The about lying in F1...

Wonderful.

Does this mean what happened in Austrailia should go unpunished?

Or is it time to stop this sort of ongoing misinformation for the good of the sport? All Ralph did was suggest this is nothing new.

Personally, I do not see intentionally lying to the stewards as acceptable. Especially as obvious as Hamilton/McLaren. The next driver that does so should get suspeneded for 3-4 races, the team lose WCC points.

Why does anyone want to minimize this problem? Seems like even Hamiltonians would want what is good for the sport. Too bad the first to get caught in a while was Hamilton, but no one forced him, no gun to his head.

 

+1

From the Blues Brothers: "I didn't lie, I just took the liberty of..... Bull$hitting you a little!"

BS is (and always has been) a big part of all motorsport - Did anyone else notice all the Toyota guys "hiding" the back of the car on the grid the other day? At least they were laughing about it....

However, what made this incident so egregious were the bare faced lies to the stewards - You just don't do that - As I said elsewhere, they'll forgive you an illegal engine or a hidden fuel tank, but DONT LIE!

OTOH, I really believe Mclaren, LH, MW and Davey boy have paid the price (lost points and huge embarrassment) and it's time to move on.

Cheers,
Ian

 

"It wasn't lies, it was Bull****" LOL! I agree.

 

I think the FIA should have just looked at the film as to what happened, and act on that alone.

Who cares who said what to whom, it's the action on the track they should be scrutineering.

 

+1

G

 

The car was legal and it wasn't driven in a wreckless fashion, these SHOULD be the determining factors of how a race is scored. What is said afterwards has no bearing on who legitimately crossed the line first. The officiating was completely absent and they're lucky to have stumbled into a scapegoat on the front stoop at just the right time to keep their myopia hidden.

 

I think the point is that the drivers do what the teams tell them to do. Right or wrong you win, lose and cheat as a team. Lewis did what he was told and is paying the price. Like the saying goes it aint a crime if you don't get caught. McLaren keeps getting caught.

 

I'd listen to someone who is or was an F-1 driver on this issue. That excludes Ralf.

 

What happenen on the track, and the reason for the subsequent penalties, are unrelated. As they should be.

The reason the stewards want to hear the opinion and comments from a driver is that not all can be seen from a video. This way they do not draw conclusions that are wrong.

There is no place for lying to the stewards. Not ever.

Like the old saying, what you see, is not always what you get.

Something like that.

 

Like I told you before, if lying to officials is accepted, you have no sport. You have no organization. You have no F1.

What the officials did was absolutely correct. What Hamilton and McLaren did was absolutely wrong.

And unnecessary.

 

Very useful and constructive comment. Well done.

 

Suppose somebody lies to the stewards and isn't in the points and goes from 10th to last place...that's not a penaty. and a backmarker can change the outcome of the race and the World Championships.

Gotta ban em for at least 3 or 4 races. the sponsors and everybody has to be hurt if you are going to get a change in behavior. anything less is just a joke.

The McCheater team continues to prove that they will do anything they think they can get away with. makes it hard to watch all of the team 24/7.

Where will it stop? are they going to try and change the stripes on the tyres so they don't have to use both the prime and the option tyre? Are they going to sneak illegal fuel and additives into the gas tanks? the list of possibilities are endless. and if the punsihment isn't sufficient they may do anything.

You'd think $100 million fine and losing constructor's points would have sent them a message. Not these guys, apparently they have a sociopathic need to cheat. sad.

 

Are we forgetting that the stewards lie ?
Max lies.
Bernie lies.

Lets all grow up a little here. We're talking major bucks in a very competitive environment.
Our fricken Presidents lie to us on a daily basis.

As I see it F1 is entertainment. Nothing more or less. No-one gets killed. No world problems solved.
To think that Mclaren invented the lie is self denial.

I am a bit disappointed to see LH and their team throw the one manager under the bus. But that guy probably got a kick back for being the whipping boy.

Next page.

 

PhilNotHill, it is not true that being dropped from 10th to last isn't a penalty. Teams are paid by how each car finishes each race, all the way down to last place. That is at least part of the reason you see 9th, 10th, 11th and so on place cars battling right to the end.

 

Yes, they are sociopathic cheaters.

Ferrari too (see Schumi @ Rascasse).

Renault too (see: stealing McLaren data)

Toyota too (see: stealing thousands of pages of Ferrari data and having employees convicted of crimes for it)

Honda too (see: illegal fuel tank)

Benetton: (Flavio Briatore and Schumacher... see: illegal fuel rig, illegal traction control)

Frentzen also went on record not too long ago to stay that cheating in F1 was very easy to do and that most of the teams were cheating.




Now, if the FIA wants to clean up the paddock, so to speak, then so be it. McLaren has borne the brunt of that, without question. However, to think that cheating is...

a) something new
b) something specific to McLaren
c) grossly shocking that it happens in F1

is ridiculous.

It's been going on forever.

 

There was an interesting post I read on another forum.


When Hamilton lied to the stewards, he was not there alone. He was summoned as well as Trulli. Hamilton and Trulli gave contradictory stories as to what happened. The fact that they believed Hamilton means they necessarily didn't believe Trulli. And that means they thought Trulli was lying. There is no other way about it... why not give Hamilton P3 and then DQ Trulli for lying to the stewards?

Having said that, when it became evident that they had 2 different stories, why have a hearing and make a decision without the rest of the info? Why not say "ok, lets get the rest of the info - tapes, transcripts, telemetry and we'll make a decision by the end of the day".

None of this forgives Hamilton and McLaren for lying, but why rush to decisions without all the info, especially when you have 2 drivers telling you they are both being truthful, but their stories don't match?

I think this whole situation makes the stewards look pretty stupid as well.



Windsor also pointed out that in the past 4 F1 races, there had been more penalties, protests, appeals and greivances filed with and decided upon by the FIA than there had been in the prior 2 or 3 years.

It seems to be getting a little out of hand.

 

I wonder what they are trying to do too... aside from the "are you suggesting cheating be allowed!??!?" aspect (which, of course I am not suggesting that), I can't understand what motives the FIA would have to stick their fingers into every aspect of F1 like they have.

What are your thoughts?

The only things I can think of is that Max likes power and control, and the more the teams are filing greivances with the FIA, the more power and control this gives him. Also, the more he can fiddle with the results, the more he can keep the series close and make sure there is plenty of drama through the year.

I can't think of any other reasons. Why does F1 suddenly need to be heavily regulated with an iron fist in contrast to how it was for years and years?

 

Well...that's not really right, is it?

They could have thougth that Trulli misread the situation of what Hamilton was doing rather than lying about it.

Who knows. None of us were there.

 

Well, that's part of the problem.
With the race starting at 5pm, by the time they had the conflicting stories, it was *already* the end of the day ...
... and then some. Three hours after the podium would have been around 10pm local time.
And this was one of multiple situations to review. (Do they review them in race order?)

I think the time of day was the cause of the rush -- especially with all the teams packing up to get to Malaysia in a couple of days.

It was late, everyone was tired, and the stewards got sloppy.
(Look at the decision they made over the Vettel / Kubica incident.)

5pm race starts -- fail.

I think the reaction was inflated because the stewards embarrassed themselves, and blamed Hammi and McLaren for it.
Would the penalty have been as severe if they'd been caught in the lie on the spot? (As they would have been, had the stewards reviewed all the material.)
Would McLaren even have tried that stupid lie if it hadn't been so late that they thought the stewards would be rushing the decision?


But what I really wonder is: if everyone had told the truth, would the stewards have still fiddled with the results, just to "do something"?
A sport needs to be governed, but the bureaucracy of the governing process tends to feed on itself, and develops an inclination to "fix" things which weren't broken. (Just look at how governments grow out of proportion.)
(Why wasn't Vettel / Kubica a "racing incident"?)

After four days of fiddling, the results were pretty much the way the cars crossed the finish line --- other than DQing McLaren for "causing" the stewards to mess up, and imposing a grid penalty on Vettel for Malaysia.

F1 need more king log, and less king stork.
Especially if they run themselves out of time.

Kinda makes you wonder about post-race decisions after night races?

 

What some seem to forget is that the lying caused another driver harm (Trulli). This is very unsportive and therefore a punishment is in order. McLaren/Lewis got caught lying - period.
Doesn't matter if lying is a subculture of F1 or not or what has happened in the past - when you get caught you should get punished. No different in the real world.

And ofcourse this is big news, especially because it involved the WC and a top team plus the result of the lying was a non deserved podium finish and another driver loosing points. No wonder it gets the attention it gets.

 

LH lied he was punished, the whole thing has been blown out of proportion by the media.
Lets get on with the racing.