The FIA v Damon Hill
Discussion
rubystone said:
CommanderJameson said:
Flemke: you have on more than one occasion quoted from the proceedings of various FIA hearings (and thanks for so doing - the antics of some members of the FIA and their pet lawyers cast a particularly unflattering light on the FIA's internal politics).
Are these proceedings available on the interwebernet for our edification and amusement?
Yes. On the FAI website for starters. Are these proceedings available on the interwebernet for our edification and amusement?
http://www.fia.com/sport/Regulations/f1regs.html
Now if Flemke could post a link to the Concorde agreement, I'd be very impressed!
rubystone said:
Now if Flemke could post a link to the Concorde agreement, I'd be very impressed!
I did have a PDF of the old Concorde agreement that someone leaked onto the internets. I must confess to never having read it, but I'll have a dig around at home and see if I can find it. CommanderJameson said:
I appear to be a bit of a dolt. I can't find the Hansard-style records, just summaries and the rules. Am I actually being dense or does it just look that way?
fia.com, then Media Centre, then Press Releases. All the recent ones are in the middle pane, at the top-right you can click 'Formula One' and get a fuller list. The ones flemke quoted from are 19-09-07 - WMSC Transcripts.jamieboy said:
CommanderJameson said:
I appear to be a bit of a dolt. I can't find the Hansard-style records, just summaries and the rules. Am I actually being dense or does it just look that way?
fia.com, then Media Centre, then Press Releases. All the recent ones are in the middle pane, at the top-right you can click 'Formula One' and get a fuller list. The ones flemke quoted from are 19-09-07 - WMSC Transcripts.flemke said:
rubystone said:
flemke said:
[
I would have to disagree, my friend, although I did not appreciate the argument until I had thought for a while about Lowe's testimony at the second hearing.
Rule 3.15 says that you may not have any moving aerodynamic parts, etc. That is the overarching principle that must be applied to the car.
Rule 3.17.4 gives a specific exception, which is 5mm at 500N.
If there were no 3.15, then you could say that, so long as you passed the test at 500N, anything else was fair game. Because of what 3.15 says, however, nothing else is fair game - unless there is a specific exception.
There was an exception of 5mm at 500N. There was no exception for higher forces.
Rule 3.15 has been used several times to nullify developments that give rise to an interpretation of that rule. Wasn't the Mass Damper rejected on the basis that it was a moveable aero device. Even McLaren's Bridge Wing was reviewed under this regulation but found not to move more than might be expected.I would have to disagree, my friend, although I did not appreciate the argument until I had thought for a while about Lowe's testimony at the second hearing.
Rule 3.15 says that you may not have any moving aerodynamic parts, etc. That is the overarching principle that must be applied to the car.
Rule 3.17.4 gives a specific exception, which is 5mm at 500N.
If there were no 3.15, then you could say that, so long as you passed the test at 500N, anything else was fair game. Because of what 3.15 says, however, nothing else is fair game - unless there is a specific exception.
There was an exception of 5mm at 500N. There was no exception for higher forces.
I'm sure that every team built compliance into their floor to cope with both the rules you quote and I'm equally sure that the rule was put in place as a "catch-all" and thus any team looking to exploit it must also be aware that at the very least they'll simply be asked to remove their device rather than to face any penalty! Mass dampers, flexi rear wings...all have been banned as a result of 3.15...yet I don't recall any team losing points or being fined....
Thus that issue was not analogous to the floor issue, in which there was a recognition that a flexible floor would influence the aero performance, but for safety and practical reasons a narrow extent of movement was allowed. The problem there was that the movement that two teams purposefully designed in exceeded the terms of the exception.
As you know, on plenty of occasions teams have been excluded from results when their cars were retrospectively found to have been illegal. Similarly, on plenty of other occasions teams have been forced to abandon a novel device when the rules were tightened or re-written more clearly.
Which of the two regulatory actions happened seemed (usually) to depend on whether the team had found a genuine opportunity within a poorly-drafted rule, or had consciously broken a rule which everyone understood, and then after the fact tried to pervert what the rule obviously said in an effort to defend themselves.
johnfelstead said:
If you read the transcripts carefully, you will pick up the fact that the Ferrari floor was acting as a mass damper, it was not just an aero affecting moving floor. It damped out the oscilations in the front tyres.
But the floor is an aero device that moves. It's deceiving for them to try to link the movable floor (feast?) with Renaults mass damper. The mass damper was a sophisticated shock that helped keep the body level - much like the rest of the shocks on the car. My opinion is if Renaults mass damper (tucked away under the skin of the car having nothing to do with airflow itself directly) being deemed illegal is like saying adjusting tire pressures for curbs is illegal or tuning spring rates and rebound rates are illegal. Every engineer tries to limit the heaving fore and aft of the car in many different ways I presume.Lets face it, we've had Ferrari movable wings captured on live tv separating from the nose of the car. Now that's a movable aero device. Oh yeah and they didn't get a penalty for that either despite being flaming right in front of all the viewers. At least on "Speed" in America the commentators discussed it at length. IIRC it was early in the season in 2006.
Ferrari road cars are nice thou
The Renault mass damper was not similar to a conventional shock absorber and was not physically connected to any suspension component. It was a sprung weight that moved within the front of the tub independantly of any suspension, it's job was to counter the oscilation of the tyres by the act of the weight naturally moving in the oposite direction to the deflection of the tyre, the two natural frequencies of the tyre and the sprung weight matched but oposed each other. Hence the name mass damper.
Part of the job of the ferrari floor was to generate an oposing mass to the deflection of the tyres in the oposite direction, which is why it used a spring, rather than a stay as it's basis.
Part of the job of the ferrari floor was to generate an oposing mass to the deflection of the tyres in the oposite direction, which is why it used a spring, rather than a stay as it's basis.
Edited by johnfelstead on Tuesday 13th November 23:24
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