In reply to rob_lewis :
Yes which isn't a bad call. The measurement systems and test methods needed to prove what many suspect Ferrari were doing would be costly to validate as accurate and precise. Then the data would get into the realm of fluid dynamics and measurement of high frequency pressure and flow rate changes which uses enough coefficients to start to get muddy on what the data was telling you.
So a negotiated slap on the wrist seems perfectly fine given that the double sensor technical rule is in effect.
I hope they let this drop and focus on starting the season.
In reply to Advan046 :
Except that there are absolute experts in that field on most teams. Well, at least Mercedes, Renault, and Honda. Given the amount of investment and return, there's no way the other teams give this up. Especially Red Bull and Honda- who actually could move up to #2, and gain millions and millions of dollars.
Given the engines don't have many changes, and they are the parts of the teams who would be dealing with this, I agree with many others that this is going to escalate a lot before it dies down. The FIA dealt a hand that makes many people very mad, including a team that is in "support" of Ferrari.
Well, it looks like the FIA's second response wasn't taken well....
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/51762454
Seven teams have written a letter to governing body the FIA demanding answers to a series of questions on the Ferrari engine controversy.
The seven have declined requests by BBC Sport to share the contents of the letter, which was addressed to both the FIA and commercial rights holder the F1 Group. But the teams are known to be concerned about a number of topics, including:
- why the FIA felt it was unable to prove its doubts about the Ferrari engine's legality
- why the settlement it reached was confidential rather than communicated more widely
- whether the integrity of the finishing order of last year's championship should be questioned
- what the FIA's failure to get to the facts on the question of the engine's legality says about the governing body's ability to police the sport's technical regulations
I wonder how much money would be reallocated if they bumped Ferrari down in the championship? Since it's millions of dollars and, depending on how far down they're bumped, some of the smaller teams would get a decent chunk of money for 2020 and beyond. I can understand them wanting more clarification.
-Rob
rob_lewis said:
Well, it looks like the FIA's second response wasn't taken well....
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/51762454
Seven teams have written a letter to governing body the FIA demanding answers to a series of questions on the Ferrari engine controversy.
The seven have declined requests by BBC Sport to share the contents of the letter, which was addressed to both the FIA and commercial rights holder the F1 Group. But the teams are known to be concerned about a number of topics, including:
- why the FIA felt it was unable to prove its doubts about the Ferrari engine's legality
- why the settlement it reached was confidential rather than communicated more widely
- whether the integrity of the finishing order of last year's championship should be questioned
- what the FIA's failure to get to the facts on the question of the engine's legality says about the governing body's ability to police the sport's technical regulations
I wonder how much money would be reallocated if they bumped Ferrari down in the championship? Since it's millions of dollars and, depending on how far down they're bumped, some of the smaller teams would get a decent chunk of money for 2020 and beyond. I can understand them wanting more clarification.
-Rob
It's TENS of millions that could change. In 2018, Ferrari received $205 million.
And they get $73 million a year for the Long Standing Team bonus..................that no one else gets.
Using this as a guide:
https://www.racefans.net/2019/03/03/formula-1-teams-prize-money-payments-for-2019-revealed/
If they dump Ferrari to the bottom, Mercedes shouldn't see a bigger payout. I'm assuming that Ferrari's historical and Long Standing Bonus wouldn't change. With that, Renault would get the biggest bump, because they'd get the Constructors Championship Bonus ($33 million). The rest (like Alfa, Toro Rosso, Haas) wouldn't see more than a $10 million increase.
It seems like Mercedes is driving this petition. I wonder if it's because they think they'll get more money, because in theory they wouldn't, or if it's just they're the biggest player in the group with the most clout and stand the best chance of being heard. Although, I'm sure there's also deals in place where they get some of a team's winnings where they're the engine provider. Of course, if the FIA decided to pull the historical and long standing bonuses from Ferrari and redistribute, then the payout to others get much bigger. I doubt that would happen as it would probably make Ferrari pull out entirely and I agree with the sentiment that no Ferrari would be a huge negative impact to F1.
I also wonder if any of the stuff the FIA found on the Ferrari might apply to Haas and Alfa Romeo? That would make it an even stickier.
It's weird to say, but I kinda feel sorry for the FIA as it's starting to look like a no-win situation.
-Rob
In reply to rob_lewis :
I don't feel sorry for the FIA,they didn't handle it well at all.
I really don't think that Jean Todd guy should be anywhere near this given what has always looked like a clear bias to his old employers.
The cash put in place by Bernie to keep Ferrari around needs to be yanked from them and given to the lower placed teams.
In reply to alfadriver :
Yes I agree there are smart people in F1. Every one of those intelligent fuel flow engineer can build cans build a test that proves it either way, illegal or legal. We are talking about potentially creating a system that provides a rythmic pulse of fuel at a higher flow rate than allowed within the dwell or null time of a sensor. Unless there is a line of code in the controller that reads "illegal over flow rate mode" then the design of experiments list starts to explode. The validation time of the test system and the actually testing 2019 Ferrari components that have a limited life span, it gets you to a place of making engineering assumptions. Remember we are not trying build a new 2019 Ferrari package that is illegal or legal but test the existing parts. So ensuring you can test the system at the same time as measuring the same system gets tricky. The debate would rage regarding if the FIA sensors added caused an issue or not. I think the prime plan would have been for the FIA to mandate all but a small bit of their winnings to be donated to whatever FIA community outreach program are going on. Don't drink and drive, safety equipment donations to amatuer kart racing kids. Whatever.
Besides the cheat is covered by the double sensor system mandated now.
Anyhow. I am glad Australia seems to be sticking to it and holding the GP.
Bahrain's plan is weird but oh well it is already done.
China we can just hope they return next year.
The poor multi million dollar F1 teams may have to keep all at track staff in "clean" non restricted parts of the world through the first half of the season. Maybe they can go home during the summer break. The FIA and FOM may split off a couple million to secure flights. We will see. The media is making good money off coronavirus. Making new news stories due to people reacting to their overexagerated reporting.
In reply to Advan046 :
Here's the thing- what cheat? That's what teams want to really know. And to what degree? For sure, all the teams will understand what they did even if the majority of fans wont.
We are all just speculating on what Ferrari made a deal over, and that's pretty bad for the FIA, IMHO. If I were considering investing in F1, I would very much consider the total lack of level playing field, even if I were to manage to win races- as Ferrari already gets more bonus money than some teams use for the entire season (I'm exaggerating, I think). And now it looks like there are rules for all of the teams, and then rules for Ferrari.
I have a theory on how Ferrari could have cheated. They are limited to a fuel flow of 110 kg/hr or whatever it is but an engine would only use that at full throttle and high rpm. All they had to do was find a way to reserve fuel after the flow sensor so when a driver lifts for a corner, the flow sensor would detect a drop in flow but not as much as it should be and the extra fuel in the reserve then can be used for making more power than what's possible with only the legal flow rate. A second flow meter closer to the injectors would detect the illegal flow rate.
Ransom
UltimaDork
3/9/20 11:32 a.m.
Ferrari's cachet totally works on me, but even so, the treatment they get casts a pall on the whole series. F1 without Ferrari would be weird, but I can't imagine that should they actually decide to leave over having their special treatments yoinked that they'd stay away long. The FIA isn't entirely wrong that they need Ferrari (or would be hurt by their departure), but I think Ferrari would be concerned about the long term impact on lifestyle accessory sales if they weren't racing at the top tier.
I don't know if it's even reasonable to discuss that set of considerations, but I assume it's more that than just straight up back-scratching between some people in the FIA and in Ferrari... Though it could be that, too.
It's quite different in many ways, but thinking of F1 without Ferrari reminds me of MotoGP figuring out how to cope with the fact that Valentino Rossi isn't actually immune to time, and that he may possibly be done winning, and probably has a very few seasons of motorcycle racing left. What do you do when the bigger-than-the-series entity leaves?
loosecannon said:
I have a theory on how Ferrari could have cheated. They are limited to a fuel flow of 110 kg/hr or whatever it is but an engine would only use that at full throttle and high rpm. All they had to do was find a way to reserve fuel after the flow sensor so when a driver lifts for a corner, the flow sensor would detect a drop in flow but not as much as it should be and the extra fuel in the reserve then can be used for making more power than what's possible with only the legal flow rate. A second flow meter closer to the injectors would detect the illegal flow rate.
So, like Smokey's 3/4 inch fuel line in his Chevelle, only more science-ey.
You have to remember that F1 isn't just a competition, it's entertainment. And F1's headline star wants to be paid more, so their headline star gets paid more. It really sucks from a competitive standpoint, but Ferrari and F1 are good for each other. Thus the extra payout.
I don't think they should be getting special treatment from a sporting viewpoint, though. They should get the same penalties and be held to the same ruleset as any other team, which historically has not been the case. I think that's why all the non-Ferrari teams are pushing this.
I'm really looking forward to seeing what Albon can do. I find it pretty entertaining that the Red Bull driver development program is upside down - the junior team consists of people who were booted out of the senior team. But I'm hoping that Albon can give Max something to watch in the mirrors.
Isn't there a potential problem with losing another team, where F1's contracts with various venues requires a minimum number of cars?
I am about halfway through Season 1 of the Netflix F1 series. What a way to get me back into F1 a series I haven't had interest in, in over 15 years. I'm sucked into this series and actually might follow the series for once in my adult life.
Wonder if the Ferrari/Toro Rosso (or whatever they're called now) crew guys were able to get out of Italy before the full Coronavirus lockdown shutdown...
There's a note in wikipedia about how there used to be a 20 car minimum in the regs, and the current sporting regulations say there can't be more than 26 cars entered in the championship and that a race could be canceled if there are less than 12 cars in attendance. But what's tickling my mind from the days when we lost two teams was that the venues stipulated a certain number of cars in their contract.
Like this: https://www.pitpass.com/53101/F1-grid-could-fall-below-16-cars
Keith Tanner said:
There's a note in wikipedia about how there used to be a 20 car minimum in the regs, and the current sporting regulations say there can't be more than 26 cars entered in the championship and that a race could be canceled if there are less than 12 cars in attendance. But what's tickling my mind from the days when we lost two teams was that the venues stipulated a certain number of cars in their contract.
Like this: https://www.pitpass.com/53101/F1-grid-could-fall-below-16-cars
I wonder if grid sizes have anything to do with the fact that running one season cost 2.5x the GDP of the country of Tuvalu (which generates most of it's money from the use of the ".tv" domain)
DukeOfUndersteer said:
Wonder if the Ferrari/Toro Rosso (or whatever they're called now) crew guys were able to get out of Italy before the full Coronavirus lockdown shutdown...
From what I have heard, all the teams are already in Australia. And all will surely stay abroad for a while- whcih kind of sucks for families.
First practice tomorrow night prime time!!!
Unfortunately it looks like rain during FP1 so maybe just some installation laps and rain tire mini tests.
Three Italians have isolated themselves in Australia, I read. "Gosh boss, I have a cough. I need to isolate myself in the Cabana on the beach for two weeks."
Major sporting events are going to take a pretty good kicking before this is all over.
Streetwiseguy said:
Three Italians have isolated themselves in Australia, I read. "Gosh boss, I have a cough. I need to isolate myself in the Cabana on the beach for two weeks."
Major sporting events are going to take a pretty good kicking before this is all over.
There are people like David Heinemeier Hansson (Ruby on Rails inventor/prior WEC and IMSA driver) who are completely hell bent on trying to get events like Sebring to cancel or bar spectators because of the Corona virus scare mongering.
Apparently, 2 Haas and 1 McLaren team members are showing symptoms in Australia and are self quarantining in their hotel rooms.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-11/formula-one-team-members-quarantined-due-to-coronavirus-fears/12047494
Sounds like it's just extra precautionary, but with the traveling F1 show, it's probably smart to be safe.
-Rob
McLaren pulls out of the Australian GP as one of their team tested positive for COVID-19.
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/mclaren-withdraws-from-australian-gp/4742628/
-Rob
