Ferrari International Assistance alive & well
Discussion
Munter said:
I don't think many teams want to go back and correct points scores for cars found to be a bit cheaty post season. I'm thinking a lot has come out over the years about past cars. Best to look forwards for all involved.
The obvious solution would be to kick Ferrari out of the constructor's championship and promote the other teams based on the points they already have. I guess the prize money has already been paid though, so they'd have to get it back from Ferrari somehow. kambites said:
Munter said:
I don't think many teams want to go back and correct points scores for cars found to be a bit cheaty post season. I'm thinking a lot has come out over the years about past cars. Best to look forwards for all involved.
The obvious solution would be to kick Ferrari out of the constructor's championship and promote the other teams based on the points they already have. I guess the prize money has already been paid though, so they'd have to get it back from Ferrari somehow. ChocolateFrog said:
The FIA have gone too far this time. The other teams won't let it rest so they'll have to come out and make a further statement.
A Berlusconi government has more credibility than the FIA now.
Well that was predictable. A Berlusconi government has more credibility than the FIA now.
Let the legal battles be long and rumbling.
The FIA are f
king idiots. ChocolateFrog said:
Well that was predictable.
Let the legal battles be long and rumbling.
The FIA are fking idiots.
The legal battles hopefully won't happen (as that would be tedious..) but in the end the FIA must know that if challenged legally, at some point they have to reveal what their decision regards Ferrari was, and what it was based upon. Once that is accepted, why wait for expensive litigation to go ahead? It would be far smarter imo to apologise for the conduct (trying to slip through that bullsLet the legal battles be long and rumbling.
The FIA are f
king idiots. t announcement at the end of testing), and just open up sufficient to satisfy the other teams.The other teams won't want litigation either, they just want to know what rule was broken and what the subsequent penalty was. It's not unreasonable is it
This season is already set to be a PITA for the teams, FOM and the FIA. The last thing that's needed is for echos of last season to linger.
kambites said:
Munter said:
I don't think many teams want to go back and correct points scores for cars found to be a bit cheaty post season. I'm thinking a lot has come out over the years about past cars. Best to look forwards for all involved.
The obvious solution would be to kick Ferrari out of the constructor's championship and promote the other teams based on the points they already have. I guess the prize money has already been paid though, so they'd have to get it back from Ferrari somehow. Messrs Marko and Horner are not going to drop it though. Apart from the fact that they’ve always been rather too keen to mouth off, they think not unreasonably that they should have been second in the championship, with the associated prize money and sponsorship contract bonuses that brings.
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 suspect there was something else afoot, potentially within the fuel line system that allowed them to have what was in effect a reservoir.
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.
Sandpit Steve said:
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.
When it comes to inventive cheating, anything is possible!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.
BrettMRC said:
When it comes to inventive cheating, anything is possible!
And it’s something that F1 teams, and racing teams in general, have been very good at doing over the years! https://youtube.com/watch?v=hfq7-1ePW-M
Sandpit Steve said:
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?
The sensor workaround theory (just a theory..) would not require interfering with it's operation. Each sensor has it's own read cycle so for arguments sake, the fuel flow sensor might take a measurement every 0.5 milliseconds, and the ECU will itself only record whatever that reading as often as it is programmed to do so, likely to be less often than the sensor itself could provide the data, but still no doubt in the millisecond range, to all intents and purposes if we were watching the data it would appear as a constant stream.BUT... at a digital level, it's not constant, there are always dependable gaps between each measurement taken. The gaps between measurements are also detectable, and the detection of each could be used to modulate the rate of fuel flow in that instant, ahead of the the next measurement (cycle). The question becomes, is the fuel system able to react fast enough to pull through a little extra fuel in that split second instant where it can't be detected? On 15k rpm engine, I would suspect the answer is probably yes.
How can Ferrari detect the frequency of the measurements taken? Simple, they have access to the same sensor and also the data recorded. That could be one reason why the 'solution' is for the FIA to mandate a second fuel flow sensor which the teams will have no access to. Without access the teams can't know how frequently that sensor is taking readings. Which would close down this potential cheat scenario completely.
Maybe if the FIA are dragged through the mill this time, we might actually find out if any of the above theory is accurate one day
As others have pointed out, there are other methods of achieving the same cheat. I favour this one as it makes sense of how it was a)undetectable and b)corralates with how the FIA have chosen to make the same cheat impossible in the future.
With the sprinkles of information that's slowly coming to light, I'll put my hand up and say I think something needs to change. Rather than how I interpreted the settlement (seemingly the FIA wanting to keep the lid on something they cannot police now that one team's explained how they bent the rules), it looks much worse than that.
Had Ferrari been deliberately tampering with FIA sensor readings, be it directly by fooling the sensor by passing not just fuel but other additives, or introducing electrical interference, the only real solution is to throw them out of last year's championship results, and perhaps exclude them from 2020 also. Given how passively the FIA's dealt with it until now, what looks like a gross breach of technical regulations merits severe punishment - and if the FIA want to dispel the idea of favoritism toward the team, they could do so by throwing the book at them.
It's unclear whether it means Alfa Romeo and Haas have their points tally removed also (guilt by association, but it's unclear if they had similar sensor trickery going on). In any case, there are boundaries - finding a loophole and gaining an advantage is one thing. Deliberately setting out to fool governing body sensors on a car is another.
I'd throw them out of last year and this year's championship, and remove the historic pay bonus - that's the thing they care about the most, and their heritage. They don't appear to be anywhere near competitive this year anyway, so who cares if they don't participate.
I say that as someone who's followed Ferrari's F1 team since 1994, but in good conscience, they look to have overstepped the mark not by a small amount, but a large one. The strange thing about it is that Binotto seemed a fair player, but I suppose as in Stepney-Gate, Ron wasn't aware of what had happened, so the head of the snake cannot always be to blame if they've trusted engineers to adhere to the rule book if they haven't found a way of lightly stretching it.
Had Ferrari been deliberately tampering with FIA sensor readings, be it directly by fooling the sensor by passing not just fuel but other additives, or introducing electrical interference, the only real solution is to throw them out of last year's championship results, and perhaps exclude them from 2020 also. Given how passively the FIA's dealt with it until now, what looks like a gross breach of technical regulations merits severe punishment - and if the FIA want to dispel the idea of favoritism toward the team, they could do so by throwing the book at them.
It's unclear whether it means Alfa Romeo and Haas have their points tally removed also (guilt by association, but it's unclear if they had similar sensor trickery going on). In any case, there are boundaries - finding a loophole and gaining an advantage is one thing. Deliberately setting out to fool governing body sensors on a car is another.
I'd throw them out of last year and this year's championship, and remove the historic pay bonus - that's the thing they care about the most, and their heritage. They don't appear to be anywhere near competitive this year anyway, so who cares if they don't participate.
I say that as someone who's followed Ferrari's F1 team since 1994, but in good conscience, they look to have overstepped the mark not by a small amount, but a large one. The strange thing about it is that Binotto seemed a fair player, but I suppose as in Stepney-Gate, Ron wasn't aware of what had happened, so the head of the snake cannot always be to blame if they've trusted engineers to adhere to the rule book if they haven't found a way of lightly stretching it.
NFC 85 Vette said:
Had Ferrari been deliberately tampering with FIA sensor readings, be it directly by fooling the sensor by passing not just fuel but other additives, or introducing electrical interference, the only real solution is to throw them out of last year's championship results, and perhaps exclude them from 2020 also. Given how passively the FIA's dealt with it until now, what looks like a gross breach of technical regulations merits severe punishment - and if the FIA want to dispel the idea of favoritism toward the team, they could do so by throwing the book at them.
When the rumours first started, I was very skeptical. Not because the cheat was beyond imagination, but it was beyond common sense. It sounded too big a cheat to be worth the risk and PR fallout if detected - better all things considered to just accept second place in the championship I thought.I am less certain now - and chiefly because the FIA have gone and put themselves in a stupid position, there must have been something shocking enough detected for them to take such a closed door approach.
NFC 85 Vette said:
It's unclear whether it means Alfa Romeo and Haas have their points tally removed also (guilt by association, but it's unclear if they had similar sensor trickery going on). In any case, there are boundaries - finding a loophole and gaining an advantage is one thing. Deliberately setting out to fool governing body sensors on a car is another.
Exactly. Innovation is fine, it's what separates F1 from other motorsport series. I don't personally care if that innovation comes from the head of designer/engineer, or a lawyer scrutinising the small print in the regs. It's the same framework of regs for everyone, fill your boots, make what you can within that framework.However... a major factor in the challenge of winning at F1 these days is fuel usage, and that is the same for everyone too. Cheating by using more fuel than anyone else is able to is really no different to leaving track limits and taking a shortcut. It really doesn't matter how they ran extra fuel or how clever they were - if they used extra fuel in a fuel limited race then they simply were not in the same race as everyone else. As such, if proven, they should be disqualified. It would be total and unquestionable cheating.
TheDeuce said:
The sensor workaround theory (just a theory..) would not require interfering with it's operation. Each sensor has it's own read cycle so for arguments sake, the fuel flow sensor might take a measurement every 0.5 milliseconds, and the ECU will itself only record whatever that reading as often as it is programmed to do so, likely to be less often than the sensor itself could provide the data, but still no doubt in the millisecond range, to all intents and purposes if we were watching the data it would appear as a constant stream.
BUT... at a digital level, it's not constant, there are always dependable gaps between each measurement taken. The gaps between measurements are also detectable, and the detection of each could be used to modulate the rate of fuel flow in that instant, ahead of the the next measurement (cycle). The question becomes, is the fuel system able to react fast enough to pull through a little extra fuel in that split second instant where it can't be detected? On 15k rpm engine, I would suspect the answer is probably yes.
How can Ferrari detect the frequency of the measurements taken? Simple, they have access to the same sensor and also the data recorded. That could be one reason why the 'solution' is for the FIA to mandate a second fuel flow sensor which the teams will have no access to. Without access the teams can't know how frequently that sensor is taking readings. Which would close down this potential cheat scenario completely.
Maybe if the FIA are dragged through the mill this time, we might actually find out if any of the above theory is accurate one day
As others have pointed out, there are other methods of achieving the same cheat. I favour this one as it makes sense of how it was a)undetectable and b)corralates with how the FIA have chosen to make the same cheat impossible in the future.
So basically using the timing frequency of the flow meter as an input clock to the fuel pump and/or injectors, to trick the sensor into under-reading - with both sides obviously working to microsecond accuracy. 15,000rpm on a six-cylinder four-stroke engine is 83.3 sparks per second, one every 12ms. BUT... at a digital level, it's not constant, there are always dependable gaps between each measurement taken. The gaps between measurements are also detectable, and the detection of each could be used to modulate the rate of fuel flow in that instant, ahead of the the next measurement (cycle). The question becomes, is the fuel system able to react fast enough to pull through a little extra fuel in that split second instant where it can't be detected? On 15k rpm engine, I would suspect the answer is probably yes.
How can Ferrari detect the frequency of the measurements taken? Simple, they have access to the same sensor and also the data recorded. That could be one reason why the 'solution' is for the FIA to mandate a second fuel flow sensor which the teams will have no access to. Without access the teams can't know how frequently that sensor is taking readings. Which would close down this potential cheat scenario completely.
Maybe if the FIA are dragged through the mill this time, we might actually find out if any of the above theory is accurate one day
As others have pointed out, there are other methods of achieving the same cheat. I favour this one as it makes sense of how it was a)undetectable and b)corralates with how the FIA have chosen to make the same cheat impossible in the future.
Given what’s been said, that’s definitely a plausible way of doing it, and as you say the addition of a second sensor that the team can’t see does fix this issue.
To be fair to the team, if they didn’t interfere with the sensor itself, but just used it’s output to control some other component, that could well fall under F1 awesome innovation. But, and ifs a big BUT, the only reason they did what they did was to trick the meter into under-reading the actual fuel flow - which is blatant cheating.
I think the FIA let them use the output from the meter as an input to a computer in the car, but didn’t understand what exactly they were doing with it and didn’t seek to clarify with the team. Many questions to answer by them both.
Edit. Wrong maths. It’s 750 sparks/second, one every 1.33ms or 1033 microseconds.
Edited by Sandpit Steve on Wednesday 4th March 12:43
Sandpit Steve said:
So basically using the timing frequency of the flow meter as an input clock to the fuel pump and/or injectors, to trick the sensor into under-reading - with both sides obviously working to microsecond accuracy. 15,000rpm on a six-cylinder four-stroke engine is 83.3 sparks per second, one every 12ms.
Exactly that. The sensor reads accurately and is not in itself interfered with, but in between each reading, the extra fuel is taken.Sandpit Steve said:
To be fair to the team, if they didn’t interfere with the sensor itself, but just used it’s output to control some other component, that could well fall under F1 awesome innovation. But, and ifs a big BUT, the only reason they did what they did was to trick the meter into under-reading the actual fuel flow - which is blatant cheating.
I think the FIA let them use the output from the meter as an input to a computer in the car, but didn’t understand what exactly they were doing with it and didn’t seek to clarify with the team. Many questions to answer by them both.
However they did it, if the end result achieved a higher average fuel flow than the limits of the competition define, then it's cheating. It wouldn't matter if they used witchcraft or voodoo to get at the extra fuel, it's cheating if they ran more than they were allowed to.I think the FIA let them use the output from the meter as an input to a computer in the car, but didn’t understand what exactly they were doing with it and didn’t seek to clarify with the team. Many questions to answer by them both.
That's the bottom line and that's also the line the FIA seem hell bent on not discussing.
rev-erend said:
Anyone remember what happened to McLaren when they were found guilty of cheating.
Stephen gate I think it was called..
All points deducted, huge fine etc..
Guess it would never happen to Ferrari.
Ferrari vs:Stephen gate I think it was called..
All points deducted, huge fine etc..
Guess it would never happen to Ferrari.
McLaren Racing Limited
Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Limited
Racing Point UK Limited
Red Bull Racing Limited
Renault Sport Racing Limited
Scuderia Alpha Tauri S.p.A.
Williams Grand Prix Engineering Limited
Maybe they should all leave instead
Ferrari are indeed very valuable to F1. But they're not absolutely indispensable.. Especially not if they themselves undermine the sport - because then it isn't really sport anymore.
TheDeuce said:
However they did it, if the end result achieved a higher average fuel flow than the limits of the competition define, then it's cheating. It wouldn't matter if they used witchcraft or voodoo to get at the extra fuel, it's cheating if they ran more than they were allowed to.
That's the bottom line and that's also the line the FIA seem hell bent on not discussing.
Yep, the rule says that fuel flow can’t be above x. If they use 1.1x that’s a breach of the rule for which they should be excluded. That's the bottom line and that's also the line the FIA seem hell bent on not discussing.
Red Bull were excluded from a race for a similar offence previously IIRC.
Munter said:
I think that the flexible RedBull proved quite well, that you can ignore the rules, so long as you pass the tests set to supposedly enforce the rules.
Look at VW and the diesel scandal - passing the test is everything.Again, the fault lies with the FIA for insufficiently watertight rules.
Olas said:
Munter said:
I think that the flexible RedBull proved quite well, that you can ignore the rules, so long as you pass the tests set to supposedly enforce the rules.
Look at VW and the diesel scandal - passing the test is everything.Again, the fault lies with the FIA for insufficiently watertight rules.
The fuel rule is not like that. It simply says "Fuel mass flow must not exceed 100kg/h".
It also says "Any device, system or procedure the purpose and/or effect of which is to increase the flow rate or to store and recycle fuel after the measurement point is prohibited".
I'm not sure how the rules could be any more watertight than that?
Gassing Station | Formula 1 | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff