2024 Belgian Grand Prix - Spa-Francorchamps, July 26 - 28

[dialtone]

2nd weekend in a row where nobody is happy haha.

Ferrari didn’t win.
MCL underperformed massively.
Mercs lost a 1-2 due to some funny stuff.
Max didn’t win and made up only a few places although finished 4th in the end.

[sport777]

So now we know how George was able to stay ahead... 1.5kg can make a difference with equal cars

this is nonsense, the cars are checked before the race, Russell could wear out the tires and the bottom board a lot, there was a photo of Russell's tires after the race and they were worn out much more than Lewis's, a pit stop for Russell would have solved the problem I think

[Matt2725]

So now we know how George was able to stay ahead... 1.5kg can make a difference with equal cars

The tyre offset alone more than makes up for the at most 2 tenths per lap difference. Likely a lot less in terms of lap time.
Hamilton wouldn't have got past even if Russell's car weighed an extra 1.5kg. Not in the dirty air.

Maybe a problem that doesn't need to be fixed, but the FIA should use a known entity tyre set when weighing the cars. Punishing a driver for making a 34 lap stint on one set of tyres work doesn't sit right with me. It's not like it's a setup choice by say running the car too low and wearing out the plank per Ham/Lec at COTA.

[FittingMechanics]

Its simple now all the car that finished, minus any propellant fuel. Thats it, clear and simple. Any infringement and you're out.

lol guys it's basically universal across all series and club racing, etc that you have to come off track above minimum weight.

Not entirely true.

First of all: F1 is a different standard to other racing series. It's the most well-funded racing series there is - they can afford to do things differently (and better) than other racing-series, who are more resource-constrained. So comparing it to how it's done in more resource-constrained series is a faulty argument already.

But second of all: The cars aren't always weighed as they are (minus fuel). What I'm suggesting - weighing the car with a different set of tires - is already a practice that is implemented when the race is a wet-weather race. If a car has an intermediate or wet weather tire fitted at the end of a race, the car will be weighed with a set of dry tires (although not necessarily a new set - the rules say it's weighed with an appropriate dry-tire set selected by the F1 technical delegate).

If they can replace the tires before weighing when the race is wet, there's no excuse for them not being capable of doing it in a dry race. This may help us avoid a situation like this again. We can do better than this.

Don't resist change just for the sake of resisting change.

Agreed. They should weigh them without tyres. Picking up marbles always seemed like a stupid thing and this would eliminate it.

[Sieper]

Ok. So did they check if all the other cars were properly emptied. Or just Russell. I ask this because even before the DSQ, even before anything had come to light RBR had not expected this pace by Merc. And then 1 car was too light.

Every car is weighed at every race.

And so was Russell’s, they just didn’t remove the remaining fuel as they were supposed to. I guess FIA got suspicious as the car was exactly at the weight limit. If they removed a few hundred less grams of fuel so that the carbwas at some random weight above the limit they probably wouldn’t have double checked.

[Farnborough]

Its simple now all the car that finished, minus any propellant fuel. Thats it, clear and simple. Any infringement and you're out.

lol guys it's basically universal across all series and club racing, etc that you have to come off track above minimum weight.

Not entirely true.

First of all: F1 is a different standard to other racing series. It's the most well-funded racing series there is - they can afford to do things differently (and better) than other racing-series, who are more resource-constrained. So comparing it to how it's done in more resource-constrained series is a faulty argument already.

But second of all: The cars aren't always weighed as they are (minus fuel). What I'm suggesting - weighing the car with a different set of tires - is already a practice that is implemented when the race is a wet-weather race. If a car has an intermediate or wet weather tire fitted at the end of a race, the car will be weighed with a set of dry tires (although not necessarily a new set - the rules say it's weighed with an appropriate dry-tire set selected by the F1 technical delegate).

If they can replace the tires before weighing when the race is wet, there's no excuse for them not being capable of doing it in a dry race. This may help us avoid a situation like this again. We can do better than this.

Don't resist change just for the sake of resisting change.

And for what would that change be ?

There's a set of rules (always will be) they know them, as do all the teams. If they want to gamble at that hard line of a no tolerance, rather than ensuring they are able to comply each and every race, then they get the results available to them through their OWN process.

Its not hard, and infinitesimal in its example of failure. Nothing needs to be adapted. They've said themselves that they'll get over it and ensure compliance in the future. No need to add another layer to existing status quo.

[organic]

It's so obvious that they left 2.8L of fuel in the car hoping that FIA would just weigh the car and not check that it's fully drained. It was the exact amount of fuel required to make the car up to the 798.0kg that you'd expect the car to be without any fuel onboard. Beyond fishy.

But Merc can/will just claim that they made a procedural error and it can't really be disproven

[chrisc90]

It's so obvious that they left 2.8L of fuel in the car hoping that FIA would just weigh the car and not check that it's fully drained. It was the exact amount required to make the car up to the 798.0kg that you'd expect the car to be without any fuel onboard.

But Merc can/will just claim that they made a procedural error and it can't really be disproven

Presumingly the car would have had to be taken back to the garage, drained of fuel, weighed (without the hose on) and fuel added back in?

[Tvetovnato]

From an entertainment perspective, this race was a showcase of why focusing on amount of overtakes as criteria for entertaining races is not the right way to look at it. Just make sure four teams are in the fight pacewise, and that’s it. The rest will sort itself out. The wait for Zandvoort will be an agony…

And what a 2025 season we will have…

[Tommy.G]

From an entertainment perspective, this race was a showcase of why focusing on amount of overtakes as criteria for entertaining races is not the right way to look at it. Just make sure four teams are in the fight pacewise, and that’s it. The rest will sort itself out. The wait for Zandvoort will be an agony…

And what a 2025 season we will have…

I don’t want to set high expectations either for Zandvoort or 2025!

2022 proved that a lot can change from one race to another and from one year to another!

Red Bull aren’t idiots! They know what to do to get back in front…

[Juzh]

It's so obvious that they left 2.8L of fuel in the car hoping that FIA would just weigh the car and not check that it's fully drained. It was the exact amount of fuel required to make the car up to the 798.0kg that you'd expect the car to be without any fuel onboard. Beyond fishy.

But Merc can/will just claim that they made a procedural error and it can't really be disproven

Exactly. They basically tried to pull a BAR mid 2000s fuel trick with the FIA, sneaky little bunch. Funny as they of all people should know it wont work. FIA can't prove they did it deliberately (most obvious) but it's still grounds for a harsher penalty imo.
Merc playing the saints while having 3 technical DSQ in 4 years lmao.

[AR3-GP]

Something that has always bothered me is how cutting the final chicane is only treated as a track limit offense.

Norris should have lost the DRS if he slowed down and stayed on the track. Instead he cut the chicane and it allowed him to keep within 1 second for the DRS line before La source. I don't think this is correct.

[karana]

For anyone saying that Mercedes were cheating, this comment from an F1 mechanic on Reddit might be interesting:

Hijacking the top comment to answer a few questions from the OP and hopefully clear a few bits up. (Source, am F1 mechanic that travels to every race and goes to parc ferme after the race help the FIA weigh the cars)

On OP’s point 2 about ‘somehow it being discovered they improperly drained it’, this isn’t the case. What happens is the race finishes, all the cars park, drivers get out and get weighed while pit in the fans and get the cars on the skateboards. Then one by one all the cars are weighed. This is before any work has been done to them.

The reason they then drained the fuel from George’s car is because it was already at the minimum limit - meaning they knew it would be below once the fuel was out. Also the improper procedure thing reads to me like they drained the tank but not the collector, but then said well it’s obviously already going to be under to let’s not bother getting the rest out.

After qualifying the top 10 cars all get weighed (which means Merc should have had an idea he was pushing the limit, I’m not sure why they didn’t rectify this over night), then after the race all classified cars are weighed. Every week.

Source:https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comme ... ing_15_kg/

[napoleon1981]

Running 1.5 kg under the regulation is like not running 1.5 lighter than the others from a practical perspective, its probably 3-4kg less. I would have to think that most teams run 1-2 kg over the minimum to build in some safety.

Also 2.8L by density should be 2.1kg, so something is not quite right with the numbers.

[mwillems]

For anyone saying that Mercedes were cheating, this comment from an F1 mechanic on Reddit might be interesting:

Hijacking the top comment to answer a few questions from the OP and hopefully clear a few bits up. (Source, am F1 mechanic that travels to every race and goes to parc ferme after the race help the FIA weigh the cars)

On OP’s point 2 about ‘somehow it being discovered they improperly drained it’, this isn’t the case. What happens is the race finishes, all the cars park, drivers get out and get weighed while pit in the fans and get the cars on the skateboards. Then one by one all the cars are weighed. This is before any work has been done to them.

The reason they then drained the fuel from George’s car is because it was already at the minimum limit - meaning they knew it would be below once the fuel was out. Also the improper procedure thing reads to me like they drained the tank but not the collector, but then said well it’s obviously already going to be under to let’s not bother getting the rest out.

After qualifying the top 10 cars all get weighed (which means Merc should have had an idea he was pushing the limit, I’m not sure why they didn’t rectify this over night), then after the race all classified cars are weighed. Every week.

Source:https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comme ... ing_15_kg/

That is the question I wanted answering. Are they weighed after Qualifying.

Still, Merc didn't know they'd be doing most of the race on one set of tyres, so no need to worry at that point.
Assuming that it was because of the rubber, but it is quite feasible.

Still, and the end of the race, they knew damn well they were going to try and get away with it. At least some in the team were aware, I have a feeling that Toto didn't know at that point.