Justin 'cheat' Wilson???

[Faster]

I have no doubt that Justin Wilson was probably the best driver of the year at F3000. But an insider just came to me, showed me the time sheets and told me that all the other teams were very angry about Wilson's performance in qualifying. It's a common view that they cheated, but nobody can prove it...

Maybe it's just a bad looser excuse, but let's see:

Justin's pole was 1:27.695, while Webber's 2nd was 1:28.354. It's a gap from 0.659, quite big for a monomarque championship. But that's not the point.

ALL the drivers recorded their fastest laps of the qualifying between the 3rd and the 5th laps of the new set of tyres. That means that, after they left the pits with fresh tyres, it takes this lap PLUS two running laps until the tyres are in it's best condition to make a competitive time.

All drivers BUT Wilson, who scored his amazing pole-position lap in the FIRST running lap after he wore fresh tyres. Some say it's not possible! Just to compare, JW's 2nd fastest lap was 1:28.479 (3rd running lap, with another set of tyres) and his 3rd FL was 1:28.636 (4th running lap, also with another set of tyres).

With the set of tyres he scored the pole, his 2nd fastest lap was only 1:28.952, at his 4th running lap!!!

The comments were that probably, when Wilson first pitted in the 2nd session, the Nordic team put some kind of 'doping' into his fuel. His motor got an extra power and he was able to score an unbeatable lap before this 'doping' simply evaporates, leaving no evidence of his usage.

Also, some said that this behaviour of the team about Wilson (mainly for commercial reasons: a british champion would be much more interesting than a czech champion) would be the reason for Enge's mistakes in the last four races, when he was driving like someone with his mind totally crushed.

Well, it's all gossip and nothing will be ever proved. But it's just strange that many teams found his performance at the qualifying "weird". Remembering that in HUngaroring, to be the pole normally means also to win the race. Maybe there's really something strange about that...

[Paddock Spy]

This post reminds me of a scene from the Godfather 3. "Everytime I try to get out they pull me back in". I was planning on not posting so much, but I cannot let this little gem from Faster go without comment!!
So - Justin Wilson and the Coca-Cola Nordic Racing team are cheating, which explains their tremendous season so far? And you derived this from an "insider" who pointed out how upset all the other teams were after qualifying. Well, my little Amazonian friend, as you are a Brazilian I can only assume that your "insider" is a fellow countryman (and driver. Could it be, by any chance, someone such as Mr Haberfeld. God knows he has enough to ***** about these days. How many DNFs is that now?This was, as is usual when a team does well, to be expected. I am only confused as to why it has taken so long. I was in the paddock all weekend and spoke with many, many people in the F3000 paddock. However,I did see one of the Nordic truckies filling this large red container before the race.It was the fuel filler. Perhaps he had smuggled this amazing powder into the pitlane and at the right time he sprinkled the magic fairy dust over the tyres, giving an illegal advantage to Wilson. Or perhaps Bernie has told all the officials NOT to pull the Nordic car in during qualifying as Coca-Cola have given him a $3 million dollar kick-back. Yes - that's it. The whole championship is bent because Bernie wanted a Coke fridge for his motorhome.

[DanFlag]

Nice to have you back in the the forum Paddock Spy, I see you did not loose that delicate touch of humor I love so much!!!

Nice to see someone sticking up for the good guys!

"Always Coca-Cola" NordicRacing boys, got for it, win those two next races!!!

[mhope]

No doubt that success breeds contempt, as illustrated by this highly uninformed view on Justin's amazing performance in Hungary.

Without trying to address the performance gap between Justin and Webber, I would like to point out that the FIA scruitineers have been all over Nordic since about Barcelona. Without a doubt, winning consistently has given the FIA reason to watch Nordic very closely. It would be unbelieveably stupid to try to cheat with all of this scruitiny not to mention the obvious implications if Coca-Cola and Conoco were to find out that the team was cheating.

Nordic is just running a great team this year. Their drivers, engineers, mechanics and management have all got it together and this, along with a great commercial package, have added up to success.

Pity on all of the sad creatures who must resort to such gossip to make themselves feel better.

[AndyF]

The extra performance does seem strange but I hope that it is nothing illegal - perhaps he just got extra lucky or the timing system messed up!

[formula-3000net]

Originally posted by Faster
I have no doubt that Justin Wilson was probably the best driver of the year at F3000. But an insider just came to me, showed me the time sheets and told me that all the other teams were very angry about Wilson's performance in qualifying. It's a common view that they cheated, but nobody can prove it...

All the other teams? I haven't asked them, but from what I've heard it was only one person who was accusing Wilson of cheating.

Anyway the FIA test the fuel of the top three cars, and found nothing illegal.

[Paddock Spy]

Perhaps it is a new type of cheating fuel,designed for the Nordic team by Coke (and with the full blessing of Bernie). It might work a little like Coke itself. You know, when you open a bottle and leave it for 45 minutes with the top not tightened. When you come back to it, it has gone flat. Wait a minute. 45 minutes is the same length of time as a qualifying session. That's it then - Nordic are using a Coke based fuel. Perhaps Charlie and the boys in the pit lane should be testing for sugar content? What do you think formula-3000.net? As you are the man on the inside!

[Mekola]

[The Fan]

When someone starts winning a few races, there are always people who say it is not possible. Mainly because they can not do the same without cheating?
I think Nordic did a very good job this year and if you are on the roll like Justin is, you are always able to get that extra bit. But it still looks strange that he did his time in the first lap and did not come even close after.
If there is something wrong the FIA will find something if not people should just accept the situation.
Coloni tried to cheat but got caught!
Will be continued...

[Ray Bell]

Maybe he got a couple of good tows that lap... or got too confident after that one...

[Marshal]

Just out of interest, I remeber when Justin won the Formula Palmer Audi championship, where the cars were supposedly identical, all prepared by the same organisation. Times had been super close all year, and then, when he really needed it Wilson took pole in the last round by about a second. So maybe its just talent under pressure??

Also, didn't some chap calle Schumacher do something a bit similar in F1 qualifying in Hungary

[Crash Test]

Meh...it aint cheating if you get away with it

[rumple]

I was talking to an engine builder who used to tune the F-3000 Cosworth engines (Pre 96) and he said " the engine is always mapped to a specific type of fuel and if you just change the fuel for a higher spec without compensating for it in the engine electronics (ecu). The advantage would be slight to no advantage at all and if the fuel was really s*** hot it could even be worse. Also, any engine builder worth there salt would be able to notice the extra ware on engines internals". So my questions are...

1) Would the team be able to hack into the ecu and change its configuration?

2) Is there such a thing as a fuel that can evaporate enough to avoid detection.

3) Would the Nordic Team be willing to risk everything!!!

4) Is any of this going to reduce World hunger and save the Whales?

[Invincible]

Originally posted by Paddock Spy
Nordic are using a Coke based fuel

Yeah! But Coloni were fined for fuel irregularities, the FIA discovered it was Rocket Fuel!

[Crash Test]

I would have thought that if you were going to have a bit of a cheat, your engine builder would probably be in on the act...

I'm not sure about the whales though...

[DanFlag]

Well you know when you have done a good job, when you are being accused of cheating.

I know how I did the lap for pole position and I know why the next two were so much slower. My second lap was slower due to a mistake and the third was down to someone pulling out of the pits in front of me. Mark Webber said in the press conference that he had traffic on a few of his good laps, which stopped him braking into the 1:27's.

It's also comical how Faster (nice nick name - does that name work the same as Little John?) said, "All the other teams were very angry about Wilson's performance in qualifying." Well as far as I know there is only one Team! So, this team thinks they speak on behalf of all the other teams do they?

At the end of the day, Nordic did a very good job and it is down to how you use your equipment as to how good it is! In qualifying they were thinking on there feet and made some very good strategic moves. So good, some of the other teams still probably don't know why we were quick.

I don't want to say any more as I could give the game away and some of these slow thinking teams may eventually catch up. As they say - Knowledge is Power, and in this case, that knowledge is more powerful than any invisible evaporating without-a- trace-fuel! :-) :-) :-) I have to stop as my ribs hurt. :-)

Thanks for the support, I will post any real news on here when it happens.

Justin


(source: http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/justinwilson)

[Attila]

Dear All,

I was at the Hungarian Grand Prix, I talked to Justin and the team, and it was obvious to everybody present that Justin was just simply faster.
In Hungaroring it was always the case that you could get the set-up of the car very right, that resulted in much better laptimes than the rest of the field.
I am not a writer, not even a native speaker, but Faster ****ed me off. So I am sorry for my poor English, but I had to show my opinion.

[Marshal]

Thanks for that Attila, its good to here the opinion of someone who was there. Also, welcome to 10-10ths, I hope you enjoy it here, and post many more times,

Cheers,

M

Actually to what some one said earlier, there is a substance which can be added to fuel which does eventually evaporate out and leaves very little trace. If you ask some of the guys who used to race in the British Super 1 kart series, it was a real problem there for a while, thats why in the world championships they started to take not just your tyres but your fuel tank away during parque ferme.
I am not for one second trying to say that any F3000 team is using it. But i will say that this seems to be the time when people always start this kind of bad mouthing, if they were able to run an untraceable fuel additive why would they not run it at the start of the season when they hadn`t built up a large championship to loose.
Also it can be very difficult to just time based on tyres and laps if not more than one person has tried a certain strategy, may be it just all came together, good set of tyres, nice cloud cover denser air better horse power. All these things point to the comming together of all the factors that matter and without some one else trying the exact same strategy what can you say otherwise!!

Farc.

[R]

Thanks Attila, I second Marshal's comments. These "cheating" accusations are just too much. Sore losers, that's what I call them. It also strikes me that Faster has not returned to reply to any of this.

[Attila]

Thanks Marshal and R for your kind words. I was looking at data from Hungaroring, and found the perfect example. Damon Hill qualified 2nd in the past with a truly underpowered car and would have won the race if his car stayed together. I think this fact supports my point on setup, the simple fact is that Justin had a perfect lap with a nearly perfect set up. We should not accuse anybody but should admire Justin and the team. Nordic had the best crew and it is proved by their continuous good performance. There is nothing else to say than congratulate the 2001 F3000 Champion team.

[Faster]

OK, OK, sure it was a mistake to come here and write the gossip that this friend of mine told me. I just bought his point of view and threw it up here, which was stupid because:
a) there was not much consistency and truth in what was written
b) here's the biggest Nordic-Wilson fanclub that ever existed

Anyway, it was nice that Justin spent his time writing an answer to solve this question. Better come with explanations than just with sarcasm, as did Paddy Spy. The joke with the "Little John", well I could strike back with a joke about your mother, Justin, but I won't. By making this particular comment you showed being as pointless and reasonless as I was. Now you came down to my level, so shame on you! If you had an elegant answer, you would have showed that you're above me and all the **** I wrote. But it wasn't possible, isn't it? No wonder you're not finding many open doors in your final goal... No wonder that you need a nasty campaign of british media to land a test with a F1 car... Best luck for you in the future (you will need it)...

Just to make clear who my friend is, I'm sad to bring up to Paddock Spy that he's not even brazilian, but british, and doesn't work in a team with a brazilian driver. I'm not a Cambridge boy to know all the brazilian drivers around. In fact the only one I met in my entire life was never in F3000, but in F2 (and F1): Chico Serra, and he's more than 40 years old now...

For all those Nordic fans and members that we're angry with what I wrote, I beg for your apologies. This won't happen again. Congratulations for the fantastic job this year!

Cheers!

[Hesketh]

Hi guys,
Here I am, from Italy. I was very surprised in reading so bad news about Justin and this presumed cheating. I have to say that I'm a Damon's orphan and that I'm literally waiting for a British guy(yes, I feel British Motor-racing as a part of my own history even if my grand-grand-father, Ing.Nicola Romeo, back in 1910 founded the glorious Alfa Romeo)to keep my head up in front of the Scuderia Ferrari which I respect but don't love in victory and even less in defeat. Well, I feel myself very sceptical 'bout this special addicted fuel and just think that Justin Wilson is well on the pace of the best guys around. I wait for him in Monza with the title.
The future is in his hands while I apologize for my erratic english.
Bye

P.S.
For Mr.Ken Tyrrel:HIP HIP HURRÃ*!!

[OVERSTEER]

Faster, are u Australian by the way? that would explain you accusing Justin Wilson of cheating, cos he just happens to have been fighting with an aussie for the championship, don't get me wrong Mark Webber drove superbly on occasions but Justin Wilson drove as well, consistently throughout the year, Good luck Justin Wilson for next year, may it bring as much success as this year has brought him, lets cheer for the first British driver to win the F3000 championship.Although it should have been Johnny Herbert(1988).

[formula-3000net]

Originally posted by OVERSTEER
lets cheer for the first British driver to win the F3000 championship.Although it should have been Johnny Herbert(1988).

...or Martin Donnelly, or Mark Blundell or Paul Warwick