F1 team of the year?

[flemke]

WilliBetz said:

The motivation seems plausible. But I still don't understand McLaren's decision to raise the matter with the FIA (when Stepney's approach had been rebuffed) rather than at a TWG meeting.

From first hearing:


"Garry CONNELLY: In the confidential memo that you wrote on March 16 to Charlie Whiting, you state, in the fourth paragraph, that "we would like to consider the installation of a mechanism on the front of our floor consisting of springs and pivots, as illustrated below". Could you explain: were you actually intending to install that on your car?

"Mr LOWE: No, we were not. We wrote the letter in line with a protocol we have followed for some years, and I believe that other teams take the same approach, adding a certain neutrality and objectivity to the request. We were seeking an opinion from the FIA's Technical Department. The protocol which I follow is to ask whether we can do a specific thing, expecting that the answer will be in the negative. We had no intention of putting that on the car. It is an approach we use. I do not want to go to Charlie Whiting and report the action of a given team, stating that we feel it is wrong. The protocol keeps matter neutral and objective. After all, we want an objective opinion from the FIA. We respond accordingly: hence, if the action or mechanism is deemed acceptable, we can take that opinion and proceed."

[WilliBetz]

flemke said:

WilliBetz said:

The motivation seems plausible. But I still don't understand McLaren's decision to raise the matter with the FIA (when Stepney's approach had been rebuffed) rather than at a TWG meeting.

From first hearing:


"Garry CONNELLY: In the confidential memo that you wrote on March 16 to Charlie Whiting, you state, in the fourth paragraph, that "we would like to consider the installation of a mechanism on the front of our floor consisting of springs and pivots, as illustrated below". Could you explain: were you actually intending to install that on your car?

"Mr LOWE: No, we were not. We wrote the letter in line with a protocol we have followed for some years, and I believe that other teams take the same approach, adding a certain neutrality and objectivity to the request. We were seeking an opinion from the FIA's Technical Department. The protocol which I follow is to ask whether we can do a specific thing, expecting that the answer will be in the negative. We had no intention of putting that on the car. It is an approach we use. I do not want to go to Charlie Whiting and report the action of a given team, stating that we feel it is wrong. The protocol keeps matter neutral and objective. After all, we want an objective opinion from the FIA. We respond accordingly: hence, if the action or mechanism is deemed acceptable, we can take that opinion and proceed."

I understand it. I've no reason to doubt it. Just doesn't play very well, does it?

McL: We would like to consider installing this device.

FIA: Do you intend to install it?

McL: Absolutely not.

FIA: Even if we approve it?

McL: We would take that opinion and proceed...

[MrKipling43]

WilliBetz said:

I understand it. I've no reason to doubt it. Just doesn't play very well, does it?

I disagree. Putting aside any political motivations, it makes a lot of sense.

You think you've found a loop hole in the rules, but you're not sure that it would be legal. So you check before you spend time and money optimising set-ups and all that stuff, only to rock up at the next race and be told to remove it, or being DQ'd and losing a race's points when you're clearly a contender for both championships.

The other viewpoint is that once McLaren had found out about Ferrari's illegal floor and realised it was a plausible engineering solution, it became believable that they might have come up with something similar on their own. So, instead of running the risk of developing and running something that could get them into trouble, they decided to try to remove the advantage from their opponents by going to the FIA with this 'idea' and having it declared illegal. In effect, grassing Ferrari up in the process by neccesitating more stringent checks on that part of the car.

I wonder how the season would have panned out if McLaren had just run the floor themselves and kept schtum.

[flemke]

WilliBetz said:

I understand it. I've no reason to doubt it. Just doesn't play very well, does it?

McL: We would like to consider installing this device.

FIA: Do you intend to install it?

McL: Absolutely not.

FIA: Even if we approve it?

McL: We would take that opinion and proceed...

If you were certain in your mind that device X was against the rules, you would spend no time worrying about finding yourself in a dilemma if it should be declared "legal".


Even without that, I fail to see the problem, notwithstanding this year's blizzard of self-righteous pronouncements from the business's sport's various pontificators.

a) A guy leaves another team and comes to work for your team. With him he brings ideas from the other team. You listen to and consider adopting those ideas yourself.
b) Alternatively, a guy still on the other team goes out of his way to tell you what that team is doing. You may listen to and consider adopting those ideas yourself.

The main difference between the two scenarios is that in the first - which has for decades been totally accepted by all parties as legitimate - the new team is paying, sometimes known as "bribing", the guy for the ideas.
It's okay to use the ideas when you've paid to get them, but not okay when you've been given them without having sought them out?

[WilliBetz]

I considered the passing of information to be a gift, not espionage. The interesting question is how to proceed, once you know that your main competitor has a technology that you don't...

If you knew about a competitor's advantageous floor design, and wondered about using it yourself, then it would be logical to submit your design to the FIA for their approval. If approved, you would use it. McLaren deny this intent, presumably because it goes against their brand image for them to be seen to exploit another team's unintentionally released IP.

If you knew about a competitor's advantageous floor design, and were certain beyond doubt that it was illegal, and knew that the FIA had turned a blind eye to such a device, and would never contemplate running your own version because it was illegal, then it would be irrational to submit your own design to the FIA for approval. I suggest that you would, instead, simply mention at a TWG meeting that the test method for floor deflection was unrealistic and inadequate.

Much as I'd like to believe that McLaren is paragon of organisational virtue, I can't help but suspect that they followed the first route because it left them an option to exploit the design if approved. After all, even McLaren would accept that rules (like wings) are best when they have a bit of flexibility designed in...

[flemke]

WilliBetz said:

I considered the passing of information to be a gift, not espionage. The interesting question is how to proceed, once you know that your main competitor has a technology that you don't...

If you knew about a competitor's advantageous floor design, and wondered about using it yourself, then it would be logical to submit your design to the FIA for their approval. If approved, you would use it. McLaren deny this intent, presumably because it goes against their brand image for them to be seen to exploit another team's unintentionally released IP.

Unless one's car had to be designed around the device, and it was too late for McLaren to exploit it for '07.

willibetz said:

If you knew about a competitor's advantageous floor design, and were certain beyond doubt that it was illegal, and knew that the FIA had turned a blind eye to such a device, and would never contemplate running your own version because it was illegal, then it would be irrational to submit your own design to the FIA for approval. I suggest that you would, instead, simply mention at a TWG meeting that the test method for floor deflection was unrealistic and inadequate.

Would simply mentioning it at a TWG meeting result in the instant ban that McLaren achieved by their approach?
I thought the beauty of McLaren's approach was that, although the FIA could turn a blind eye so long as they believed that only Ferrari and themselves knew about it, once it was manifest that another team knew about it, the FIA were obliged to enforce the rule that had applied all along.

willibetz said:

Much as I'd like to believe that McLaren is paragon of organisational virtue, I can't help but suspect that they followed the first route because it left them an option to exploit the design if approved. After all, even McLaren would accept that rules (like wings) are best when they have a bit of flexibility designed in...

I doubt that there are that many virgins in Woking.
Rather, I suspect that all the teams including McLaren have rubbed along with a general understanding of what is and what is not on.
On those occasions when a team, or the regulator, departs from the unofficial rules and accepted procedures, an affected party will protest. Such departures would have included Honda's fuel tank, although perhaps not Renault's mass damper or Honda's "torque steering" device.

Prior to this affair, it appears (as implied by Lowe in his reference to Whiting in the second hearing), to have been pretty clearly established between the FIA tech guys and the teams what was and was not allowed for flexible floors. The two groups have had, after all, a huge amount of discussion about aero rules and interpretations over many years. It was not as if Ferrari or anyone else had landed from Mars the day before, read the technical regs, and innocently misinterpreted what was meant by the literal wording. This issue was preceded and framed by masses of discussion, precedent and context.
I take it that Lowe, and McLaren, were indignant that Ferrari had violated what all that context and experience would have made clear to any senior engineer. It was Ferrari's conscious crossing of that line, rather than a prosaic 'creative' interpretation of the literal rule, that catalysed McLaren's query to the FIA.

[Bitter'n'Twisted]

andyps said:

Bitter'n'Twisted said:

They had problems near the start of the season, and got on with sorting those problems
out.

Interesting way to describe deliberately using an illegal design and getting found out so having to change it

No. I was referring to reliability issues.
The flexing floor was reported to the FIA and it was banned. Big deal.
All teams try to push the limits of the rules all the time.
I get the impression from most peoples posts that they think that Ferrari should have lost
all points (drivers and constructors) gained from the races when they used this floor, but McLaren should not have lost anything whatsoever for using Ferrari IP.

andyps said:

They were within their rights to complain, but a much more honourable action would have been to look internally and shoulder the blame for the actions of their own employee rather than using their allies within the governing body to place accusations which were only investigated in one direction. These were not the actions of a team who had the interests of the sport overall, and fair play at heart. If they were confident enough in themselves they would not be worried about persuing these actions and for this reason I could not consider Ferrari to be team of the year.

If an employee in your company gives information to a competitor, you sack the employee and
if you think the competitor has accepted the information and is using your designs then you sue the competitor.
Anyway, I don't want to get into all that it's been subject to too much hysterical debate on this forum. I actually think the politics had VERY little effect on this season, and probably next as well in reality.
When you look at the racing then Ferrari did not gain anything this season from other
than their own efforts. Likewise McLaren did not lose out, and have no-one but themselves to blame
for not winning any titles.

So, what should have happened this year on and off track?
And given that who does everyone else think should have won the titles this year?
Whichever way I look at it the outcome would be as it was.

[kevin ritson]

Bitter'n'Twisted said:

andyps said:

Bitter'n'Twisted said:

They had problems near the start of the season, and got on with sorting those problems
out.

Interesting way to describe deliberately using an illegal design and getting found out so having to change it

No. I was referring to reliability issues.
The flexing floor was reported to the FIA and it was banned. Big deal.
All teams try to push the limits of the rules all the time.
I get the impression from most peoples posts that they think that Ferrari should have lost
all points (drivers and constructors) gained from the races when they used this floor, but McLaren should not have lost anything whatsoever for using Ferrari IP.

The flexible floor clearly broke the rules, so the Melbourne points should have been deducted, whereas there is little other than circumstantial evidence that any of Ferrari's info was used. Notwithstanding the likely two-way flow of information hinted at by Stepney.

andyps said:

They were within their rights to complain, but a much more honourable action would have been to look internally and shoulder the blame for the actions of their own employee rather than using their allies within the governing body to place accusations which were only investigated in one direction. These were not the actions of a team who had the interests of the sport overall, and fair play at heart. If they were confident enough in themselves they would not be worried about persuing these actions and for this reason I could not consider Ferrari to be team of the year.

If an employee in your company gives information to a competitor, you sack the employee and
if you think the competitor has accepted the information and is using your designs then you sue the competitor.
Anyway, I don't want to get into all that it's been subject to too much hysterical debate on this forum. I actually think the politics had VERY little effect on this season, and probably next as well in reality.
When you look at the racing then Ferrari did not gain anything this season from other
than their own efforts. Likewise McLaren did not lose out, and have no-one but themselves to blame
for not winning any titles.

You either have a very blinkered view or are naïve in the extreme if you think that politics have had very little effect on the season. After all, which topic has dominated this forum for several months?

So, what should have happened this year on and off track?
And given that who does everyone else think should have won the titles this year?
Whichever way I look at it the outcome would be as it was.

Sadly this season provided a golden opportunity for F1 to make a fresh start and improve its reach. As we can all see it has failed spectacularly.

[flemke]

Bitter'n'Twisted said:

If an employee in your company gives information to a competitor, you sack the employee and
if you think the competitor has accepted the information and is using your designs then you sue the competitor.

Correct, but you forgot to add that such a suit is tried in an unprejudiced court of law, in accordance with accepted rules of evidence, and the defendent is presumed innocent unless proven otherwise.

Bitter'n'Twisted said:

Anyway, I don't want to get into all that it's been subject to too much hysterical debate on this forum. I actually think the politics had VERY little effect on this season, and probably next as well in reality.
When you look at the racing then Ferrari did not gain anything this season from other
than their own efforts. Likewise McLaren did not lose out, and have no-one but themselves to blame
for not winning any titles.

So, what should have happened this year on and off track?
And given that who does everyone else think should have won the titles this year?
Whichever way I look at it the outcome would be as it was.

One could reply to many of your points.
Wrt the last one, that the season's outcome was unaffected by politics, are you saying that the stewards' decisions at Hungary were standard operating procedure and within the accepted norms of the sport?
If the stewards had not arbitrarily and inappropriately decided to move Alonso back five places, he would have been WDC. Had they not absurdly taken away McLaren's Constructors' points, they would have been WCC.

[WilliBetz]

flemke said:

WilliBetz said:

I considered the passing of information to be a gift, not espionage. The interesting question is how to proceed, once you know that your main competitor has a technology that you don't...

If you knew about a competitor's advantageous floor design, and wondered about using it yourself, then it would be logical to submit your design to the FIA for their approval. If approved, you would use it. McLaren deny this intent, presumably because it goes against their brand image for them to be seen to exploit another team's unintentionally released IP.

Unless one's car had to be designed around the device, and it was too late for McLaren to exploit it for '07.

I'm pretty clueless about aero devices, but it's reasonable to assume that this device wouldn't be a quick install. Do you think they intended to exploit it in '08?

flemke said:

willibetz said:

If you knew about a competitor's advantageous floor design, and were certain beyond doubt that it was illegal, and knew that the FIA had turned a blind eye to such a device, and would never contemplate running your own version because it was illegal, then it would be irrational to submit your own design to the FIA for approval. I suggest that you would, instead, simply mention at a TWG meeting that the test method for floor deflection was unrealistic and inadequate.

Would simply mentioning it at a TWG meeting result in the instant ban that McLaren achieved by their approach?
I thought the beauty of McLaren's approach was that, although the FIA could turn a blind eye so long as they believed that only Ferrari and themselves knew about it, once it was manifest that another team knew about it, the FIA were obliged to enforce the rule that had applied all along.

I think a considered comment, within a TWG meeting, regarding this apparent safety issue would have forced the FIA to consider the matter; would have revealed the hands of those teams using the device and would have protected McLaren from the backlash regarding misuse of another team's IP.

flemke said:

willibetz said:

Much as I'd like to believe that McLaren is paragon of organisational virtue, I can't help but suspect that they followed the first route because it left them an option to exploit the design if approved. After all, even McLaren would accept that rules (like wings) are best when they have a bit of flexibility designed in...

I doubt that there are that many virgins in Woking.
Rather, I suspect that all the teams including McLaren have rubbed along with a general understanding of what is and what is not on.
On those occasions when a team, or the regulator, departs from the unofficial rules and accepted procedures, an affected party will protest. Such departures would have included Honda's fuel tank, although perhaps not Renault's mass damper or Honda's "torque steering" device.

Prior to this affair, it appears (as implied by Lowe in his reference to Whiting in the second hearing), to have been pretty clearly established between the FIA tech guys and the teams what was and was not allowed for flexible floors. The two groups have had, after all, a huge amount of discussion about aero rules and interpretations over many years. It was not as if Ferrari or anyone else had landed from Mars the day before, read the technical regs, and innocently misinterpreted what was meant by the literal wording. This issue was preceded and framed by masses of discussion, precedent and context.
I take it that Lowe, and McLaren, were indignant that Ferrari had violated what all that context and experience would have made clear to any senior engineer. It was Ferrari's conscious crossing of that line, rather than a prosaic 'creative' interpretation of the literal rule, that catalysed McLaren's query to the FIA.

I'd broadly agree. For all the various technical developments, F1 requires an element of parity amongst the key players to maintain its broad audience appeal.

[flemke]

WilliBetz said:

I'm pretty clueless about aero devices, but it's reasonable to assume that this device wouldn't be a quick install. Do you think they intended to exploit it in '08?

No idea, but if the regulator anomalously decided that something that, by actual history or any reasonable interpretation, had been outside the rules was suddenly legal, and it was also performance-enhancing, then why eschew it?

WilliBetz said:

I think a considered comment, within a TWG meeting, regarding this apparent safety issue would have forced the FIA to consider the matter; would have revealed the hands of those teams using the device and would have protected McLaren from the backlash regarding misuse of another team's IP.

Perhaps bringing it up in the TWG would have got the same result, but could it have happened as quickly? How many more races might Ferrari have won in the meantime?

Wrt backlash, the flexi-floor issue came and went before the dossier had happened, much less before it had become known beyond NS and MC.
One can remember thinking at the time that McLaren had played a good one by somehow getting hold of the design of Ferrari's illegal device and using it against them. It was obvious from Todt's statements then that they were pretty pissed that the truth had been revealed. It need not, however, have had any further consequences.
It was only when the dossier stuff came to light that Ferrari were able to leverage that total non-event into a drama the likes of which Harold Pinter would be proud of.
Thinking of what McLaren knew and had reason to expect back in March, not many of us in the same shoes would have been worried about a backlash. Your competitor has been cheating; he's been found out by whatever means; end of.

WilliBetz said:

I'd broadly agree. For all the various technical developments, F1 requires an element of parity amongst the key players to maintain its broad audience appeal.

Precisely, and the incessant appearance of an uneven playing field is what is turning so many of us away.

[MrKipling43]

I love how in depth the arguments get in here... this has to be, at times, one of the most high-brow motor sport forums about.

Carry on gentlemen.

[35secToNuvolari]

One question is, did they even need the drawings to protest? The floors were used in the 2006 season and reported on by tech-journalists. If journalists knew some of what was going on, wouldn't Mclaren have known something and initiated a protest. It's not as if concept wasn't described properly when it was first spotted, and I don't think they would have bided their time waiting for particulars. I don't think any drawings were needed to protest Renault's mass-damper.

[flemke]

35secToNuvolari said:

One question is, did they even need the drawings to protest? The floors were used in the 2006 season and reported on by tech-journalists. If journalists knew some of what was going on, wouldn't Mclaren have known something and initiated a protest. It's not as if concept wasn't described properly when it was first spotted, and I don't think they would have bided their time waiting for particulars. I don't think any drawings were needed to protest Renault's mass-damper.

All the teams had a flexible floor (of a certain size), which was explicitly permitted in the rules.
In almost all other respects, the bodywork is not allowed to move, so the flexible floor was a specific exception - with defined limits.

The rules specified the max distance that the flexible floor was allowed to move. They also specified the force at which the distance would be tested. Crucially, the rules did not give any exceptions at other force levels; this max distance was the only exception to the overall ban on floor movement.
The Ferrari floor was devised with a system of springs and pivots so that it would pass the test at the specified force, but at real-world higher force levels, it would move more than the maximum allowance. The Ferrari spring/pivot system was hidden from view, so neither the competition nor the FIA was aware that the floor moved beyond what was allowed and was done by the other teams*.

• BMW's floor may also have contained a trick mechanism to avoid the rules. This has not got much media scrutiny, but after the FIA declared the Ferrari system illegal, BMW changed their floor too.

[35secToNuvolari]

My initial point is that journalists knew about the modifications to the Ferrari floor and it's purpose in 2006 (autosport, brazil tech review, scarborough). So, I was wondering out-loud, why Mclaren weren't immediately suspicious in 2006. To say that they thought Ferrari were playing fair with a spring attached to their floor seems unlikely if the matter about floors had been settled. And it seems reasonable that, considering Mclaren's contentious history with Ferrari, that they would be skeptical of the Italians and not give them the benefit of the doubt.

In 06 they wouldn't have been able to submit an exact design, but could have brought up their concerns that other teams' floors were moving more than the rules allowed, and petitioned to have the testing procedures revised. Maybe it's unknowable why they didn't act earlier, but the question is worth asking.

[35secToNuvolari]

I was thinking, when the story first broke, F1 engineers talked about how flexi floors were standard practice (gascoyne and permane), and no one really seemed surprised by the design. You'd think something illegal on a car would have gotten a bigger reaction from the engineers. Why isn't it possible that most teams' floors flexed, but when Mclaren saw how intricate the Ferrari floor was, they were willing to sacrifice their own bendy floor hoping it would hurt their rivals performance more than their own? "We'll hurt ourselves, but hopefully it'll cripple them." Seems plausible, it takes into account why engineers weren't surprised, and why Mac didn't complain earlier in '06.

[WilliBetz]

flemke said:

WilliBetz said:

I'm pretty clueless about aero devices, but it's reasonable to assume that this device wouldn't be a quick install. Do you think they intended to exploit it in '08?

No idea, but if the regulator anomalously decided that something that, by actual history or any reasonable interpretation, had been outside the rules was suddenly legal, and it was also performance-enhancing, then why eschew it?

That's a surprising question for you to ask. Hard to maintain the moral high ground, while exploiting another team's unintentionally released and unapparent IP...

flemke said:

WilliBetz said:

I think a considered comment, within a TWG meeting, regarding this apparent safety issue would have forced the FIA to consider the matter; would have revealed the hands of those teams using the device and would have protected McLaren from the backlash regarding misuse of another team's IP.

Perhaps bringing it up in the TWG would have got the same result, but could it have happened as quickly? How many more races might Ferrari have won in the meantime?

The safety card is normally top trump, and I think it would take priority over a routine request for opinion from the FIA technical dept. I'm not sure whether this really is a safety issue, but the FIA have a history of playing the safety card whenever they want to impose a regulatory change that may not get the teams' unanimous support.

flemke said:

WilliBetz said:

I'd broadly agree. For all the various technical developments, F1 requires an element of parity amongst the key players to maintain its broad audience appeal.

Precisely, and the incessant appearance of an uneven playing field is what is turning so many of us away.

It's business. It's entertainment. Only very occasionally is it sporting.

[WilliBetz]

35secToNuvolari said:

I was thinking, when the story first broke, F1 engineers talked about how flexi floors were standard practice (gascoyne and permane), and no one really seemed surprised by the design. You'd think something illegal on a car would have gotten a bigger reaction from the engineers. Why isn't it possible that most teams' floors flexed, but when Mclaren saw how intricate the Ferrari floor was, they were willing to sacrifice their own bendy floor hoping it would hurt their rivals performance more than their own? "We'll hurt ourselves, but hopefully it'll cripple them." Seems plausible, it takes into account why engineers weren't surprised, and why Mac didn't complain earlier in '06.

An interesting point, which made me reconsider McLaren's motivation for pursuing the matter with the FIA rather than through the TWG.

Let's assume that McLaren's floor flexes beyond the permitted tolerance under real operating loads. In the circumstances, if McLaren raise the matter at a TWG meeting and the FIA revise their test method, then it will negatively impact the shiny car. If, on the other hand, they request approval for the particularly intricate design employed by Ferrari, then only teams already using that solution (Ferrari, maybe BMW) will be affected by a rejection.

Perhaps Ferrari aren't as scarlet as they are painted, nor McLaren quite so shiny...

[flemke]

35secToNuvolari said:

I was thinking, when the story first broke, F1 engineers talked about how flexi floors were standard practice (gascoyne and permane), and no one really seemed surprised by the design. You'd think something illegal on a car would have gotten a bigger reaction from the engineers. Why isn't it possible that most teams' floors flexed, but when Mclaren saw how intricate the Ferrari floor was, they were willing to sacrifice their own bendy floor hoping it would hurt their rivals performance more than their own? "We'll hurt ourselves, but hopefully it'll cripple them." Seems plausible, it takes into account why engineers weren't surprised, and why Mac didn't complain earlier in '06.

Taz,

Either I misunderstand you, or you misunderstand me, or both.

Everyone's floor did flex. There was a limit to how far the floor could flex, and Ferrari's design violated that limit.

The other thing is that the Ferrari design had more than one spring. In addition to the compression spring, the purpose of which was obvious, it also had a tension spring.
The Ferrari floor was designed both to create an aerodynamic advantage and also to function as a mass damper. Mass dampers, as we know, were banned in '06.

[35secToNuvolari]

flemke said:

Either I misunderstand you, or you misunderstand me, or both.

Everyone's floor did flex. There was a limit to how far the floor could flex, and Ferrari's design violated that limit.

What I meant is that most teams floors, including Mclaren's, flexed beyond the limit, and the decision to clarify the floor movement was, in part, a self-sacrificial act.

As for the mass damper, well, one thing at a time. That probably gets into primary and secondary purpose issues (ie brake duct/wheel covers).