Ferrari International Assistance alive & well

[TheDeuce]

StevieBee said:

epom said:

I’m impressed. Not with the FIA, but with Ferrari on two counts. A) their engineers B) doing the ‘nothing to see here’ deal with the FIA.
Brazen.

Yet despite this, despite the favourable treatment, the extra money, a seat on the board of F1....... they succeed in managing to achieve next to bugger all, comparatively speaking.

Despite it all... Still can't get the job done and haven't got it done for over a decade. All this talk of Italian national pride over Ferrari... What exactly are they so damn proud about? Their number one team enjoying advantages, cheating and still losing?

[Sandpit Steve]

jsf said:

Megaflow said:

I reckon this is going to go one of two ways, 1) some kind of cope out deal with the other teams, similar to what the FIA have just done with Ferrari to appease them, or 2) full nuclear, ala Toyota Team Europe 1995.

Which way it goes hinges exactly on what Ferrari have been up to.

It will be a different scenario to the TTE cheat turbo restrictor if the FIA have found something illegal and not thrown them out.

In the TTE issue, the FIA booted them out, if this turns out to be a case of Ferrari doing a power gaining cheat, being caught, but let off, that's going to be dynamite for the FIA, not only the team.

I'll wait until this all plays out, but so far it's been very odd.

Exactly. It sounds from reports that the FIA became aware of a way that the team could run more fuel than indicated past the flow sensor, but haven’t kicked them out.

They’ve preferred instead to work with them to understand what they did, so that they can prevent others from doing the same in future.

Understandably, the teams that were beaten by the cheats last year aren’t too happy about it. Red Bull are an eight digit number (£10m+) out of pocket as a direct result of the cheating team.

[Teddy Lop]

Sandpit Steve said:

BrettMRC said:

Not sure I buy that.. the sample rate will be in 100's maybe 1000's HZ range.
I suspect there was something else afoot, potentially within the fuel line system that allowed them to have what was in effect a reservoir.

Yes, the way I’d do it mechanically is to have a fuel line on the engine side of the flow meter that can be made to balloon and store extra fuel on the lift-off, which can be used on the straight. You’d have a high pressure pump and an electronic valve (that are there anyway) to make the line expand under pressure in certain engine modes.

I’m really interested in the details of possible electronic trickery though, it sounds like they managed to make the sensor under-read by electrical interference of some sort - which if true is the same as trying to interfere with any other FIA measuring device. What if they handed a scrutineer who’s come to measure the car a perfect looking but actually 99cm long ‘metre’ rule, that they’d gone to the trouble of making purely to fool the scrutineer into thinking something should be allowed when it wasn’t?

Hence my earlier comment that they can’t release the details, without either making themselves look stupid or making a good case to have the red cars thrown out.

you could do it with something as simple as a non-return valve or more subtly with a pump that increases the post fuel pump pressure in braking to even out the flow... But both would have been one of the first things they'd look at no?

The idea that the additive changes the property of the fuel in a way that fools the ultrasonic sensors seems the most plausible to me. Its also fits a kind of smoke and mirrors "it was an accidental side effect honest guv" argueability rather than a wholly cut and dried dodgy component that the way the whole sordid affairs been handled suggests.

[BrettMRC]

Teddy Lop said:

you could do it with something as simple as a non-return valve or more subtly with a pump that increases the post fuel pump pressure in braking to even out the flow... But both would have been one of the first things they'd look at no?

The idea that the additive changes the property of the fuel in a way that fools the ultrasonic sensors seems the most plausible to me. Its also fits a kind of smoke and mirrors "it was an accidental side effect honest guv" argueability rather than a wholly cut and dried dodgy component that the way the whole sordid affairs been handled suggests.

Wonder if this would be the kind of additive that smokes a lot when the dose isn't quite right...

[ivanhoew]

or when the engine is cold...

[anonymous-user]

BrettMRC said:

Wonder if this would be the kind of additive that smokes a lot when the dose isn't quite right...

We've all used Redex at some point

[Likes Fast Cars]

TheDeuce said:

StevieBee said:

epom said:

I’m impressed. Not with the FIA, but with Ferrari on two counts. A) their engineers B) doing the ‘nothing to see here’ deal with the FIA.
Brazen.

Yet despite this, despite the favourable treatment, the extra money, a seat on the board of F1....... they succeed in managing to achieve next to bugger all, comparatively speaking.

Despite it all... Still can't get the job done and haven't got it done for over a decade. All this talk of Italian national pride over Ferrari... What exactly are they so damn proud about? Their number one team enjoying advantages, cheating and still losing?

If this story was turned into a movie plot it would be comedy gold.

[TheDeuce]

Likes Fast Cars said:

If this story was turned into a movie plot it would be comedy gold.

It would be a 12 year long movie that ends the way it starts

They could fill a good chunk of the run-time with an montage of Vettel's spins

[TheDeuce]

More from Marc: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHZR_HnFUTI

[Megaflow]

jsf said:

Megaflow said:

I reckon this is going to go one of two ways, 1) some kind of cope out deal with the other teams, similar to what the FIA have just done with Ferrari to appease them, or 2) full nuclear, ala Toyota Team Europe 1995.

Which way it goes hinges exactly on what Ferrari have been up to.

It will be a different scenario to the TTE cheat turbo restrictor if the FIA have found something illegal and not thrown them out.

In the TTE issue, the FIA booted them out, if this turns out to be a case of Ferrari doing a power gaining cheat, being caught, but let off, that's going to be dynamite for the FIA, not only the team.

I'll wait until this all plays out, but so far it's been very odd.

I understand it is different, I was using it as an example.

Either Ferrari didn’t break the rules in which case there was no need for the original FIA statement at all, or they were operating in some kind of grey area the FIA don’t want all teams doing in which case the outcome will be the cope out deal, or they deal break the rules and it will have to get serious like TTE.

[Paul_M3]

I see that the FIA have issued their initial response:

https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433/11950174/f...

[BrettMRC]

So they were cheating the sensor and/or something else as well that was hard to prove in a timebox.

Foul.

[Jordan210]

To avoid the negative consequences that a long litigation would entail especially in light of the uncertainty of the outcome of such litigations and in the best interest of the Championship and of its stakeholders, the FIA, in compliance with Article 4 (ii) of its Judicial and Disciplinary Rules (JDR), decided to enter into an effective and dissuasive settlement agreement with Ferrari to terminate the proceedings.


So basically just give us money and this can all go away.


I cant see the other teams being happy with this.

[TheDeuce]

Paul_M3 said:

I see that the FIA have issued their initial response:

https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433/11950174/f...

That still says absolutely nothing. And if they didn't feel it was possible to prove their suspicions, and they acknowledge Ferrari have said they never broke the rules... What exactly is the undisclosed penalty even for!?

Absolute load of st.

[Graveworm]

Jordan210 said:

So basically just give us money and this can all go away.

This - "We have investigated and decided that XXX has happened, but because of the difficulty and expense of proving this if opposed we have decided to accept a compromise" (Plea Bargain). Might be acceptable

But this reads like: "We thought possibly 'Something' was wrong. We started to look, it was difficult to say for sure (The fact they can't must reflect badly on what access they have been given by Ferrari) so we have accepted a payment from Ferrari to make it go away. We won't specify what we think happened and they can claim that they did nothing wrong."

Edited by Graveworm on Thursday 5th March 13:19

[Kraken]

Shows a lot of what is wrong with F1 in general to be honest. If the PU is so complex it's impossible for the team to prove it's legal and impossible for the FIA to prove it's illegal that's a massive problem.

[TheDeuce]

Graveworm said:

This - "We have investigated and decided that XXX has happened, but because of the difficulty and expense of proving this if opposed we have decided to accept a compromise" (Plea Bargain). Might be acceptable

But this reads like: We thought possibly "Something" was wrong. We started to look, it was difficult to say for sure (The fact they can't must reflect badly on what access they have been given by Ferrari) so we have accepted a payment from Ferrari to make it go away. We won't specify what we think happened and they can claim that they did nothing wrong."

So...

Ferrari have accepted a settlement even though they're adamant they did nothing wrong.

The FIA have issued a fine/penalty of some sort even though they're adamant they can't prove anything was done wrong.

All seems above board to me

[Graveworm]

TheDeuce said:

So...

Ferrari have accepted a settlement even though they're adamant they did nothing wrong.

The FIA have issued a fine/penalty of some sort even though they're adamant they can't prove anything was done wrong.

All seems above board to me

I think this precedent means that every team should also pay a penalty as:
They may have broken the rules, they say they haven't and it can't be proved that they did.

[TheDeuce]

Graveworm said:

TheDeuce said:

So...

Ferrari have accepted a settlement even though they're adamant they did nothing wrong.

The FIA have issued a fine/penalty of some sort even though they're adamant they can't prove anything was done wrong.

All seems above board to me

I think this precedent means that every team should also pay a penalty as:
They may have broken the rules, they say they haven't and it can't be proved that they did.

Yes that's true haha

Somehow I doubt that will make them feel better

[TheInternet]

red_slr said:

However, if there was a way to flow 100kg when you only need 80... and then deliver that spare 20 when you do need it now you are onto something. Especially if you can do it without storing it.. and especially if the car is capable of using the lower quantity of fuel just before you need the extra fuel.

Supposing the Baku straight is 22s at max fuel rate, then a 5% fuel advantage for that duration would (if I've got my sums right) require ~5ml per cylinder. Not sure how you put that somewhere without it looking like it's being stored.