Stepney warned Coughlan of Ferrari floor (Autosport report)

That would imply that the fault lies with the company that hired a spy not the company that employed said spy to steal documents and propriatory information.

 

At speed the car gets sucked to the ground so the flexing had to be downward.

 

Flexing upward does not make any sense. You want to reduce the amount of air that can be under the car to create downforce...or am I thinking wrong here?

 

Not quite right. The undertray of a car serves as part of the aerodynamics, just as the rear diffusers and on F1 cars even the exhaust pipe and the exhaust air that is being pushed out of the car. So yes, the undertray or any part of the floor board is in fact a aerodivice. Anything that touches air while driving.

 

I think he was reffering to Renault's mass damper system, not Ferrari's floor.

 

Correct, David.

 

Newton: What goes up must come down.

Down in this case being back to flat or the position when the car is at rest. somehow this must have created more downforce at high speeds and less downforce at low speeds perhaps by changing the airflow to the rear wing or other aerodynamic pieces on the car.

If I were smart enough to figure out how the moveable floor worked I would be making big bucks with some F1 team (hopefully SF) but I really have no idea. An engineer I am not.

 

Is the Ferrari legal?
http://www.forumula1.net/2007/f1/f1-news/is-the-ferrari-legal/

"...Although he didn’t name Ferrari outright, Ron Dennis from McLaren stated that he was confident, (I bet he was) there were cars whose performance would be affected in the near future after some technical rule interpretations were clarified.

The rumour is that Ferrari has a mechanism that allows the front of the floor to drop at high speed. This creates an aerodynamic ’stall’ which improves straight line speed. However, this may not show up down the long straights - with this sort of technology, the cars can run with more wing whilst achieving the same sort of straight line speed as before. This means the car will have better cornering capabilities with less being taken out of the tyres.

The rule concerned allows for the floor to absorb some motion because it takes a lot of punishment from the curbs on the race track. If the floor was too rigid, the chassis would sugger. However, if the floor actually moves, it is deemed an illegal moveable aerodynamic device. Ferrari’s eagle-eyed (yeah... right) rivals have spotted that Ferrari have an unusually complex arrangement on the floor of the car and this is what has sparked off the controversy.

The FIA placed a lot of emphasis on examining race-car floors whilst at Melbourne, and close scrutiny fell on the Ferrari. It is believed that at this stage, the Ferrari team has been given the benefit of the doubt as the current FIA test on car floors only involves checking the upward force....

...A spokesperson for Ferrari has brushed off claims that the Ferrari may not be legal. “It’s part of the game any time Ferrari is quickest,” the spokesperson explained. “It’s not the first time that there have been questions about legality. If someone has a complaint, there is always the FIA.”

Only time will tell if the cause of Ferrari’s extraordinary pace is down to an illegal aerodynamic device."
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Alonso - Floors did not slow Ferrari
http://www.forumula1.net/2007/f1/f1-news/alonso-floors-did-not-slow-ferrari/

"Race winner Fernando Alonso has claimed that the recent issues over flexing floors did not tip the race in McLaren’s favour. After Ferrari’s total dominance of the Melbourne race, McLaren sought clarification from the FIA over the legality of the design of the floors that several teams (including Ferrari) were using. The outcome of the clarification was that some teams had to modify the underbody of their cars in time for the Malaysian Grand Prix.

“It is difficult to know,” admitted Alonso. “If Ferrari had been slower all weekend then I would say it is due to the floor. But on Friday and Saturday they were very fast. Only in the race if seems they could not show all of their potential.”

One potential reason for Kimi Raikkonen’s pace is that his engine was reported to be limited to 17,500 rpm during the race, against a normal rev limit of 19,000. This was to ensure the engine lasted the entire race weekend as there were fears that a small water leak at Melbourne could have damaged the engine.

Alonso admitted that he felt Ferrari might bounce back to dominance at the next race in Bahrain. “Bahrain is only four days after Malaysia,” he stated. “So no-one can change the cars very much. Ferrari were better than us at the test so I can imagine it being difficult to beat them again.” "

 

As per the report above, Ron Dennis is the one who asked for the rule clarification by the FIA. He had some part in this; it'd be asinine to rule him squeaky clean.

It's also completely ridiculous to actually believe that Coughlan kept all this information to himself in his own house. He was just smart and took the blame for it all, or tried to. Dennis will get cooked in this, and he's gonna need some aloe when they're through.

Some of you need to tell me where you live, things/life must be way more honest and true in your neighborhoods. This is just the way of life these days, no matter how you slice it. Sad but true.

 

Agreed, but it will be difficult to proove that.

 

Yeah, you are correct. Unfortunately everyone in a position that matters is also thinking the same thing about both of those points: everyone knowing it, yet how they are supposed to prove it all...

 

\
Who knows...Maybe the FIA will just rule on gut instinct next Thursday.

 

... is there anywhere in the FIA rule set that says a team cannot have details of the other teams car, race plans, etc.

I know that from a business perspective we have the IP laws but (assuming McLaren definitely had this information) from a motor racing view point have McLaren actually done anything against the rules?

All teams work as had as they can to learn stuff about the other teams ... Stepney just provided extremely high quality information.

Thus can the FIA really do anything against McLaren? Ferrari can sue McLaren but this has no bearing on the WDC and the sport.
Pete
ps: On top of that we have teams like the Red Bull teams who most definitely share information ... one would assume, and Bernie is trying to do the customer team deal where teams would run other manufacture team cars.

 

The next GP isn't too far away. I wonder what will happen by then.

 

Yep. Pepsi blew the whistle immediately and the Coke employee was prosecuted for his crime. I don't think Pepsi is looking to have their product taste like Coke anyway, but the point is that McLaren should not have accepted the info and immediately notified someone.

This thread addresses the fact that I found most troubling in all of this. It's still reasonable to consider that Coughlin may have taken credit for noticing the floorboards on video, but it's getting harder to continue rationalizing away all of the snippets of info we receive. I still hope that this scandal doesn't ruin the season, but it looks more and more likely.

 

Can somebody please answer whether McLaren have actually done anything wrong regarding the FIA rules as I said here: http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showpost.php?p=136904779&postcount=39

How could there be a rule that says you must not know anything about your competitors car and tactics?. Impossible.

Thus McLaren have broken the IP law but not done anything wrong regarding F1, thus nothing can be done within F1 and legal proceedings will be 100% about IP and sueing McLaren from Ferrari.

This is a very important question, IMO the FIA cannot do anything as McLaren could protest straight back, ie: Any team knows that the F2007 Ferrari uses x, y and z just from observation, thus the same rule would apply. You cannot say oh but you knew secret information ... like what is that?

Pete

 

Pete,

See the thread about why the FIA summoned McLaren on 26th. There FIA states on which grounds (articles) they've summoned McLaren and could possibly convict them.

 

Just read an article that stated something I didn't hear yet (sorry if this is a repost):

Coughlan was informed by Stepney about the Ferrari floor and then passed that information to his (Coughlan's) boss . That means it is no longer a question of Stepney and Coughlan, but now shows that the knowledge had spread within McLaren.

The same article also states that this whole affair pisses off Mad Max big time and points deductions for McLaren is a real option.

http://www.blick.ch/sport/formel1/artikel67504

 

Zer gud.

 

All i say is now Mclaren are gonna, if all this is really true.


i Cant wit for the TRUTH to be told, but wheather we find out the truth is a different story.

 

Understand there is an FIA "catch all" rule that says a team is responsible for its employees actions.

Presumably they could take a view on that rule even if an employee acted unilaterally without their knowledge.

Most engineering is about incremental development, ideas come from many places.

I'm reminded of the quote from acedemia

Copying from one source is plagiarism.
Copying from more than one source is original research.

But in this case theft is involved and the question arises
Was the theft made before the recipient was alerted or was it done in after a bi-lateral agreement to reward the act in some way.

Better than going to court, the teams could "face off" on the track say 4 cars each for 3 hours

We'd all stump up to watch that and it would defray a lot of legal expense but I bet Bernie and Max would be dead against it

 

Yes they can.... Here's why McLaren are screwed:

Below is the agreement that McLaren signed as a part of the Sporting regulations and the Constructors application for admission into the Championship.:

Couple this with the terms of Article 151c, which they are charged under (see below), and I don't see how they're going to get out of this.

If I'm McLaren, I'm walking into that meeting with a plea bargain in mind.

 

.