Stella said: “This matter at this stage of its development can be faced in different ways. You can close the matter, or you can keep pursuing the matter.

“But my point of view specifically is that when these kind of topics are in the hands of the FIA, the technical department, they are capable people with more information than we have as teams, and more tools to acquire more information than we have. They have the expertise.

“For me, I just trust what they do. And, if the FIA think that the matter is closed, I take it at face value, I accept it, the matter is closed, and I move on.”

Stella said he had some sympathy for the difficulties that the FIA faced in policing incredibly complex matters, and said it will perhaps never be known if Red Bull ever used the front bib tool.

“We as competitors, we should try and be more respectful of the FIA, because it’s not easy,” he added.

“It’s one of those roles that I wouldn’t exchange, because they are trying to stop competitors from trying to maximise the performance.

“Sometimes this performance is white,…