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

[thomin]

Firstly, the FIA is fallible. They make mistakes. It is every teams right to question a decision. To state that a team is "arrogant" or "pushing it" simply fails to recognise the rights the teams have.

Secondly the FIA has a (disgraceful) track history of writing specific rules, only to discover teams have found a way around them. As a recent example, regarding the 2014 nose designs, F1 race director Charlie Whiting said: "A lot of teams have come up with a solution which is not quite what we intended. As rule makers, we cannot get into how the nose looks aesthetically. We acted in good faith, but we are not designers." So you have a bunch of people writing rules for which they have absolutely no skill or experience doing so. And you all wonder how these things happen!?

That people are trying to argue, 5 Hz this, flow that, article this, TD whatever - is to miss the biggest point of all. If the FIA was an employee, they would have been sacked for gross negligence and incompetence years ago. That the same people keep their jobs and continue to make the same mistakes - speaks volumes.

To top that off, having teams and commentators continue to 'side' with that incompetence - speaks even higher.

First of all, I think you're overstating your case. Particularly in this case, I cannot see where the FIA showed any incompetence. They got a company to produce the FFMs, they got another independent company to calibrate them, they defined the tolerances and explained how to use the device. For 10 teams, that didn't seem to pose any problems.

But even if the FIA was as incompetent as you say, an incompetent umpire is still preferable to anarchy.

By pursuing this, Red Bull are showing all of you that you don't have to take 'no' as an answer.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that all that Red Bull will prove is that you DO have to take 'no' for an answer, if that 'no' comes from the FIA.

Fight for your rights. Fight to the end.

And which right would that be? The right to run a car with a setting that gives you an unfair advantage over your competition?

Don't begrudge anyone for trying to compete in an unfair, unbalanced and arguably highly political environment where side agendas take priority over true sporting accomplishments.

What is unfair about everyone having to play by the same standards? The only ones playing an unfair, unbalanced and arguably highly political game at this point are Red Bull.

There's nothing sporting about getting onto the podium with an unfair engine setting that gives you a significant performance advantage over those who abide by the rules.

The hole the FIA and FOM have dumped F1 into is a crying shame.

IMO.

If anyone, it was Red Bull, they ran with an illegal flow rate and they are making a political issue out of this by abusing Ricciardo, by playing the Australian public in order to pressure F1 into accepting their cheating.
The only error the FIA made was not to black flag Ricciardo right away. That would have saved them some controversies and the Australian fans quite a bit of disappointment.

[djos]

What is unfair about everyone having to play by the same standards? The only ones playing an unfair, unbalanced and arguably highly political game at this point are Red Bull.

And that is what you are ignoring, the unofficial word from the teams is they are finding 4-6% variances in FFM accuracy - how is that "playing by the same standards"?

[beelsebob]

What is unfair about everyone having to play by the same standards? The only ones playing an unfair, unbalanced and arguably highly political game at this point are Red Bull.

And that is what you are ignoring, the unofficial word from the teams is they are finding 4-6% variances in FFM accuracy - how is that "playing by the same standards"?

Source for the 4-6% figure, or it's bullshit.

[Cam]

I cannot see where the FIA showed any incompetence

ok..... so you're happy with the way they write grey, ambiguous rules, that are open to interpretation and challenge. You are also happy that one one hand the FIA cry "cut costs" while on the other force teams to spend massive amounts of money. I'm happy to list off the large number of arguably the greatest FIA bungles if you like.

What this latest episode shows is that they cannot manage the sport well.

an incompetent umpire is still preferable to anarchy.

You like riots? Because that's how you get riots. I would argue having an incompetent umpire is how you achieve anarchy.

take 'no' for an answer, if that 'no' comes from the FIA.

Well, no. That's why there is a court room. For just the times when a "no" from the FIA, is not accepted.

And which right would that be?

The right to appeal.

What is unfair about everyone having to play by the same standards?

Nothing, when it exists. If you think all F1 teams play to the same 'standards', you're in for a shock. Only one teams has a veto right..... I could go on.

a political issue out of this by abusing Ricciardo

Red Bull did what they thought was acceptable in the rules. A court will ultimately decide, but Ricciardo was never abused, and that's an inflammatory statement which holds no basis.

You've chosen to pull out arguments that suit a bias towards incriminating Red Bull. That doesn't help anything.

Ever heard the saying - "hate the game, not the player"? Red Bull are simply playing within the rules as they interpret them. Whiting even acknowledge Lotus' effort for their nose "On the contrary, it is a very clever interpretation of the rules". How on earth can you call them cheaters for doing exactly what everyone is trying to do?

If you are so unhappy with how this has been handled, as I am, perhaps some affirmative action by lobbying the FIA to stop issuing bad rules, that lead to ugly cars, ambiguous rulings, upset fans and ultimately, wasted money, might be a better use of resources.

[Cam]

For the moment I believe technical directives can not be upheld as rules during the appeal.

This is also where I believe the wriggle room lies. TD's can be changed and altered as Charlie Whiting has already publicly stated, so it's entirely conceivable that a possible outcome would be that the TD will be altered under appeal, Red Bull reinstated, and a further 'clarification' added to said TD for the future.

If you look at that FIA document - the breach does not mention "Red Bull did not follow Technical Directive 01614". It's actually only 2 very specific things - Breach of Article 3.2 of the FIA Formula One Sporting Regulations and Article 5.1.4 of the FIA Formula One Technical Regulations.

Both of those have no mention to any 'clarifying TD's' or any other secondary source of rules, for that matter. Yes, the 'reasoning' is listed on that document why the FIA came to that conclusion - but that is the FIA's 'interpretation' as they 'intended' the rule to be understood. Red Bull have their own version.

Every team tries to 'interpret' the rules as best they can. Red Bull did this again really well with the nose camera, Mclaren with their suspension, Lotus with their nose. That is the nature of poorly written rules - loopholes. I would argue that the teams legal eagles know those document better than the FIA does, or at least consider their interpretations have merit.

I think it's time people stop calling teams cheaters. Finding and exploiting a loophole and downright cheating are 2 very different things.

[Jef Patat]

What is unfair about everyone having to play by the same standards? The only ones playing an unfair, unbalanced and arguably highly political game at this point are Red Bull.

And that is what you are ignoring, the unofficial word from the teams is they are finding 4-6% variances in FFM accuracy - how is that "playing by the same standards"?

First I have nowhere read about such variances. Second, variance to what? Their own measurements/estimations? Which one is more correct. Third, that would mean a massive error compared to the spec AND the independent calibration. Short, I don't believe what you are saying. You'll have to prove your point better with sources such as this one to prove my point:

http://www.gillsensors.com/content/data ... r-2014.pdf

[Juzh]

Hes basing 4% innacuracy off of toto wolfs statement that merc ran at 96kg/h to be on the safe side.

[thomin]

I cannot see where the FIA showed any incompetence

ok..... so you're happy with the way they write grey, ambiguous rules, that are open to interpretation and challenge. You are also happy that one one hand the FIA cry "cut costs" while on the other force teams to spend massive amounts of money. I'm happy to list off the large number of arguably the greatest FIA bungles if you like.

While the FIA is certainly not above criticism and historically has made many large blunders, I still cannot see your point here. For 10 teams, the rules were NOT open to interpretation and challenge.
As for the costs: This wasn't just the FIA, everyone wanted these engine changes.

What this latest episode shows is that they cannot manage the sport well.

Again, the only error I can see in this case is that Ricciardo wasn't black flagged. Other than that their management of this "crisis" wasn't any worse than one would expect.

an incompetent umpire is still preferable to anarchy.

You like riots? Because that's how you get riots. I would argue having an incompetent umpire is how you achieve anarchy.

This is getting ridiculous. If you can't see the difference between each team making its own rules and imperfect universal rules, then I cannot help you.
Other than that, you still haven't shown how the FIA was incompetent in the matter of the FFM. On the contrary, the fact that they hired an independent third party to calibrate those sensors shows how competently they dealt with it from the beginning. How could they have handled it any better?

take 'no' for an answer, if that 'no' comes from the FIA.

Well, no. That's why there is a court room. For just the times when a "no" from the FIA, is not accepted.

Sure there is. And they'll lose. Maybe they'll even get an additional punishment which isn't unheard of...though in this case, I don't think so

And which right would that be?

The right to appeal.

No need to fight for that. They obviously have that right already.

What is unfair about everyone having to play by the same standards?

Nothing, when it exists. If you think all F1 teams play to the same 'standards', you're in for a shock. Only one teams has a veto right..... I could go on.

Sure there's a power game going on behind the scenes...and Red Bull hasn't fared too badly either. But regarding the rules, they are the same for everyone. In this case, all the teams played by them, only Red Bull didn't.

a political issue out of this by abusing Ricciardo

Red Bull did what they thought was acceptable in the rules. A court will ultimately decide, but Ricciardo was never abused, and that's an inflammatory statement which holds no basis.

Of course he was. Or do you honestly think that we'd be having this debate if Vettel was disqualified from the podium and Ricciardo had a DNF in lap 2? They knew that they could use Ricciardo for their advantage. It was his first race for Red Bull, his home race and he had a good shot of becoming the first Aussie on the Aussie podium. All of that will have factored into their decision not to play by the rules as it made it much more difficult for the FIA to stick by the rules against this emotional tide, stirred by Red Bull, this debate proving my point.

You've chosen to pull out arguments that suit a bias towards incriminating Red Bull. That doesn't help anything.

Quite frankly, I think I'm as neutral as one can be regarding Red Bull. I don't hate the team and I don't love it either. I respect their achievements. But in this case, you have to be willfully blind in order not to see how Red Bull isn't at fault. Even if they thought that the rules were bad (which apparently they didn't realize until the race), then due process would be to stick by those rules and then challenging them. Not to make up your own rules, getting a significant performance advantage out of it and then pretending to be the victim.

Ever heard the saying - "hate the game, not the player"? Red Bull are simply playing within the rules as they interpret them. Whiting even acknowledge Lotus' effort for their nose "On the contrary, it is a very clever interpretation of the rules". How on earth can you call them cheaters for doing exactly what everyone is trying to do?

What Red Bull did wasn't creative though, it wasn't clever. Nobody was trying to do it, everybody else who was asked to reduce fuel flow did do exactly that. Here we have clear rules and Red Bull violated them, no loophole, no clever interpretation. Simple old fashioned cheating.

If you are so unhappy with how this has been handled, as I am, perhaps some affirmative action by lobbying the FIA to stop issuing bad rules, that lead to ugly cars, ambiguous rulings, upset fans and ultimately, wasted money, might be a better use of resources.

Quite frankly, given the engine formula that we have and that the teams wanted, including a fuel flow limit, the only reasonable path is to have one sensor that is the same for all. That's not a bad rule, on the contrary, it's a necessary rule. If however you don't like the fuel flow limit, then the FIA is the wrong party to complain to, in that case you have to complain to the teams and the engine manufacturers.

[thomin]

Hes basing 4% inaccuracy off of toto wolfs statement that merc ran at 96kg/h to be on the safe side.

LOL, that would be two completely different things.

If another Mercedes team using the same internal measurements were able to run at 104kg/h according to those measurements, then he might have a point. But even then all we'd have would be two different kinds of sensors disagreeing, which means either one could be inaccurate.

But that's not what we are seeing. So far, all I've heard was that most teams had to turn down their fuel flow, so the logical conclusion would be that the FIA sensor is more sensitive to spikes in fuel flow.

But even if this were due to an error of the sensor, it seems to be the same for everyone, so there'd still be a level playing field.

[djos]

Hes basing 4% innacuracy off of toto wolfs statement that merc ran at 96kg/h to be on the safe side.

Correct, I am.

[FoxHound]

Yes, the 'reasoning' is listed on that document why the FIA came to that conclusion - but that is the FIA's 'interpretation' as they 'intended' the rule to be understood. Red Bull have their own version.

Every team tries to 'interpret' the rules as best they can. Red Bull did this again really well with the nose camera, Mclaren with their suspension, Lotus with their nose. That is the nature of poorly written rules - loopholes. I would argue that the teams legal eagles know those document better than the FIA does, or at least consider their interpretations have merit.

I think it's time people stop calling teams cheaters. Finding and exploiting a loophole and downright cheating are 2 very different things.

Where is the loophole?

It is very clear, you do not follow your own measurements. The FIA provided the tools and are privy to the fuel flow data.
They warned Red Bull, and Red Bull decided not to act on the warning citing their tools as more accurate.

Now this is where it gets silly. IF the FIA are telling a team to turn down the flow rate from the info attained by the homologated sensor, what grounds do Red Bull have to say their sensor is better?
Every team in the pitlane must carry it, Mercedes where also warned about it and complied to the FIA spec.
Why?
Because the FIA do not go on the teams own sensor.
Red Bull being twice warned about this, and it was made clear to Red Bull the FIA will only go by the homologated parts readings.
They refused and it is this refusal that has landed the DQ.

The FIA did have some issues in attaining the supplier and getting a reliable flow sensor.
I think it has been documented on this thread but there is so much being written here I can't find it. The FIA has spoken to the teams about this and there is a fix on the way. They did ask for any bad publicity to be avoided on this matter, and well...Red Bull choose to ignore it.
Not clever in the slightest IMO.

Joe Saward sums it up....

I doubt that the Red Bull lawyers will come up with any arguments that the stewards did not hear. Yes, the FIA messed up with the supplier, but from what I hear it was somewhat beyond the control of the federation, as there seems to have been some chicanery going on which caused delays, but I am not sure what the FIA should have done once the mess has begun. One can say that they made a bad choice during the tender process but at the time it was a logical decision. The problem was explained to the teams and they understood the need to avoid unnecessary bad publicity while the problem was being solved. Red Bull chose to do it by their own rules. Much will depend on whether the Court of Appeal looks at the question in purely legal terms, or whether it allows for some commonsense and ‘doing the right’ thing. The verdict will matter because if it is just a legal decision then teams will never again be relied upon to do something in the interest of the sport. All things considered, however, I think that a better decision would be to dismiss the appeal as frivolous and give the team a big fine for wasting everyone’s time. However, I am not a lawyer… So we will just have to see what happens.

[Dragonfly]

Firstly, the FIA is fallible. They make mistakes. It is every teams right to question a decision. To state that a team is "arrogant" or "pushing it" simply fails to recognise the rights the teams have.

Secondly the FIA has a (disgraceful) track history of writing specific rules, only to discover teams have found a way around them. As a recent example, regarding the 2014 nose designs, F1 race director Charlie Whiting said: "A lot of teams have come up with a solution which is not quite what we intended. As rule makers, we cannot get into how the nose looks aesthetically. We acted in good faith, but we are not designers." So you have a bunch of people writing rules for which they have absolutely no skill or experience doing so. And you all wonder how these things happen!?

That people are trying to argue, 5 Hz this, flow that, article this, TD whatever - is to miss the biggest point of all. If the FIA was an employee, they would have been sacked for gross negligence and incompetence years ago. That the same people keep their jobs and continue to make the same mistakes - speaks volumes.

To top that off, having teams and commentators continue to 'side' with that incompetence - speaks even higher.

By pursuing this, Red Bull are showing all of you that you don't have to take 'no' as an answer. Fight for your rights. Fight to the end.

Don't begrudge anyone for trying to compete in an unfair, unbalanced and arguably highly political environment where side agendas take priority over true sporting accomplishments.

The hole the FIA and FOM have dumped F1 into is a crying shame.

IMO.

+1 because of lack of voting here.
I am amazed how so many people seem to not see the forest because of the trees. And I am waiting to see their reaction when some other team suffers from this stupid rule and its implementation.

[thomin]

+1 because of lack of voting here.
I am amazed how so many people seem to not see the forest because of the trees. And I am waiting to see their reaction when some other team suffers from this stupid rule and its implementation.

And I'm amazed how so many people see pixies and unicorns instead of forest and trees.

As far as we know, lots of teams were told to turn their fuel flow down. Nobody suffered except when Red Bull decided to play by its own rules.

Lastly, which rule exactly is it that you find stupid? That everyone had to use the same sensor? That the FIA monitors those sensor readings?

[beelsebob]

Hes basing 4% innacuracy off of toto wolfs statement that merc ran at 96kg/h to be on the safe side.

1) As someone else pointed out, this is 4% relative to what their sensors tell them, not relative to the absolute amount of fuel flowing through it.
2) They asserted "to be on the safe side", which implies that this is more than they thought they needed to correct by.
3) This still doesn't explain where you got the 6% figure from.

It could well be that they ran at 96 to be on the safe side, because they hit 100 when their sensors said 98.5, and they had a lot in hand, so they went under by a substantial amount. Then, 1kg/h of that inaccuracy was caused by their own estimates of how much fuel they were using being 1% out. Then... the FIA sensor is in spec.

[Scardini1]

Despite the FIA's efforts to turn F1 into an open wheel NASCAR, F1 is "NOT" NASCAR (which is such an embarrassment). The FIA's rule making is killing the sport and is the leading cause of all this pettiness.

Red Bull used the mandated fuel sensor (give me a break: a "mandated" fuel sensor?! - Just shoot me), they raced on the required amount of fuel. They finished the race. They Podiumed. They did it better than most other teams and deserve credit for that. End of conversation.