FIA Wants BAR Excluded
Discussion
Teppic said:
The FIA might still get their wish. They are now going after BAR for bringing the sport in to disrepute for comments made by BAR management during the Spanish GP weekend. If found guilty the maximum penalty is exclusion from the World Championship.
Stange that they never went after Ferrari for bringing the sport in to disrepute with their Austrian GP switch-a-roo in 2002...
This is just getting
ridiculous 
The only reason the FIA are doing this is to try and stop the teams breaking away to make the new GPWC; just gonna make things worse in my opinion
mindgam3 said:
From what I've been reading recently, the extra 4kg of fuel that is in debate is NECCESARY for the car to run; if the car doesen't have this extra fuel which is an integral part of the fuel system then the car will not run at all as fuel will not get to the engine. Therefore, seeing as the car did not stop and the car was found to be within the 600kg weight limit with the neccesary fuel then clearly BAR did not break the rules.
I'm no expert on the rules - but if the marshalls asked for the car "dry" (a term apparently well understood by all in the pit lane) and it was offerred partially wet - then they did not do as asked, surely?
Joe911 said:
From what I've been reading recently, the extra 4kg of fuel that is in debate is NECCESARY for the car to run; if the car doesen't have this extra fuel which is an integral part of the fuel system then the car will not run at all as fuel will not get to the engine. Therefore, seeing as the car did not stop and the car was found to be within the 600kg weight limit with the neccesary fuel then clearly BAR did not break the rules.
I'm no expert on the rules - but if the marshalls asked for the car "dry" (a term apparently well understood by all in the pit lane) and it was offerred partially wet - then they did not do as asked, surely?
Do they ask them to drain the oil and other fluids though? I'm not sure they do? The spare fuel was essential to the fuel system much like the oil and fluids are to the engine.... either way the rules are unclear and as the FIA cannot prove them guilty for cheating then i dont see the major punishment - certainly not complete exclusion as they now are suggesting... maybe have their points so far taken away for not complying with the marshalls?
mindgam3 said:
Do they ask them to drain the oil and other fluids though? I'm not sure they do? The spare fuel was essential to the fuel system much like the oil and fluids are to the engine.... either way the rules are unclear and as the FIA cannot prove them guilty for cheating then i dont see the major punishment - certainly not complete exclusion as they now are suggesting... maybe have their points so far taken away for not complying with the marshalls?
I don't agree with the punishment either - the FIA and Ferrari are just making themselves a laughing (or crying) stock (assuming you can laugh about it).
However - I understood that they ask for the car "dry" and that means (I understood) - NO FLUIDS (which I take to mean petrol, oil, brake fluid, etc etc). I don't see how that can be ambiguous (but then there's plenty I can't see).
Joe911 said:
Do they ask them to drain the oil and other fluids though? I'm not sure they do? The spare fuel was essential to the fuel system much like the oil and fluids are to the engine.... either way the rules are unclear and as the FIA cannot prove them guilty for cheating then i dont see the major punishment - certainly not complete exclusion as they now are suggesting... maybe have their points so far taken away for not complying with the marshalls?
I don't agree with the punishment either - the FIA and Ferrari are just making themselves a laughing (or crying) stock (assuming you can laugh about it).
However - I understood that they ask for the car "dry" and that means (I understood) - NO FLUIDS (which I take to mean petrol, oil, brake fluid, etc etc). I don't see how that can be ambiguous (but then there's plenty I can't see).
Agreed, they should be punished for lying to the stewards, but they can prove that they had no unfair advantage over the rest of the field during the entire race and so can't possibly be accused of cheating...
As I said, most court's operate the innocent til proven guilty rule - obviously not the FIA. There was no specific rule BAR broke other than lying to the stewards.
BAR tried exploting the rules with their torque transfer which the FIA banned. BAR removed it and the FIA made a rule saying they can't use it and resulted in no punishment - whats the difference here?
Well BAR are doing what I thought they would do and test as much as possible until they come back.
One interesting piece of gossip is that there were probably other teams running cars with exactly the same fuel tank configurations.
One interesting piece of gossip is that there were probably other teams running cars with exactly the same fuel tank configurations.
GP.com said:
The recent FIA International Court of Appeal resulted in the production of hundreds of pages of documents and data and with the Grand Prix as well there has been little time to analyse everything that emerged in the paperwork. It is interesting to note, however, that there are two documents in the BAR bundle which hint at the fact that the team was not the only one which might have been running the same kind of collector system.
When asked in the court about this the FIA's Jo Bauer declined to answer the question on the grounds of confidentiality (which is fair enough) but in the BAR paperwork team boss Ron Meadows says in his witness statement that "in the event that the stewards decision had gone against the team, I had pre-written 6 protest forms against 6 other cars in the event. I had done this because we believed that the fuel systems used by the other teams were similar to ours and would have still contained fuel after being weighed. These other cars, we believed, should also have been fully drained and hoovered out in the same way as Lucky Strike BAR Honda. However we decided that it was not in anyone's interest to lodge any official protests because the stewards' decision had confirmed that out car complied with the 2005 technical regulations".
It also worth noting that the bundle also included a statement from Phil Keyworth of fuel bag manufacturer ATL which stated that "all F1 teams use collection systems" and that "all current F1 fuel cell designs differ from team to team (and year to year). ATL finds nothing unusual with the BAR Honda design".
None of this proves anything but it is nonetheless interesting to see that things might have been very different - and a real mess - if the stewards had made a different decision.
www.barhondaf1.com/pdf/submission.pdf
This is BAR's case that they put forward....
The fuel tank is basically the same as everyone elses - most of the teams get them from the same company and that company told the FIA there was nothing unusual or much differen from any other tank they supply.
Plus BAR have had the same tank since December 04
A hell of a lot of FIA rules contradict each other
It doesen't state specifically anywhere in the rules that the car has to be weighed dry - even though it does in almost every other FIA championship
Using the FIA's weight data and fuel data from BAR's pump (which is measured by the FIA), BAR proved that at no time the car could possibly be underweight. They even have the graphs to show pressure drops in the fuel system when the fuel level was getting near the critical level - that being above the minimum amount of fuel needed for the car to be a legal weight.
The guy they asked "is the tank empty" (when they were draining the car, to which he replied yes, and the FIA accused BAR of lying) was only a lonely pump operator and knew nothing about the cars fuel system.
The race director (Charlie Whiting) and FIA technical delegates who queried the tank at Malaysia and got an explanation from BAR's engineers, ok'd the fuel system and said it was completely legal.
To me, BAR never cheated and at worse, were bending (but not breaking) the unclear, contradicting FIA F1 championship rules and shouldn't have got a fine, let alone a 2 race ban
>> Edited by mindgam3 on Friday 13th May 16:46
This is BAR's case that they put forward....
The fuel tank is basically the same as everyone elses - most of the teams get them from the same company and that company told the FIA there was nothing unusual or much differen from any other tank they supply.
Plus BAR have had the same tank since December 04
A hell of a lot of FIA rules contradict each other
It doesen't state specifically anywhere in the rules that the car has to be weighed dry - even though it does in almost every other FIA championship
Using the FIA's weight data and fuel data from BAR's pump (which is measured by the FIA), BAR proved that at no time the car could possibly be underweight. They even have the graphs to show pressure drops in the fuel system when the fuel level was getting near the critical level - that being above the minimum amount of fuel needed for the car to be a legal weight.
The guy they asked "is the tank empty" (when they were draining the car, to which he replied yes, and the FIA accused BAR of lying) was only a lonely pump operator and knew nothing about the cars fuel system.
The race director (Charlie Whiting) and FIA technical delegates who queried the tank at Malaysia and got an explanation from BAR's engineers, ok'd the fuel system and said it was completely legal.
To me, BAR never cheated and at worse, were bending (but not breaking) the unclear, contradicting FIA F1 championship rules and shouldn't have got a fine, let alone a 2 race ban
>> Edited by mindgam3 on Friday 13th May 16:46
Gassing Station | General Motorsport | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff