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I've just read another post about a team being "bunch of cheaters and liers". Truth is that they are all as bad as each other.
My hypothesis is that to win in F1 you have to be at the limit of the rules. If you are comfortable, then you are slow. Hence the team that wins has to be more at the limit than the team that comes second. Since every season has 2 or 3 teams at the limit, then the assumption is that the winning team must be over the limit.
So, regardless of your allegiance, just consider:
Bennetton with Schumacher (Fuel filter, TC, thin plank, colliding with competitors)
McLaren and Lewis Hamilton (Built the entire car on the Ferrari pattern book)
Ferrari with Schumacher (Barrichello repeatedly pulling over, flexible wings, colliding with competitors)
McLaren with Hakkinan (TC, auto box)
Williams with Mansell (TC)
Renault with Alonso (mass damper systems)
Tyre wars... Michelin v Bridgestone
The other thing is the aggressiveness of the driver. We know aggressive drivers win, nice drivers don't. Senna, Prost and Schumacher were involved in fist fights, and Lewis attracts the same ire. Who was the last "nice" champion? Damon Hill?... and before him?
Lets face it, all elite sports push the limit and are accused of underhand tactics. If you don't like it then I suggest you take up knitting.
another word for cheating is being 'creative'
its what every team strives to be, its what teams such as McLaren this year have accepted & admitted publicly that they were not 'creative' enough to be competitive from Melbourne.
its when that creativity does not suit the FIA that it becomes 'cheating' (see all Mr Leeds' examples).
as per the old adage,
"its not cheating (or lying) until you get caught"
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DaveKillens wrote:Then of course are some fans, and the internet. Before the internet, if you spout off spewing crap, most likely you would wind up with a fist in the mouth. But with the internet, those with poor social skills or just bad behavior have a field day. They can hide behind the anonymity of the net and become very abusive and impolite people. So whenever anything happens, droves of these kinds of people crawl out from under their rocks and throw insults and abusive allegations.
Sadly, that's just the way things are.
Thanks DK, truer words never spoken.
"I spent most of my money on wine and women...I wasted the rest"
Cheating in NASCAR seems to be the most colorful, though, and has led to some great legends: Smokey Yunick's 7/8-scale 1967 Chevrolet Chevelle is probably the most famous.
The most interesting has to be Larry Widmer's adjustable connecting rod.
When NASCAR limited compression ratios to 12:1 in a bid to slow the cars down, Widmer, at the time working for Roger Penske, was running cr's at around 18:1. This drop cost Widmer's engines about 100 hp. So Larry, inventive sort that he is, created a two-piece connecting rod. The top part of the rod slid up-and-down the lower half by means of oil pressure. When NASCAR checked the engine, the rod would be collapsed with the piston below the deck and everything was fine. However, once up to racing speed with full oil pressure, the rod would expand putting the piston back up to deck height and regaining the lost compression.
Heaven: Where the cooks are French, the police are British, the lovers are Greek, the mechanics are German, and it is all organized by the Swiss.
Hell: Where the cooks are British, the police are German, the lovers are Swiss, the mechanics are French, and it is all organized by the Greeks.
You can’t have innovation without challenging traditions (the rules). Honda’s two cell fuel compartment was obviously outside the spirit of the rules intended to defeat the weights rules. Ferrari’s rim covers wasn’t since it challenged an ambiguity. Designing to defeat, break or nullify technical specs is one thing, challenging an ambiguity by testing the limits of the rules is another.
When the official "Pop-off valve" was introduced in CART to secure a limited intake-plenum pressure, some teams quickly designed the section where said valve was to be mounted, with a venturi shaped inside.
Why the poor valve was only limiting the static pressure where the air-speed and dynamic pressure was peaking of course!
Cheating? I guess, but still brilliant engineering.
"I spent most of my money on wine and women...I wasted the rest"
I agree that there is a fine line between cheating, and creative interpretation.
But I thought that this was where the "infinite precision" clause came in to stop the exploration.
I do have to say tho, if everyone in F1 followed the rules to the letter, or even to the "spirit", it would become the most boring piece of expensive artwork made by mankind.
I think cheating is when you delibrately go against the rules, eg, Stepneygate.
Otherwise, any vagueness of the rules can be genuinely interpreted, without breaking the rules, eg DDD, wheel covers, etc.
Following the rules blindly, eg Renault re engine freeze, stifles innovation, and goes against what I think F1 should be about, the bleeding edge of technology.
I really dont like that "rules spirit" crap.
Rules should be all the black and white they can, the less gray as possible and should have no spirit.
For example, in the Honda fuel cell case: did the rules stated that the cars must never weight less than 605Kg while on track or only stated that they must weight at least 605 Kg at the end of the race?
If the case is the 1st one, then the punishment is fine. If the case is the 2nd one, the punishment is wrong and I dont call that cheating but creative interpretation.
I really dont remember wich was the case, but I wrote it mostly to show my way of thinking about this subject.
"You need great passion, because everything you do with great pleasure, you do well." -Juan Manuel Fangio
"I have no idols. I admire work, dedication and competence." -Ayrton Senna
Inasmuch as this is really about feeding the troll ("if you dont like it, take up knitting" being the biggest giveaway of such instance), cheating is a very vague notion.
Strict rules make no sense whatsoever if you cannot enforce them (ie as in doping scandals in Tour de France races and such where technology in detecting advanced EPO caught up 3 years after the cheaters). Most cheating cases are linked to poorly written rules and smart adaptations.
1994 Benetton: Fuel filter not attached was not a cheat per se. Nowhere in the rules was it stated by then that the filter had to be attached. Flow limitation was calibrated at the pump with filter attached but the rules never stated that you coud not remove it. It is only once the loophole was pointed out that this changed.
TC program if any - although we ll never know for sure what benetton used- was in flash memory and was likely an on-chip ram that would disappear once switched off.
However, i still think that the zetec was an exceptionnal engine, enabling far,far smoother power delivery than the v10 or v12, and that alone probably helped immensely the car.
Thin plank never existed - the car was run too low at spa and bottomed out, eating away at the plank excessively - hence the disqualification (there was a reference thickness that was mandatory post-race) . Plan was FIA-supplied at the time so i dont see how it would have been possible as described.
Maclaren-Stepneygate link is totally misinformed. The time of possession of the Ferrari documents and the design period of the car do not match, not even by a long shot. Mclaren has a precious insight at the workings of the ferrari car, their technical choices and such but it would not have been very practical to implement many things on an alien-designed car.
Furthermore, the two cars as they ran where philosophically extremely different.
Ferrari: Flexible wings = everyone did it, as early as 1997 with flexi pillars with refinements over the years. Barrichello is not a car part afaik.
Mclaren with Hakkinen never really cheated or were there clear allegations of such. Can you point to a specific claim, article or post ? 1998 mclaren had differential l/r braking in the rear but was banned after Brazil that same year.
Williams with Mansell was the same case as a hidden TC.. but once again, this was never as even remotely raised in any press. Not even Autosprint.
Furthermore, it was for a few races in 1994, the return was not a dominant one and mostly a show to reboost morale. The more i read your list, the more i think you are making those up.
Mass Damper was never cheating, as the system was submitted to Fia before the season!!. Ferrari repushed for a reexamination of the rules during the year and managed to have it banned. Its not cheating.. maybe flexing a bit of political (unsprung) weight indeed.
Tyre wars - i believe you are referring to the width of the michelins during the race. Once again a case of poorly written rules as the width was measured cold - pre expansion -. Bridge noticed the fact and challenged it, as requested by its main client at the time. all is fair in love and war, but the michelins reworked structured performed just as well as early as 3 races later.
Funny that by posing as an expert, you fail to mention cases such as the Brabham of piquet running illegal fuel in 85, the BAR hidden tank, the skirts in the Chapman cars, the chemical compounds applied to the qualifying tires in the late eighties and more.. Those are true (but funny) instances or cheating.
The fallacious mix between cheating and "rubbin is racing, hes crashing into other people" discussions are not to be mentioned. I suggest the original poster spread such joy in the many fanboy-dedicated forums, or f1live, or maybe la Stampa, or Autosprint, or The Sun.
Cheating in NASCAR seems to be the most colorful, though, and has led to some great legends: Smokey Yunick's 7/8-scale 1967 Chevrolet Chevelle is probably the most famous.
The most interesting has to be Larry Widmer's adjustable connecting rod.
When NASCAR limited compression ratios to 12:1 in a bid to slow the cars down, Widmer, at the time working for Roger Penske, was running cr's at around 18:1. This drop cost Widmer's engines about 100 hp. So Larry, inventive sort that he is, created a two-piece connecting rod. The top part of the rod slid up-and-down the lower half by means of oil pressure. When NASCAR checked the engine, the rod would be collapsed with the piston below the deck and everything was fine. However, once up to racing speed with full oil pressure, the rod would expand putting the piston back up to deck height and regaining the lost compression.
I know the Yunick story also where Yunick had used super-big and long fuel tubing (like 3m long extra tubing, giving him 5 extra gallons).
He was always heavily tech'd and scrutineers ended up nitpicking on a list of items to fix before each race..even once removing his fuel tank...only to see him drive away the car to fix various items they had commented upon., motor running... They had somehow failed to see his mod
Patriiick wrote:
Maclaren-Stepneygate link is totally misinformed. The time of possession of the Ferrari documents and the design period of the car do not match, not even by a long shot. Mclaren has a precious insight at the workings of the ferrari car, their technical choices and such but it would not have been very practical to implement many things on an alien-designed car.
Furthermore, the two cars as they ran where philosophically extremely different.
Sorry, perhaps it isn't necessarily against the rules governing F1, but it was clearly an illegal breach of confidentiality.
As for the Stepneygate, when I think about it, I still have some problems with being too upset with what really happened.
The disgruntled Ferrari Chief-mechanic takes a roll of paper-copies to his friend, a design-engineer at McLaren, why they together approach Honda with big plans but without any success that we are aware about.
The McLaren design-engineer's wife brings the paper-drawings to a photo-copy shop in order to have them on a CD, busted.
McLaren is outrageouslsy penalized for all this, but Stepney, Coughlan, Coughlan's wife, or Honda for that matter, are not?
"I spent most of my money on wine and women...I wasted the rest"
The FIA really had no business in Stephy-gate. It was a matter between teams. Even if Ferrari had requested sanctions they shouldn't have gotten involved.
It just brings the FIA onto a slipery slope. They should just stick to managing the formula. The next thing you know they'll be wanting to control more stuff like HOW teams spend their money... doh!
doh!