2023 Mercedes-AMG | Petronas F1 Team

[Silent Storm]

Mike Caulfield is a race strategist at Haas

[chrisc90]

I agree the sampling should be more. Maybe the first 2 failed (all they were going to do to begin with.) then they took another 2 and they passed. Who knows.

Ive no idea what you mean by this phrase then:

They shoot themselves in the foot when the star of the show gets disqualified for something that was a result of the whole circus that is the sprint.

.

Seems a bit irrelevant if the solution isnt about Lewis. Lewis is no different to any other driver on the grid in the eyes of the FIA, he still has to meet the same standards, tech regs etc as anyone else.

Well the FIA disagreed when he crossed the track in Qatar. What did they call him? A role model to the sport and so deserves more punishment.

The sport damages itself when things like these happen. Most fans do not understand what the plank is, and they do not know the significance of it. Heck, even the FIA cannot quantity the significance of 1mm of plank in one area. All the fans see is the guy who spiced up the show getting disqualified. You can read the social media comments to get a sample of the broader F-1 fans' views. They would have saved face to some degree handling it differently by doing a full inspection. Selecting the top 4 only was not random.

Some fans ignorance to the sport as a whole shoudnt have an effect on the paddock/teams.

Whats going to be damaging more? Letting teams off because their car failed a post race test because the fans dont understand the rules, or not enforcing the rules properly and it just becomes a free for all with the teams not following the rules? Its pretty simple. The technical regs/rule book is there to be adhered to.

Lets look at it from a different perspective. Lewis, 'the star of the show' (lol), is leading 2/3 of the race before the next car behind, maybe one of his rivals for the title, is making inroads of a second a lap because of better tyres, the cars slammed and the downforce and grips levels are amazing. Last lap, that guy overtakes Lewis and goes on to win the race. Come 2 hours down the line, mr FIA finds that the car was under the minimum weight, or too light on fuel, or the plank was excessively worn. They refer it to the stewards, who decide, nah, we not going to disqualify him this time, even though the car didnt conform to the rules. Which set of fans are going to be crying out saying that car should have been disqualified and its damaged the sport because he wasnt disqualified and Lewis deserved the win.

Its a super poor excuse from yourself, and ive absolutely no idea why you seem to be sticking with it on the basis xyz million people have disagreed with the decision on social media...then claiming its damaging the sport. Come on, i'd expect a better argument from yourself on that one to be fair.

Absolutely, we should be seeing more cars under-going full technical checks after the race. But what we dont know is...
A: how many staff the FIA put on this task
B: how long it takes
C: what specialist equipment they need etc.

[dans79]

Mike Caulfield is a race strategist at Haas

They could if they hired more people and weren't cheap.........

[Farnborough]

I agree the sampling should be more. Maybe the first 2 failed (all they were going to do to begin with.) then they took another 2 and they passed. Who knows.

Ive no idea what you mean by this phrase then:

They shoot themselves in the foot when the star of the show gets disqualified for something that was a result of the whole circus that is the sprint.

.

Seems a bit irrelevant if the solution isnt about Lewis. Lewis is no different to any other driver on the grid in the eyes of the FIA, he still has to meet the same standards, tech regs etc as anyone else.

Thought the "plank" was implemented because they did loose a "star" of this sport in Ayrton Senna, its a serious rule and should be observed.

Notably and graciously this team's personel, MB that is, have indicated that they support the protocols around it and deem themselves to have breached it when others didn't.

There's tolerance, from 10mm down to 9mm as I understand the measurements. They've worn through ALL of the contingency/allowed in room for manoeuvre, then some. There really is no sensible argument to counter this.

It could be 0.05mm 0.1mm 0.5mm in excess of that 9mm minimum, it makes no difference, out of spec is out of spec.

[trinidefender]

I agree the sampling should be more. Maybe the first 2 failed (all they were going to do to begin with.) then they took another 2 and they passed. Who knows.

Ive no idea what you mean by this phrase then:

They shoot themselves in the foot when the star of the show gets disqualified for something that was a result of the whole circus that is the sprint.

.

Seems a bit irrelevant if the solution isnt about Lewis. Lewis is no different to any other driver on the grid in the eyes of the FIA, he still has to meet the same standards, tech regs etc as anyone else.

Well the FIA disagreed when he crossed the track in Qatar. What did they call him? A role model to the sport and so deserves more punishment.

The sport damages itself when things like these happen. Most fans do not understand what the plank is, and they do not know the significance of it. Heck, even the FIA cannot quantity the significance of 1mm of plank in one area. All the fans see is the guy who spiced up the show getting disqualified. You can read the social media comments to get a sample of the broader F-1 fans' views. They would have saved face to some degree handling it differently by doing a full inspection. Selecting the top 4 only was not random.

So, just to confirm. You're saying he should be treated differently from any other driver?

If that is in fact what you're arguing well then I hope you were happy with how the FIA handled the 2019(?) Ferrari engine debacle. Basically from a fans perspective it seems that Ferrari were given special treatment because they are "FERRARI." I know I wasn't happy then. So the idea of Lewis now getting special treatment because he is Lewis has the same feeling. The FIA can't come out openly and say "oh he failed his plank test but we're giving him a pass." I can promise you if they did that then every other team's next phone calls would be to their lawyers which will truly make the sport look even worse....unless of course you're advocating that the FIA cover up the fact that he failed his plank check? At which point we don't have a sport anymore, we just have the 2021 season finale all over again i.e. a farce.

[trinidefender]

At the end of the day with this rule set every team would like to run their cars lower. I think it would be a fair statement to make that if his car were run higher or stiffer to bring the car within plank wear tolerances then it wouldn't have had the pace that it did have.

Max and Norris were checked and found to be in compliance. If both teams/drivers ran their cars lower/softer then they probably would have had more performance and the whole argument of if Lewis had the pace to win the race might not even have been a thing

The driver I wished they did check is Russel. If they had checked him and he was compliant with plank wear then the possibility would stand that a partial cause of their pace difference is from ride height/stiffness/bump-stop height. If I remember correctly Russel made the comment that he simply didn't have the pace to match and didn't know why. I guess with that we will never know because they didn't check his car.

[AR3-GP]

At the end of the day with this rule set every team would like to run their cars lower. I think it would be a fair statement to make that if his car were run higher or stiffer to bring the car within plank wear tolerances then it wouldn't have had the pace that it did have.

Max and Norris were checked and found to be in compliance. If both teams/drivers ran their cars lower/softer then they probably would have had more performance and the whole argument of if Lewis had the pace to win the race might not even have been a thing

The driver I wished they did check is Russel. If they had checked him and he was compliant with plank wear then the possibility would stand that a partial cause of their pace difference is from ride height/stiffness/bump-stop height. If I remember correctly Russel made the comment that he simply didn't have the pace to match and didn't know why. I guess with that we will never know because they didn't check his car.

We won't know, but Mercedes will know internally because they could do their own checks of Russell's car.

[trinidefender]

At the end of the day with this rule set every team would like to run their cars lower. I think it would be a fair statement to make that if his car were run higher or stiffer to bring the car within plank wear tolerances then it wouldn't have had the pace that it did have.

Max and Norris were checked and found to be in compliance. If both teams/drivers ran their cars lower/softer then they probably would have had more performance and the whole argument of if Lewis had the pace to win the race might not even have been a thing

The driver I wished they did check is Russel. If they had checked him and he was compliant with plank wear then the possibility would stand that a partial cause of their pace difference is from ride height/stiffness/bump-stop height. If I remember correctly Russel made the comment that he simply didn't have the pace to match and didn't know why. I guess with that we will never know because they didn't check his car.

We won't know, but Mercedes will know internally because they could do their own checks of Russell's car.

Of course Mercedes will know, I'm just talking about the fans perspective and trying to make inferences of performance based on his car possibly running too low on the one race where he seemed a lot closer to the front.

[trinidefender]

Question for whoever. Did Russel also run the new floor and any other upgrades this weekend?

[Big Tea]

We have all (well, most) been calling for adhesion to the rule and accountability along with consistency so we can not really complain about this. Even Toto himself says the line was crossed and they knew the rule, which is 'random' (should probably be expressed as selective?) cars tested, others not, and some passed with no action and others did not and received the prescribed treatment.

[organic]

Question for whoever. Did Russel also run the new floor and any other upgrades this weekend?

Yes I've looked at pictures of Russell's car from the race and can confirm he used the new floor specification

The clear indicator is the trailing edge geometry of the outermost floor fence.

[ringo]

We could have cars running low now and gambling because of a 1 in 5 chance of being inspected after the race.

[organic]

We could have cars running low now and gambling because of a 1 in 5 chance of being inspected after the race.

Right? For someone like Williams or Haas it'd be doubly worth it since they only seem to randomly check the top 4 teams! Simply run an illegal car to a p8 finish and profit.

[AR3-GP]

No one would be willing to do this deliberately. Engineers move between teams like trading cards. You could never keep something like this a secret.

[napoleon1981]

We could have cars running low now and gambling because of a 1 in 5 chance of being inspected after the race.

Right? For someone like Williams or Haas it'd be doubly worth it since they only seem to randomly check the top 4 teams! Simply run an illegal car to a p8 finish and profit.

You guys are pretending this is something new, and that there is suddenly this revelation and a hole in the rules. As long as I have been watching F1 cars have been spot checked, and only the podium is regularly inspected. This has worked just fine.