Ferrari and the FIA could face fallout after it was revealed the two parties reached a "settlement" regarding the Italian team's engine from last year.
The legality of their power unit was called into question by Mercedes and Red Bull after the summer break, with a technical directive on the monitoring of fuel flow, currently limited to 100kg per hour, appearing to reduce Ferrari's performance from the United States GP onwards.
That was proceeded by an investigation of the unit by the governing body, resulting in the undisclosed settlement which the FIA announced just as pre-season testing was ending last Friday.
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While publicly there has been no reaction, the BBC says privately some rival teams are "shocked" and "angry" to hear of an agreement which ultimately now creates more questions than answers.
Firstly, it needs asking if Ferrari's engine was actually legal for the duration of the 2019 F1 season, something not mentioned in the statement.
If the answer is no, as the lack of punishment suggests, then why not simply declare as much to avoid generating any speculation.
And finally, why should teams trust the FIA to police F1 properly if no definitive answer on legality was made?
It is also understood that Ferrari was forced into making significant changes to their engine for 2020 as a result of the technical investigation.
And that appears to have actually seen the unit take a step back in terms of performance based on top speed figures from testing.
“I think in terms of overall performance on the power and the engine, we are not as strong as we were last year," team boss Matta Binotto conceded via Motorsport.
"We were somehow focused on our reliability and that is somehow compromising eventually the performance.
“But the drag is significantly affecting the speed. I think when you look for better speed you need to look for the drag and the power of the engine itself. We will work on both items for the future no doubt.
“Drag is the one you may eventually address earlier compared to the power unit: for that you need to wait for the second power unit.”
This is likely to be a story that rumbles all the way to Melbourne next weekend.
