Rbr's Car Floor Declared Illegal By Fia

[Quiet One 15]

What the title says.

No idea how much impact it will have on the car's performance, but having to redesign even that small part one week before a race is not exactly what you would like to do, even if it is there just for aesthetical reasons.

The season is starting to look moe and mroe like a Merc vs Macca competition. Money on Macca for their capability to move forwards the whole season. Lotus and Ferrari being the other possible candidates if Lotus can recall how to win and keep their momentum from there and if Ferrari doesn't lose too much ground and Alonso doesn't falters a single race.

[LabradoRacer 2]

Serves them right.

[JHS18 0]

Source?

Not seen it on any major sites myself so far.

If true I think it is personally ridiculous. This is what is making F1 a bit of a joke at the moment. Can we please go back to the days where teams went faster by bringing new updates to the cars, and not by sorting things out in the stewards room? F1 is supposed to be about the pinnacle of motorsport - including technology. Now the rules are getting so damn restrictive that it is impossible for anyone to bring anything meaningful to the cars without it being prostested by some team or other.

If someone's come up with something that you haven't, it is your own damn problem. Think of something that will make your OWN car go quicker, don't protest it. If you've missed out on something, you deserve to get beat. Don't penalise the team that came up with it.

How many times just recently has it been the case someone has come up with something, only for it to be declared illegal a while later? Why can't they just wait to the end of the year to declare stuff illegal rather than doing it during the season?

The rules are going to get so restrictive that at some point, we might as well just have a spec formula, because that'll save costs and there will be nothing to protest....

[Quiet One 15]

Source?

Source: http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_news_item.php?fes_art_id=46451

If true I think it is personally ridiculous. This is what is making F1 a bit of a joke at the moment. Can we please go back to the days where teams went faster by bringing new updates to the cars, and not by sorting things out in the stewards room? F1 is supposed to be about the pinnacle of motorsport - including technology. Now the rules are getting so damn restrictive that it is impossible for anyone to bring anything meaningful to the cars without it being prostested by some team or other.

There were never such days. As far as I remember there was hardly a season without some car's desing being contested/banned by FIA.

If someone's come up with something that you haven't, it is your own damn problem. Think of something that will make your OWN car go quicker, don't protest it. If you've missed out on something, you deserve to get beat. Don't penalise the team that came up with it.

How many times just recently has it been the case someone has come up with something, only for it to be declared illegal a while later? Why can't they just wait to the end of the year to declare stuff illegal rather than doing it during the season?

It all comes down to whether it was actually allowed by FIA previously in which case it is rather unnerving or it was just the case that they were cheating but only got caught now. If the latter, then why let them keep an illegal advantage till end of season?

I am in no position to judge which one of these two scenaios fits the RBR floor better, BTW.

The rules are going to get so restrictive that at some point, we might as well just have a spec formula, because that'll save costs and there will be nothing to protest....

Although I don't agee with you regarding this issue, I don't feel that there is a good balance at this moment between saving cost/team levelling restrictiveness and freedom in design. I would be happier if they veered more towards one of those ends (although the Pirelli tires are doing most of the levelling ATM).

Not so sure either which extreme would be better.

Conclussion: I'm not sure about anything. But I am STRONGLY unsure about everything!

There! That's my clear statement.

Or not.

[JHS18 0]

Source: http://www.pitpass.c...es_art_id=46451

There were never such days. As far as I remember there was hardly a season without some car's desing being contested/banned by FIA.

It all comes down to whether it was actually allowed by FIA previously in which case it is rather unnerving or it was just the case that they were cheating but only got caught now. If the latter, then why let them keep an illegal advantage till end of season?

I am in no position to judge which one of these two scenaios fits the RBR floor better, BTW.

Although I don't agee with you regarding this issue, I don't feel that there is a good balance at this moment between saving cost/team levelling restrictiveness and freedom in design. I would be happier if they veered more towards one of those ends (although the Pirelli tires are doing most of the levelling ATM).

Not so sure either which extreme would be better.

Conclussion: I'm not sure about anything. But I am STRONGLY unsure about everything!

There! That's my clear statement.

Or not.

No, but it certainly wasn't as bad as it is these days. What will someone protest about next? Someone having a driver better than someone else's? A car being controlled by a steering wheel?

I'm writing in jest of course, but it is a ridiculous situation when something is perfectly legal at the start of the season, and then it suddenly isn't. Either they don't have very competent stewards or very good written rules if something that is potentially illegal is allowed for a few races...

I sympathise with the people who's job it is to make a ruling, as things are never straightforward when it comes to F1 regulations - but really, it can wait till the end of the season with something that is so insignificant. Come on, a hole in the floor? It's not as if they've got 50bhp more than anyone else, is it?

Look at last year and the whole exhaust blown diffusers and the saga that triggered. The FIA tried to ban it during the season and it caused a massive upheaval about who it was supposed to be benefitting, who it was really benefitting, etc, etc. Eventually they left it to the season ended to ban them, that was the sensible thing to do.

It is quite amusing that when there's so much talk about saving costs, there are situations like this that could essentially end up in a team having to completely redesign an area of their car. How is that saving money? I wonder how much money the ruling on Lotus' adjustable ride height thingy cost for them to essentially spend money designing it only to be told not long before the season started that it was now illegal. Shambles.

[Massa 0]

Something gets banned, we need more innovation.

We have innovation, we need closer racing.

The only thing I don't like is that stuff gets banned after it has already run. The FIA can't let these teams run a race or half a season or whatever and then decide not to. I'm no conspiracy guy but I've never quite believed the mass damper was banned for anything in 2006 other than to make the championship fight a little closer, which is fine, but I hate these bans after things have run. You can't retroactively penalize the teams that ran something that wasn't illegal at the time, but now you've already let "illegal" points get into the WCC and WDC.

[Delta 0]

About time the FIA had the guts to clamp down on Red Bull's repeated attempts to circumvent the rules of the sport, for most of their competitors though it has probably came 2 1/2 seasons too late. Although fact that they have found the team to violate the rules and not disqualified them is pretty questionable.

[JHS18 0]

And I'm personally very glad they HAVEN'T.

The racing has been so good lately, the last thing the sport needs is another massive off track row about who did what to who, and no, I'm not making reference to Max Mosley in any way there.

[Massa 0]

Oh, come on. Red Bull's the only team cheating? The other teams are little innocent guys who aren't? No chance. Red Bull's just been better at cheating than everyone else. All racing is is cheating better than the other guys. Always has been. Every discipline, every team, every driver. If a team isn't cheating or trying to cheat, they should be the ones disqualified because they don't deserve to be there if they aren't going to try to win. There is no respect for rules that aren't enforced and there shouldn't be any respect for rules that aren't enforced and that's by all teams, not just the ones we don't like.

Red Bull winning a lot of races isn't evidence of anything other than they were, under the rules being enforced by the FIA, the best team those years. They're doing the same things everyone else is doing and just finding a better way to do them. That ain't their fault. That's McLaren's fault, that's Ferrari's fault, that's Mercedes' fault, etc. They lost. Better try not to lose again this year, like McLaren are doing, when they should have burried everyone after the first few races and made any Red Bull success with or without questionable parts irrelevant.

[Insider 0]

A lot of talk at Monaco about this last weekend where teams were persuaded to wait rather the protest. If they had protested immediately after the race they may have gained an advantage. They didn't and now they won't. Red Bull keep their points and live to fight another day. If it had been Williams or another midfield team they would have wiped the floor with them. problem is, there is only one Charlie. basically, no one other than Whiting knows what he's looking at! Hence, the stewards weren't allowed to rule on it. Stinks like bad fish

[Insider 0]

...and, if were using spec tyres maybe it's time for spec cars

[Quiet One 15]

A lot of talk at Monaco about this last weekend where teams were persuaded to wait rather the protest. If they had protested immediately after the race they may have gained an advantage. They didn't and now they won't. Red Bull keep their points and live to fight another day. If it had been Williams or another midfield team they would have wiped the floor with them. problem is, there is only one Charlie. basically, no one other than Whiting knows what he's looking at! Hence, the stewards weren't allowed to rule on it. Stinks like bad fish

This is the most interesting pat in this whole story for me. If the tems had protested immediately after Monaco, the result could have been contested and probably would have ended up with the team losing their points. Instead, thesy emphatically denied any attempts to protest and only did so after the results were set on stone. It seems something deliberate and, at first sight, not too bright, but I don't think they were so stupid.

So, was it just a matter of they having not a strong enough case and waiting for more data? Was it a case of knowing the protest would have been better received if it would not taint previously results? If the latter, James would have a very sensitive answer to his complains. They would get the illegal part removed, as it should but at the same time they could not be accused of winning in courts what they couldn't win on track. RBR can keep their "illegally" earned scores but they can not keep an illegal car.

As for Eric comments, correct me if I misunderstood you but if you think RBR "deserves" to win because they are better at cheating than the rest, then they also "deserve" to lose when their cheating is not good enough and they get caught.

This is similar to the mass damper issue, but nowhere identical. Mass dampers were specifically allowed before the start of season and banned in the middle. This is something that is something that has (apparently) came up only now.

Many other questions are still not clear, not one of the least being "what the fukc is tha hole in there for? Is it anything useful at all?" Perhaps the Red Bulls now run faster after they discover that such hole was actually what was making the 2012 car worse than in previous years

Now that would be funny

[Massa 0]

Yeah, they deserve to lose when their cheating isn't good enough.

I was responding to Delta's portrayal that exploiting loopholes is a Red Bull-only thing; it isn't. I have no response to how the FIA is handling it because I think it would be wrong to retroactively penalize when they let it out on the track and race, but also find it weird to let the points stand. So whatever they did was good enough as long as the illegal thing is off the car now.

But yeah, you're right, they deserve to lose...they lost the illegal piece of their car, they got some bad press for being mean bad awful evil cheaters, they lost time devoted toward something they can't use anymore, and now they have to go find another way to cheat within the rules/without getting caught which is another suck of time and money. Good enough to me and you guys know I'm nothing close to a Red Bull or Vettel supporter.

[Caesar 0]

RBR can still have same thing on their floor but it has to be detached from rear bodywork, at least 0.5 mm.

they will not be punished for race they drove with it because they didn't have any major gain from it.

other teams didn't protest their monaco results because they all have same floor 'slots', just RBR's was atached to part that was considered rear bodywork .

if FIA would consider it legal that would open way to abuse it to create extra downforce.

only purpose of protest is to close the loophole.

[Quiet One 15]

RBR can still have same thing on their floor but it has to be detached from rear bodywork, at least 0.5 mm.

they will not be punished for race they drove with it because they didn't have any major gain from it.

other teams didn't protest their monaco results because they all have same floor 'slots', just RBR's was atached to part that was considered rear bodywork .

if FIA would consider it legal that would open way to abuse it to create extra downforce.

only purpose of protest is to close the loophole.

That's it?

No, no, no. That should have been Neweys secret super mega weapon! Are you sure it didn't allow them to tap into other people's minds? Just imagine them being able to pick up on Massa's thoughts, that would give them a huge advantage!

Oh, I see...

[dribbler 6]

The season is starting to look moe and mroe like a Merc vs Macca competition. Money on Macca for their capability to move forwards the whole season. Lotus and Ferrari being the other possible candidates if Lotus can recall how to win and keep their momentum from there and if Ferrari doesn't lose too much ground and Alonso doesn't falters a single race.

I actually think the season is starting to look like Red Bull are going to pull ahead. I don't think the closing up of this hole will make a great deal of difference. They will still be quick and still beat McLaren in a straight fight as things stand

Source?

If true I think it is personally ridiculous. This is what is making F1 a bit of a joke at the moment. Can we please go back to the days where teams went faster by bringing new updates to the cars, and not by sorting things out in the stewards room? F1 is supposed to be about the pinnacle of motorsport - including technology. Now the rules are getting so damn restrictive that it is impossible for anyone to bring anything meaningful to the cars without it being prostested by some team or other.

If someone's come up with something that you haven't, it is your own damn problem. Think of something that will make your OWN car go quicker, don't protest it. If you've missed out on something, you deserve to get beat. Don't penalise the team that came up with it.

How many times just recently has it been the case someone has come up with something, only for it to be declared illegal a while later? Why can't they just wait to the end of the year to declare stuff illegal rather than doing it during the season?

The rules are going to get so restrictive that at some point, we might as well just have a spec formula, because that'll save costs and there will be nothing to protest....

There have always been rules and they have always had to be adhered to. It's clear cut. Nothing to get emotional about. Let's move on, quickly.

I was just starting to think we would have a season without fans getting paranoid about the FIA, accusations of cheating and all that crap.

[Delta 0]

I was responding to Delta's portrayal that exploiting loopholes is a Red Bull-only thing; it isn't. I have no response to how the FIA is handling it because I think it would be wrong to retroactively penalize when they let it out on the track and race, but also find it weird to let the points stand. So whatever they did was good enough as long as the illegal thing is off the car now.

No, sorry. Exploiting loopholes and actually violating the rules are 2 totally different things. Red Bull didn't exploit a loophole they were flat out found to be in violation of the rules. The other teams may or may not do it but you can only penalise it when it's caught, and if they're caught then yes they should also be punished.

In previous seasons when there have been technical irregularities with break ducts, rear wings, using fuel as ballast ETC the teams have always either been disqualified (or in BAR's case even banned), or sent to the back of the grid. Yet Red Bull essentially just get away with it. There's no consistency there.

[Quiet One 15]

No, sorry. Exploiting loopholes and actually violating the rules are 2 totally different things. Red Bull didn't exploit a loophole they were flat out found to be in violation of the rules. The other teams may or may not do it but you can only penalise it when it's caught, and if they're caught then yes they should also be punished.

In previous seasons when there have been technical irregularities with break ducts, rear wings, using fuel as ballast ETC the teams have always either been disqualified (or in BAR's case even banned), or sent to the back of the grid. Yet Red Bull essentially just get away with it. There's no consistency there.

CAUTION: I know nothing about the technical stuff involved, I am only giving an opinion based on the way the things seems to have evolved. I might be widely off the mark here. You have been warned.

There is some slight difference. This was not something that was downright illegal, it was deemed illegal through a "clarification of the rules". That seems to point that the hole itself was no blatant breach of the rules that was found out and was concealed with intent to breach them. More like "hey, you know? we've been thinking and if you look at that hole this way it is against the rules. So, sorry but we made a mistake by allowing it before"

It was a grey area and after a closer look, they decided that such a grey area was actually more black than white (the whole technical mumbo jumbo amounted to something like "yeah, it didn't breach rule X, but we found out that it went against the spirit of rule Y, so it is some kind of breach"). Taking away all their previous results would have been unfair: their car was not deemed illegal before. It is a salomonical solution and I think its the right thing.

[Massa 0]

Andrés: +1 agree ^ ALO +3 MAS -7 otherkupspeak

I can't buy the "Red Bull have cheated through explicitly breaking the rules in the past few years and that is how they won." No. They were just flat out better than everyone else under the rules being enforced. Like every other team. Every other team. The ones you like, the ones you don't like. I'm sorry if I'm sounding like a **** and if I'm dead wrong, but I can't help but feel as though past comments about a dislike for Vettel/Red Bull winning guide your feelings that they aren't doing it legally. I shouldn't jump to that conclusion but it blows my mind. All the top teams get something banned at some point and there's no evidence that I know of (and I admittedly know very little ) that suggests Red Bull were in explicit violation of any rules at the time they were winning everything. And Vettel is my least favorite driver. Red Bull/STR is my least favorite team. But just because I didn't want them to win doesn't mean they couldn't win fairly since, well, they did under the rules the FIA were enforcing.

I don't even know how this is a really big situation. They scored points with a legal car at the time, now they will have a revised legal car at this time. The only controversy, to me, isn't Red Bull, it's that the FIA revises rules mid-season and I don't really like that.

[Insider 0]

No, but it certainly wasn't as bad as it is these days. What will someone protest about next? Someone having a driver better than someone else's? A car being controlled by a steering wheel?

I'm writing in jest of course, but it is a ridiculous situation when something is perfectly legal at the start of the season, and then it suddenly isn't. Either they don't have very competent stewards or very good written rules if something that is potentially illegal is allowed for a few races...

I sympathise with the people who's job it is to make a ruling, as things are never straightforward when it comes to F1 regulations - but really, it can wait till the end of the season with something that is so insignificant. Come on, a hole in the floor? It's not as if they've got 50bhp more than anyone else, is it?

Look at last year and the whole exhaust blown diffusers and the saga that triggered. The FIA tried to ban it during the season and it caused a massive upheaval about who it was supposed to be benefitting, who it was really benefitting, etc, etc. Eventually they left it to the season ended to ban them, that was the sensible thing to do.

It is quite amusing that when there's so much talk about saving costs, there are situations like this that could essentially end up in a team having to completely redesign an area of their car. How is that saving money? I wonder how much money the ruling on Lotus' adjustable ride height thingy cost for them to essentially spend money designing it only to be told not long before the season started that it was now illegal. Shambles.

The FIA either lets every team do exactly as they please with a basic framework, [length, width, wing size, tyre size and power plant] or we go to a spec car. F1 is meant to be the cutting edge of car development and innovation where the best driver wrings the neck off his fast, clever car and wins. Unfortunately, it's a travelling circus where the cars must adhere to set of highly complicated specifications and rules, that can be bent and manipulated, [if you can afford it] and the drivers are reduced to quick-minded operators of a huge computer game. Millions and millions of dollars are spent on R&D, manufacturing costs and driver's salaries for teams to be thwarted by a simple appendage - the tyre - an invention, in modern times of the marketing department in an effort to spice the sport up. I could understand that kind of thinking if FOM was in the danger of going under or had been sold to Wal-Mart. Have viewing numbers plummeted? Have FOM posted a loss in any of the financial years they have existed? If I were a car manufacturer looking at getting involved in the sport, I certainly wouldn't want to do it if I faced the prospect of losing millions over a decision made by a one-man technical department or the misguided marketing concept of the multi-billionaire ringmeister who never got to be what he really wanted to be - a real F1 driver. That animal, my friends is rapidly heading for extinction.

[JHS18 0]

No, sorry. Exploiting loopholes and actually violating the rules are 2 totally different things. Red Bull didn't exploit a loophole they were flat out found to be in violation of the rules. The other teams may or may not do it but you can only penalise it when it's caught, and if they're caught then yes they should also be punished.

In previous seasons when there have been technical irregularities with break ducts, rear wings, using fuel as ballast ETC the teams have always either been disqualified (or in BAR's case even banned), or sent to the back of the grid. Yet Red Bull essentially just get away with it. There's no consistency there.

So please remind me by telling me how Red Bull have clearly broken the rules in the last few years?

It strikes me as amusing that there's always some conspiracy that Red Bull are clearly cheating. Let's look at the accusations in the last few seasons:

Adjustable Right Height - turned out to be completely false, they had no such device.

"Flexible" front wing - tests were stricter just for Red Bull - there was nothing illegal.

Overspending - often accused of breaching the resource restriction agreement, but again, it has never been proven to be true.

I can't recall any instance of Red Bull's rear wing/brake ducts being illegal or using fuel as ballast...so...

So how have Red Bull cheated exactly? I'm confused.

[Delta 0]

The flexible wing may have passed the load test but that doesn't really mean a great deal apart from the FIA couldn't figure out how they were doing it which meant they couldn't divise a test to catch them out. When you looked at footage of their car, particularly in fast corners it was clear the wing's endplates were not 85mm from the ground. The rule wasn't "it's only cheating if the FIA find it", the rule was "The endplates of the front wing must be a minimum of 85mm from the ground at all times".

[JHS18 0]

So by that logic, someone's guilty til proven innocent rather than the other way around then?

Fact is they couldn't find anything illegal. You can base what you think on internet speculation or rumour, but the cold hard fact is that there was nothing deemed illegal with the car. I don't know about you, but I believe the FIA's rulings over a bunch of unproven internet speculation.

[Quiet One 15]

More food for thought:

http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_news_item.php?fes_art_id=46458

The RBr now has a sword of Damocles hanging upon their heads until end of season.

[Massa 0]

More food for thought:

http://www.pitpass.c...es_art_id=46458

The RBr now has a sword of Damocles hanging upon their heads until end of season.

That's why I hate mid-season clarifications. It's too messy with the points. If it's deemed legal the day it hits the track, it's legal for the year in my fantasy world where I call the shots.

The flexible wing may have passed the load test but that doesn't really mean a great deal apart from the FIA couldn't figure out how they were doing it which meant they couldn't divise a test to catch them out. When you looked at footage of their car, particularly in fast corners it was clear the wing's endplates were not 85mm from the ground. The rule wasn't "it's only cheating if the FIA find it", the rule was "The endplates of the front wing must be a minimum of 85mm from the ground at all times".

You went out and measured?

They exploited a loophole if it was lower than 85 mm. The loophole? The FIA can't measure the height constantly while the car is on the track. The rule was impossible to enforce and Red Bull rightfully took advantage of it; it isn't a rule if it isn't being or can't be enforced. Why do people drive over the speed limit and only slow down when there's a police officer or a camera? It's the same thing. If the FIA can't find a violation, or don't do anything about a violation, it's not a rule. Words are just words.

End of the day, the other teams didn't figure out how to beat Red Bull under the same rules (the ones being enforced) and now they get to go home and figure out how to beat them this year. The FIA isn't afraid to penalize people. They've given it to everyone who had a clear violation of a rule, and they've given it hard at times. You know the FIA is doing a good job because all the Ferrari fans think the FIA favors one team and all the McLaren fans think the FIA favors another team and all the Red Bull fans think the FIA favor another team etc etc etc. Everyone thinks the FIA is biased for someone else, which means they're just being fair.

So by that logic, someone's guilty til proven innocent rather than the other way around then?

Fact is they couldn't find anything illegal. You can base what you think on internet speculation or rumour, but the cold hard fact is that there was nothing deemed illegal with the car. I don't know about you, but I believe the FIA's rulings over a bunch of unproven internet speculation.

Vettel fanboy.

Nah, I agree, good post.