May 15, 2018 · by thejudge13 · in Daily F1 News and Comment. · One thing is certain for 2018, and that is Ferrari are not afraid of really pushing the boundaries. Image Unavailable, Please Login Proof of this mandate is evidenced by paddock suspicions of integrated dual aero development with Haas, sharing wind tunnel data beyond what is allowed. Couple with keeping their oil burning allocation set to the limit with zero tolerance for any accidental overburn, the questionable aero bias Halo mounted rear view mirrors that Charlie Whiting is set to make a clarification on. Ferrari 2018 seems more like Ferrari under Ross Brawn 15 years ago. According to Germany’s AMuS The latest suspicions are pointed at again the oil usage in the Ferrari car, with a separate oil circuit not measured as part of their 0.6l per 100km allocation. Ferrari may well argue this is not part of the engine, being attached to the turbocharger, therefore not under the same regulation. A grey area in the regulations for sure. More serious is the likely request by teams for clarification before Monaco on Ferrari’s electrical power distribution. It is suspected that Ferrari are bypassing the measuring sensor periodically, allowing more than the regulated 4 megajoules to be used. This can be achieved by manipulating the electrical resistance in the lines and two outputs from the battery. According to experts, if this was the case then in the qualifying rounds Ferrari would have 20 hp more than the field in short bursts. The alleged trickery is so complicated that FIA technicians will struggle to understand it, which also makes it difficult to prove. What is suspicious is a sudden compliance with the the aerodynamic rules for 2019 or the omission of the MGU-H in the engines for 2021: In both cases, Ferrari is surprisingly against their own interests and are certainly doing the FIA and Liberty a favour. “For the good of the sport and the show,”. The paddock rumour today is a fear that Ferrari could buy an acquittal with it. As a friend of mine once said Formula 1, being investigated by the FIA is by far the bigger flattery than being copied.
That's due to the fact that Sassi is at Mercedes now the former head Ferrari's F1 engine diversion. Is now we getting these allegations.
Meh I haven't seen huge clamp downs on RB or Merc lately over how powerful they are especially Mercedes. Especially this year. So much complaints for Ferrari and almost non for Merc or RB.
That’s becuase people have left ferrari and joined both of them, but no one of any note has joined ferrari from them, so no insider knowledge. If someone is joining merc or red bull and then divulging information, as far as I’m concerned, that’s revealing privileged information and is no doubt covered by whatever terms of employment they have to allow their continued move to a new team, hence, they should get sued, and it’s cheating of the highest degree by trying to nobble your old team. Just like that traitor Allison.
With that I agree there's something called gardening leave. Yet more information Is being thrown out on this year's car. Despite Sassi not doing anything and no information on the car last year for months. It's becoming tiring now. Oh and the biggest and worst example is the scandal of 2007.
When fractions of seconds per lap matter, of course you push the boundaries. If you find a loophole to exploit, good for you! You have done your job better than your competition. It only becomes cheating if you do something to deliberately violate an existing rule and do something to evade detection. Exploiting a loophole and then having the FIA change the rules in order to close it... well, that’s the game we’re in, isn’t it?
But that's not what Ferrari did with their mirrors...there was no loophole. They constructed a device that they knew was illegal from the get-go and that they were forcing the FIA to either ban them from racing for the weekend or to allow it for one race. Well played, but definitely cheating and it didn't really seem to be worth it.
Total BS, the FIA issued a clarification about the halo and what can be done with it. Ferrari went radical with mounting mirror to the halo and all the other teams forgot there Vagisil and got there panties in a bunch.
Not certain I agree with that as per the mirrors. The FIA agreed that mirrors could indeed be mounted to the halo. Ferrari did so. Their mounting device clearly had a connection from the upper element to the outside of the mirror. Albeit a thin one. The argument became not whether they could attach the mirror there (which the rules clearly stated they could) to whether the mechanism used to mount the mirror then became an aerodynamic device. And once again, that is the game we are in.
Nope. There have always been rules about mirrors and what comprises a mirror and its minor supports. The thing Ferrari showed up with was a pure aero device that had nothing to do with support or mounting AND below it was a mirror. IOW, it was a device with two separate components with two separate goals... one of which mirrors are not allowed to do. There's no way that Ferrari did not understand that.
I agree that the actual mirror part was just fine. The winglet above the mirror was a step well beyond the line... again, there's no way Ferrari didn't know that and expect exactly what happened.
Of course. That was the ‘pushing the envelope’ part. You saw the thin element linking the outside of the upper element to the outside of the mirror, right? That made it a structural element of the mirror assembly. I could argue that all day long. However, Charlie ruled otherwise, so it’s gone. The NASCAR folks over here like to say “If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.” I wouldn’t endorse that, exactly. But I will say that if you aren’t pushing and trying to exploit any possible loophole you might see, then you’re in the wrong game.
Hey, we added a tiny winglet above a mirror, Mercedes ran oil burning when it wasn’t allowed, had secret tyre tests, and paid off Pirelli to change tyre compounds part way into a year, if anyone is winning the cheating stakes, it’s the silver arseholes.... I mean arrows
No, Mercedes didn’t run oil burning when it wasn’t allowed, Mercedes ran oil burning before it was disallowed. Big difference. Find a loophole and exploit it, good on you. When they find it and ban it, OK, move on to the next idea.
They ran illegal engine maps allowing the oil burning, that were hidden from the FIA inspections. They then used a loophole to enable them to keep oil burning at a higher rate than the rest when the FIA ceded that the practice could continue but in a limited fashion by introducing their new engines prior to the cut off for oil consumption limits, leaving them with twice the duration of burning available for the remaining races, thus consolidating their position and limiting once again any opportunity for an actual RACE to happen at an F1 weekend display
Exactly...oil burning was a loophole that has become a regulation with a defined tolerance. The mirror appendage was blatantly crossing a line...a sacrificial one trick/race pony... BUT... perhaps it's something that will be considered in the future. Especially if it cleans the air to allow passing.
"The airhead" ... I like it. I have said repeatedly that I love a good cheat. Ferrari simply showed up to Barcelona with a bad one. I give them kudos for shoving it in the FIA's face, but it was really a second grade cheat.
Reports today is that Charlie Whiting and the FIA have checked and studied the Energy Store of Scuderia Ferrari and will issue a directive before the Monaco Grand Prix.
The trouble is that if you allow winglettes on the mirrors McLaren will turn up to the next race with 47 of them and still go a second a lap slower. And Clare Williams will moan that she can only afford 5 mirror-winglette aerodynamicists and Mercedes and Ferrari have 16 each I'm fed-up with aerodynamics. Why can't we just get back to cars?
Not sure whether i like the sound of that. Seems like anything SF does to gain an edge gets torpedoed and this seems to be potentially going the same direction. If they nerf / screw with Ferrari's batteries, I may just stop watching because it seems like we will just be getting horsedicked the rest of the season by Mercedes and the FIA. Regarding the latter, I don't care what others here say about the mirrors being a cheat; Whiting indicated himself that the mirror did not actually violate any rules but would be banned anyway. From Motorsport: "Asked if the device was effectively banned, despite not breaching a specific regulation, he replied: 'Yes, you could say that.'"
The mirrors are not the problem, it's the winglets. We can attach the mirrors to the Halo, we just have to get rid of the winglets. Attaching the mirrors to the winglets as an aero device is against FIA rules. Remember 2009 on the F60 (attaching mirrors to the side-pod deflector as an aero device); Ferrari had to remove the mirrors on the side pod deflectors and attach the mirrors to the chassis. For now on the batteries, they're allegations only.
