[Rules] The FIA - what's occurring there?

[E.B]

Originally Posted by chunterer

That'll be an orange car from surrey then.

Orange car from Surrey with 'Chrome' highlights even.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

The FIA has issued an edict to take affect from the US GP about concerns certain teams have that an unnamed team has been using a device on the front bib that can allow it to be altered between qualifying and the race, a period during which the cars are supposed to be under parc ferme rules.


See: https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f...rick/10663272/

https://www.planetf1.com/news/red-bu...-us-grand-prix

So apparently Red Bull has admitted it is them and will be making changes to the RB20. My understanding is that the adjustment capability is not specifically illegal. What other teams (and FIA) are concerned about is that with the location for making the adjustment being in the cockpit, that it allows for potential easy of breaking parc ferme rules. This is apparently not a driver control, but the fear is that an engineer could easily covertly adjust without anyone noticing while in parc ferme.

In short, no proof of cheating, but calls to alter to prevent potential for cheating. Who knows if anything was done against rules previously or not. Probably impossible to prove one way or another at this point.

Richard

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by Richard C

https://www.planetf1.com/news/red-bu...-us-grand-prix

So apparently Red Bull has admitted it is them and will be making changes to the RB20.............


Richard

Which proves that it is best not to jump to conclusions about who may have been the naughty boys.

[Gerard C]

Mike, don't you ink they all are naughty boys and girls?

[Richard C]

Selfishly I am glad it's not McLaren as I think their resurgence has been a good thing for the championship (and F1 in general). So I would have hated to see their upsurge be down to something potentially sketchy and a FIA crackdown potentially reversing their recent form.

Richard

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by Gerard C

Mike, don't you ink they all are naughty boys and girls?

Well, I certainly don't think that any one of them is the Messiah!

But then, I do have a tendency to always look on the bright side of life, so what would I know?

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by Richard C

Selfishly I am glad it's not McLaren as I think their resurgence has been a good thing for the championship (and F1 in general). So I would have hated to see their upsurge be down to something potentially sketchy and a FIA crackdown potentially reversing their recent form.

Richard

Agree completely. In reality, is all something of a storm in a teacup at this point.

One team has an adjuster that is completely legal to use in practice sessions but which "might" allow the odd sleight of hand adjustment in Parc Ferme. The team says it isn't accessible once the car is assembled (as it is in Parc Ferme) and the FIA hasn't seen it being used in Parc Ferme (despite having cameras on every car the whole time and observers doing their thing too).

Sounds pretty "meh" to me but no doubt there'll be plenty of intrigue and innuendo on display at Austin.

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by Tourer

Agree completely. In reality, is all something of a storm in a teacup at this point.

One team has an adjuster that is completely legal to use in practice sessions but which "might" allow the odd sleight of hand adjustment in Parc Ferme. The team says it isn't accessible once the car is assembled (as it is in Parc Ferme) and the FIA hasn't seen it being used in Parc Ferme (despite having cameras on every car the whole time and observers doing their thing too).

Sounds pretty "meh" to me but no doubt there'll be plenty of intrigue and innuendo on display at Austin.

I'm not too certain about that. There were suspicions that an engineer could "activate" the mechanism unseen whilst it was being pushed back in to the garage after qualifying when it was low on fuel, and the car would meet the ride height requirements. They would have needed to allow the ride height to be higher for the race to meet the same ride height requirements when it was fully fuelled for the race.

So maybe not quite so "meh"; and we only have Red Bull's word that it couldn't be activated when fully assembled. That could be a play on words; the mechanism itself cannot be reached when fully assembled, but what about the switch or whatever that activates that mechanism. There would seem to be little point in having a valve operated system installed to make the adjustment if you can't activate it; that would seem to defeat the purpose of it.

Of course there is the possibility that it was never actually used, but the fact that it was there is enough to cast doubt about the matter.

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by Richard C

https://www.planetf1.com/news/red-bu...-us-grand-prix

So apparently Red Bull has admitted it is them and will be making changes to the RB20. My understanding is that the adjustment capability is not specifically illegal. What other teams (and FIA) are concerned about is that with the location for making the adjustment being in the cockpit, that it allows for potential easy of breaking parc ferme rules. This is apparently not a driver control, but the fear is that an engineer could easily covertly adjust without anyone noticing while in parc ferme.

In short, no proof of cheating, but calls to alter to prevent potential for cheating. Who knows if anything was done against rules previously or not. Probably impossible to prove one way or another at this point.

Richard

Shock horror!

Not orange team but main rival!

They're all at it!

[Greem]

So far as I am concerned, from what I've read - there was no positive benefit to The Thing, so...

Yeah. That's why everyone was pointing at McLaren. Just goes to show that you never can tell!

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

I'm not too certain about that. There were suspicions that an engineer could "activate" the mechanism unseen whilst it was being pushed back in to the garage after qualifying when it was low on fuel, and the car would meet the ride height requirements. They would have needed to allow the ride height to be higher for the race to meet the same ride height requirements when it was fully fuelled for the race.

So maybe not quite so "meh"; and we only have Red Bull's word that it couldn't be activated when fully assembled. That could be a play on words; the mechanism itself cannot be reached when fully assembled, but what about the switch or whatever that activates that mechanism. There would seem to be little point in having a valve operated system installed to make the adjustment if you can't activate it; that would seem to defeat the purpose of it.

Of course there is the possibility that it was never actually used, but the fact that it was there is enough to cast doubt about the matter.

I haven't seen anything about a valve operated system - simply that an adjustment method is "accessible from the cockpit" - which is not illegal and is fine to use in practice sessions. The question is whether or not it has been used or could be used in Parc ferme conditions.

Given that the driver is in the car when it is being pushed back into the garage, there wouldn't be much room in the cockpit for an engineer to do anything and with the FIA having CCTV on every car in its garage, the team would be taking a big risk to activate something.

Still feels "meh" to me but I may end up with egg on my face on that score.

[E.B]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

There would seem to be little point in having a valve operated system installed to make the adjustment if you can't activate it; that would seem to defeat the purpose of it.

Of course there is the possibility that it was never actually used, but the fact that it was there is enough to cast doubt about the matter.

Agreed Mike. Benetton "Option 13" launch control from the mid 90's springs to mind. Somewhere in the systems it had a hidden menu that when accessed could activate an (illegal) launch control system via "option 13'' of said hidden menu. Of course (according to Briatore) it was never used, despite being there, and accessible, along with the Benetton's ability to never make a dud start. It was impossible at the time to determine if it had been used or not.

Do we now expect Red Bull to have another bad weekend just as they seemed to be clawing back a little? Not that this little cheat system has been used of course. Asking for a friend.

[Tourer]

How RBR's ride height device works.
No valves, it is a screw mechanism; nosecone needs to be removed, two separate panels removed and that gives access to the mechanism, which is under the driver's heel panel.

Yeah, I'm going to stick with "meh". Clearly can't be adjusted with the driver in the car and the FIA has CCTV of all cars in their garages, so pretty hard to sneak it by - although I guess almost nothing is totally 100% impossible.

[chunterer]

So Marko pointing fingers at Mclaren was really just him trying to deflect away the heat being on RB this time around?

Usual political tit for tat bs I guess?

[S griffin]

Originally Posted by chunterer

So Marko pointing fingers at Mclaren was really just him trying to deflect away the heat being on RB this time around?

Usual political tit for tat bs I guess?

Would not surprise me with Marko. He has a habit of doing this kind of thing. Really it's just clearing up a grey area of the rules and nothing much more than that

[Gerard C]

The only thing wrong I can see in this story is that nobody seems able to watch over the parc fermé. Is it so hard to keep five cars away from spectators, drivers or even moskitoes? No kidding!

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by Tourer

How RBR's ride height device works.
No valves, it is a screw mechanism; nosecone needs to be removed, two separate panels removed and that gives access to the mechanism, which is under the driver's heel panel.

Yeah, I'm going to stick with "meh". Clearly can't be adjusted with the driver in the car and the FIA has CCTV of all cars in their garages, so pretty hard to sneak it by - although I guess almost nothing is totally 100% impossible.

Other teams do not seem to share your optimism about this, and are asking questions about why Red Bull felt the need to place the adjuster inside the driver's space when it requires body parts to be removed to access it? And also why the FIA feels it necessary to require said adjuster to be sealed by the FIA to ensure that it is not being used, when, as according to Red Bull, they cannot readily access the adjuster without removing body parts?

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

Other teams do not seem to share your optimism about this, and are asking questions about why Red Bull felt the need to place the adjuster inside the driver's space when it requires body parts to be removed to access it? And also why the FIA feels it necessary to require said adjuster to be sealed by the FIA to ensure that it is not being used, when, as according to Red Bull, they cannot readily access the adjuster without removing body parts?

Well, one other team is - and as Brundle pointed out on the telecast, Zak wouldn't be doing his job if he didn't stir the pot.

[GTRMagic]

So… we are sitting here on Sunday, waiting for the Brazilian Grand Prix to show up on our magic picture boxes sometime soon..

And we have absolutely no idea how the FIA are going to run the qualifying sessions, nor if they will revert to co wishing orders in previous practices or qualifyings or races, or chooklotto out of a spinning barrel of balls.

How can this happen?

Weather events are not new. Delays because of them an everyday thing.
And being half a world away from home base, with every commentator espewing that it always rains in Brazil in November…

..how the hell did we get here?

I know the FIA are very worried about the use of swear words in press conferences these days, yet if there are no cars on track, there won’t actually be any press conferences to worry about.

How unbelievably stupid does the series look when nobody seems to be able to make a decision along published guidelines, or communicate anything close to understanding what next steps might look like.

Maybe Mr LeClerc’s fine can be spent on an AI software to write a regulation covering this regular eventuality such that the thousands and millions of people working in the land, sitting in the stands or at the track, or looking to take on a teev broadcast sometime soon…

Not really good enough..

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by GTRMagic

So… we are sitting here on Sunday, waiting for the Brazilian Grand Prix to show up on our magic picture boxes sometime soon..

And we have absolutely no idea how the FIA are going to run the qualifying sessions, nor if they will revert to co wishing orders in previous practices or qualifyings or races, or chooklotto out of a spinning barrel of balls.

How can this happen?

Weather events are not new. Delays because of them an everyday thing.
And being half a world away from home base, with every commentator espewing that it always rains in Brazil in November…

..how the hell did we get here?
Not really good enough..

There are rules. People suggested taking the results of the sprint if there is no qualifying, but that is a separate event so that doesn't work.

In the rule book FP3 results are mentioned if qualifying cannot be run but there is no FP3 so FP1 results would form the grid.
Or we have a wet qualifying that will take longer because of spins and incidents or be fraught with timing issues (time, not equipment).
We just have to wait and see.

But if qualifying is wet, that will be very interesting.
Im just wondering how many sets of wets are on hand and what will happen in a wet GP if we run out of sets.....

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

There are rules. People suggested taking the results of the sprint if there is no qualifying, but that is a separate event so that doesn't work.

In the rule book FP3 results are mentioned if qualifying cannot be run but there is no FP3 so FP1 results would form the grid.

Agree - there are definitely rules, but they give a lot of leeway to the stewards, which makes sense because its hard to define all the different reasons that qualifying sessions may not run, severity of weather (if that's the reason) and the like. the regs would also allow the results from the sprint shootout to be used, based on how sessions are described.

GTR, I agree that going to Sao Paolo in November is nuts (as we've seen many times, it sure can rain) but I don't know enough about the weather there to know a better time.

So, we may get a qual session, we may not - we may get a Grand Prix, we may not - all in the hands of the weather at this stage.

Lewis' suggestion of better wet weather tyres and heaters for them wouldn't help ease the spray (would probably make it worse) and that to me is the big danger with going racing in the wet - closely followed by aquaplaning risk, which better tyres won't help much if it's the bottom of the car that is sucking onto the puddle.

Personally I'd have called it much earlier - clear from the radar that it wasn't going to get better. Other than that, they're dealing as best they can with what they've got.

[Greem]

They have to factor in things like public transport and traffic management arrangements for the spectators, too. When you're expecting 75-100k people to depart after a certain time, then releasing them say 2 hours early would cause total chaos.

Sao Paulo is notoriously chaotic anyway, but adding to it is something I'd suggest all parties would want to avoid!

[GTRMagic]

I remain disappointed at missing Mr Hamilton in Mr Senna’s 1990 Marlboro McLaren Honda

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

There are rules. People suggested taking the results of the sprint if there is no qualifying, but that is a separate event so that doesn't work.

In the rule book FP3 results are mentioned if qualifying cannot be run but there is no FP3 so FP1 results would form the grid.
Or we have a wet qualifying that will take longer because of spins and incidents or be fraught with timing issues (time, not equipment).
We just have to wait and see.

But if qualifying is wet, that will be very interesting.
Im just wondering how many sets of wets are on hand and what will happen in a wet GP if we run out of sets.....

If qualifying can't take place, then set the grid according to the driver's points standings, that's what happens in IndyCar and it works.

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

If qualifying can't take place, then set the grid according to the driver's points standings, that's what happens in IndyCar and it works.

My understanding is it's set by the final free practice session that occurred. Hasn't that always been the case in F1?