Unworkable regulations...

[angst]

At the beginning of this season the FIA announced that a team (unnamed) had been found to be using illegal driver aids on their car. Why was the team unnamed? If the team had indeed broken the rules should they not have been fined, at the very least?
There are only two explanatons I can think of. One is that the FIA did not want any damage doing to the team in question, and basically turned a blind eye to the transgressions (I think we know where the finger would point given this scenario..) and two that to name the team and not have sufficient evidence could have left the FIA open to legal action by the party involved.
The former I think can be diregarded, as I don't see why they would ever mention the fact that they had found illegal driving aids. The latter, on the other hand leaves some very serious questions to be asked. The unfortunate thing about electronic driver aids is that they can be loaded up and then wiped from the databanks of the CPUs on the cars, so gathering evidence of their existence is virtually impossible. Aswell as the fact that different encodings are used by each team and the stewards are at the mercy of the teams to be completely honest about what does what in the CPU.
In other words we have a set of regulations which are very difficult, if not impossible to police. If this is the case then the FIA have to address this issue, or why bother having the regs in the first place?
Does anybody know how CART operate in the area of driver aids? Or do you think the FIA should just allow any form of electronic aid on the car?

[KC]

CART does not allow many driver aids at all. Throttle by wire electronics are not allowed because they can be altered by computer profiles to be something other than what the driver has inputted. One of the few driver aids allowed is "shift without lift" which allows the driver to maintain full acceleration while shifting. F1 uses a similar process by which the spark plug firing during the split second the shift is taking place is deprived of power thus lessening the strain on driveline components.

[Tris]

There was a comparable situation in another sport. Pedro Del Gardo won the Tour de France whilst doped up to the eye balls. The race organisers knew this but did not throw him out because it would have brought the sport into disrepute. Could it have been a team at the top pushing the boundaries? Ferrari? McLaren? In 1994 i have a feeling that Benetton were caught red handed but the sport could not tackle the damages of their exclusion after Imola.