Red Bull exceed fuel flow limit, Ricciardo DSQ at Australian GP

[ChrisM40]

Besides the point.

Not sure how you figure that! A .25% variance between 2 FFM's could be the difference between competitive power in one car and uncompetitive power in another resulting in WDC/WCC points loss or gain and actually undercuts the level playing field the FIA are aiming for.

Because its the rule. End of story. The law may be an ass, but its the law. RB have no case. If they do win that case then I never want to be in front of that judge..

Even if they are compliant with the 100kg/h rule, they didnt use the FFM as the measure, so they are still in breach of the rules.

Why is that so hard to understand? The FFM gets changed all the time, the averages will level out for all. Even injector flow measurements methods arent that accurate, anyone thats claiming they are much better than that as a way to measuring flow is wrong.

[Jef Patat]

Not sure how you figure that! A .25% variance between 2 FFM's could be the difference between competitive power in one car and uncompetitive power in another resulting in WDC/WCC points loss or gain and actually undercuts the level playing field the FIA are aiming for.

That's a valid point. It's not about the legality, but the fairness, which is another aspect of discussion that many deem not part of the discussion. Concerning the accuracy of 0.25% or more. How many sensors does each team get? Can they swap them until they get one that shows a fuel rate of -0.25 instead of +0.25? Then they could try to find a 'good' one which they could call 'Precious'.

On a sidenote I'm quite convinced the ECU can better estimate the fuel flow than the sensor. I've done some programming in the past for off road vehicles with big engines (don't recall the exact number but it was 800+ hp). The integration of what the ECU provided as consumption was off by less than 0.5l on a tank of +1000l. Just to make sure, I understand the FIA cannot trust the team/engine manufacturer so they need their own sensor.

[thomin]

I have read that on Saturday, Red Bull tried to adjust Vettel’s engine according to FIA’s demands and something went wrong which was the cause for his qualifying disaster. We know that Ricciardo on the other hand was running the faulty FFM during Saturday, so there was no basis for the FIA to demand changes to his engine mapping before sunday.

Now I’m completely speculating here, but one possible narrative could be that Red Bull tried both:
<speculation>
They wanted to play it save with Vettel whose engine was mapped according to the FIA’s demand while simultaneously taking the calculated risk of running Ricciardo above 100kg/h in a mode that they knew their engine worked well with. By the time the FIA demanded changes during the race, Red Bull knew that the gig was up, but after Vettel’s experience, they were confident that should they adjust the engine mapping according to the FIA’s demands, Ricciardo would have to retire as well anyway, so they decided to run with it and play the victim, which worked particularly well with Ricciardo being an Australian at his home GP. Had the roles been reversed and Vettel had been disqualified, I doubt we’d hear much fuss about it. Overall, this could be one result of their few testing kilometers, they simply don’t understand the engine well enough to run their cars according to the rules.
</speculation>

[thomin]

Not sure how you figure that! A .25% variance between 2 FFM's could be the difference between competitive power in one car and uncompetitive power in another resulting in WDC/WCC points loss or gain and actually undercuts the level playing field the FIA are aiming for.

That's a valid point. It's not about the legality, but the fairness, which is another aspect of discussion that many deem not part of the discussion. Concerning the accuracy of 0.25% or more. How many sensors does each team get? Can they swap them until they get one that shows a fuel rate of -0.25 instead of +0.25? Then they could try to find a 'good' one which they could call 'Precious'.

On a sidenote I'm quite convinced the ECU can better estimate the fuel flow than the sensor. I've done some programming in the past for off road vehicles with big engines (don't recall the exact number but it was 800+ hp). The integration of what the ECU provided as consumption was off by less than 0.5l on a tank of +1000l. Just to make sure, I understand the FIA cannot trust the team/engine manufacturer so they need their own sensor.

As you note yourself, it's a matter of practicality. The only way to make it fair is to have all teams adhere to the same standards, in this case the same fuel meter. There is a fixed tolerance range where all the sensors have to fall in and that's that.

Similarly, a team cannot suddenly put on their own, private tires only because they have a hunch that their batch of Pirelli tires is sub par. That wouldn't be fair, certainly much worse than driving a bad set of Pirellis.
The fair thing is to define a tolerance range for tires as well as fuel flow meters and to demand from the teams to be able to run them, no matter where they fall within that range.

[Kiril Varbanov]

Meanwhile, it's time to cast your vote in the Best Driver department - http://www.f1technical.net/poll/index.php?dispid=268

[Tim.Wright]

Because its the rule. End of story. The law may be an ass, but its the law. RB have no case. If they do win that case then I never want to be in front of that judge.

The point is, there is no rule which says the FIA FFM is the only method allowed to asses fuel flow.

Its a loophole, sure, but if they satisfy the FIA that they were never over the flow limit then they haven't broken any rules.

[iotar__]

I can't say which driver was the best knowing that 80% of laps were lift and coast, perhaps less with SC, F1 is hardly a skill differentiator these days .
[about another fuel theory by thomin ] This explanation would sound good (really, no irony) but the problem is lack of evidence and how it conveniently fits every RB car and behaviour, even Vettel's problems from qualifying are now blamed on FIA and fuel drama. Too convenient, like working backwards to defend team's mistakes. If only they started talking about it as a cause of problems on Saturday, plus fuel saving is not an issue in qualifying, I think(?).

Re-watched it, still boring - Bottas looked better than I remembered, nice moves on Vergne\Raikkonen before clipping the wall. Go Bottas. They're overselling Magnussen (regardless of his actual driving) especially visible when compared to Ricciardo. Very lucky at the start.
Interesting to see how they're selling this season changes compared to 2013: it used to "everything about tyres" (bad) and "not pushing 100%" (disaster). This time it's "fascinating" to see how drivers will cope with fuel consumption, tyre management and driving, at the same time imagine that. Not a word about not pushing 100% or lift and coast.

[thomin]

Because its the rule. End of story. The law may be an ass, but its the law. RB have no case. If they do win that case then I never want to be in front of that judge.

The point is, there is no rule which says the FIA FFM is the only method allowed to asses fuel flow.

Its a loophole, sure, but if they satisfy the FIA that they were never over the flow limit then they haven't broken any rules.

While there is no rule that says that the FFM is the only method allowed, there is a rule saying that it's the only relevant method unless the FIA specifically says otherwise. I don't see a loophole there.

[Jef Patat]

I can't say which driver was the best knowing that 80% of laps were lift and coast, perhaps less with SC, F1 is hardly a skill differentiator these days .
[about another fuel theory by thomin ] This explanation would sound good (really, no irony) but the problem is lack of evidence and how it conveniently fits every RB car and behaviour, even Vettel's problems from qualifying are now blamed on FIA and fuel drama. Too convenient, like working backwards to defend team's mistakes. If only they started talking about it as a cause of problems on Saturday, plus fuel saving is not an issue in qualifying, I think(?).

Re-watched it, still boring - Bottas looked better than I remembered, nice moves on Vergne\Raikkonen before clipping the wall. Go Bottas. They're overselling Magnussen (regardless of his actual driving) especially visible when compared to Ricciardo. Very lucky at the start.
Interesting to see how they're selling this season changes compared to 2013: it used to "everything about tyres" (bad) and "not pushing 100%" (disaster). This time it's "fascinating" to see how drivers will cope with fuel consumption, tyre management and driving, at the same time imagine that. Not a word about not pushing 100% or lift and coast.

That's a lot of pessimistic conclusions from one weekend. Are you forced to watch F1?

[Miguel]

"Dura lex, sed lex"

It's all very easy really. According to the FIA, pi is 3.1416, not 4*arctan(1). So yes, you could build slightly bigger cylinders and accurately claim your engine still is only 1.6L, but you'd breach FIA rules by doing so. According to the FIA "Rigid" means bending less than x mm when a mass M is put somewhere. x is famously not 0. So if now FIA says 100 kg/h is defined by a number in their machines, that's what 100 kg/h is.

Put it in other way: a second is defined by counting oscillations, and the speed of light in vacuum is 299792458 m/s. Once you've defined that, future measurements don't change c, they change the derived properties of the measurement (such as wavelength for interferometry).

[Phil]

Even if they are compliant with the 100kg/h rule, they didnt use the FFM as the measure, so they are still in breach of the rules.

Why is that so hard to understand? The FFM gets changed all the time, the averages will level out for all. Even injector flow measurements methods arent that accurate, anyone thats claiming they are much better than that as a way to measuring flow is wrong.

I guess my main gripe with the situation is that while the rule is clear (max. flow), *I* as a team would want to run as close to that limit and be able to rely on its accuracy of the sensor that is going to dictate if I am within that threshold or not. This calibration and the FIA effectively "ordering" correction values during the race is problematic, if RedBull seems to think they've been running way within the stated threshold and could prove it. Imagine if this is in fact correct - what a farce! You certainly don't want to walk out of a GP and feel you've been effectively shafted due to an inaccurate sensor!

I know there are some that seem to think the FIA are the "police" - the undisputed rule - the referee and what they say is correct regardless of right or wrong... but imagine, you driving along a highway and the police stops you and claims you've been doing 10km/h over the speed limit (while effectively being 5km/h under it). There are only two (fair) outcomes to this: either you can prove that the messurment device of the police was fauly/inaccurate (on which basis, you should be free to walk) or you can't prove it and you must assume your own speedo was incorrect, which will mean that any penality enforced would be fair.

In other words - the onus (IMO) is on Redbull to prove that the correction value of the FIA was incorrect and that they were running "legal". If they can't prove this, then the penality is just. If they can prove it however, and given we as fans want fairness and a credible sport, the penality is not and the FIA will really need to find ways to either enforce the rule credible or not at all.

[thomin]

[about another fuel theory by thomin ] This explanation would sound good (really, no irony) but the problem is lack of evidence and how it conveniently fits every RB car and behaviour, even Vettel's problems from qualifying are now blamed on FIA and fuel drama. Too convenient, like working backwards to defend team's mistakes. If only they started talking about it as a cause of problems on Saturday, plus fuel saving is not an issue in qualifying, I think(?).

First of all, I realize that this is pure speculation, I have no evidence for it whatsoever. It's merely a narrative that fits the data nicely. As for your objections:
1) I don't think that if true this would really serve as a defense for Red Bull's mistakes, rather as an explanation for why they occurred.
2) Regarding Seb's problems: At least the Saturday problems have been down to issues with the engine mapping which has been communicated immediately. According to this article (http://goo.gl/Rh03eB), errors were made when adapting the fuel sensors to comply with FIA demands.
3) While saving fuel is not an issue in qualifying, limiting the fuel flow certainly is. Indeed, qualifying may be the main reason why this rule exists in the first place as it prevents the turbo engines from reaching the hp figures of the 1980s where we've seen up to 1300hp.

Re-watched it, still boring - Bottas looked better than I remembered, nice moves on Vergne\Raikkonen before clipping the wall. Go Bottas. They're overselling Magnussen (regardless of his actual driving) especially visible when compared to Ricciardo. Very lucky at the start.
Interesting to see how they're selling this season changes compared to 2013: it used to "everything about tyres" (bad) and "not pushing 100%" (disaster). This time it's "fascinating" to see how drivers will cope with fuel consumption, tyre management and driving, at the same time imagine that. Not a word about not pushing 100% or lift and coast.

I did a comparison of the lap times of Rosberg, Ricciardo, Magnussen, Alonso and Bottas. Rosberg was clearly in absolute control, dominating the field at will. The other four were actually quite close though. Alonso and Bottas lost some time in traffic, but when they did have a clear road, their times were as good as those of Ricciardo and Magnussen.

[Tim.Wright]

Because its the rule. End of story. The law may be an ass, but its the law. RB have no case. If they do win that case then I never want to be in front of that judge.

The point is, there is no rule which says the FIA FFM is the only method allowed to asses fuel flow.

Its a loophole, sure, but if they satisfy the FIA that they were never over the flow limit then they haven't broken any rules.

While there is no rule that says that the FFM is the only method allowed, there is a rule saying that it's the only relevant method unless the FIA specifically says otherwise. I don't see a loophole there.

Which rule would that be?

If Im not mistaken, what you mention is a technical directive not a rule.

So it still stands that if they prove they remained under the flow limit, then they havent broken any rules.

[thomin]

While there is no rule that says that the FFM is the only method allowed, there is a rule saying that it's the only relevant method unless the FIA specifically says otherwise. I don't see a loophole there.

Which rule would that be?

If Im not mistaken, what you mention is a technical directive not a rule.

So it still stands that if they prove they remained under the flow limit, then they haven't broken any rules.

Technical Regulations
5.1.4 Fuel mass flow must not exceed 100kg/h.
5.10.3 Homologated sensors must be fitted which directly measure the pressure, the temperature and the flow of the fuel supplied to the injectors, these signals must be supplied to the FIA data logger.
5.10.4 Only one homologated FIA fuel flow sensor may be fitted to the car which must be placed wholly within the fuel tank.

There is a technical directive elaborating on that. Are you saying that technical directives don't count?

[Tim.Wright]

Basically yes. As you've shown the rules only say you are limited to 100kg/hr and you need to have the FIA sensor fitted to the aquisition system.

As I understand the technical directives are not rules.