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

[FoxHound]

In the end, let's hope it transpires in a fair verdict to give Ricciardo some points back, but RBR no constructors points(Oz GP) and a severe suspended sentence should this transgression occur again.

That was my point - a fair verdict. It would be laughable if the jury actually listened to mercedes and puts down a race ban.

What if mercedes make a valid point? A fair verdict is reached by all points being heard.
Mercedes do not have power over the verdict.
Therefore any verdict is still safe so long as the judges hear all points and reach the conclusion independently of the people and organisations that made the point.

[NTS]

Of course they don't want the rules to be changed, but I feel their primary objective is to count out red bull for the title through the court. That smells like a very personal vendetta, which doesn't belong in such a professional business.

But if Red Bull were to lose the championship due to a three race ban, that severely taints a possible Mercedes championship. It would be written into history as the year Mercedes managed to win "because Red Bull wasn't really participating", especially if Red Bull wins 2015.

[turbof1]

Of course they don't want the rules to be changed, but I feel their primary objective is to count out red bull for the title through the court. That smells like a very personal vendetta, which doesn't belong in such a professional business.

But if Red Bull were to lose the championship due to a three race ban, that severely taints a possible Mercedes championship. It would be written into history as the year Mercedes managed to win "because Red Bull wasn't really participating", especially if Red Bull wins 2015.

They aren't exactly showing good sportmanship now either. Neither did red bull last year of course when the tables were turned, but effectively they implied to give red bull that ban. That is their intend. Whether that gets even remotely considered is an entire different question.

What if mercedes make a valid point? A fair verdict is reached by all points being heard.
Mercedes do not have power over the verdict.

Except mercedes didn't made a point. They made a comparison with a different technical infringement which was 9 years ago and asked to have the same punishment applied. It isn't like they came to the court with data and said "look according to this data you can see our sensor worked well during that period".

It can be readed here:
http://www.racer.com/latest-stories/ite ... -sanctions

[thomin]

Of course they don't want the rules to be changed, but I feel their primary objective is to count out red bull for the title through the court. That smells like a very personal vendetta, which doesn't belong in such a professional business.

But if Red Bull were to lose the championship due to a three race ban, that severely taints a possible Mercedes championship. It would be written into history as the year Mercedes managed to win "because Red Bull wasn't really participating", especially if Red Bull wins 2015.

They aren't exactly showing good sportmanship now either. Neither did red bull last year of course when the tables were turned, but effectively they implied to give red bull that ban. That is their intend. Whether that gets even remotely considered is an entire different question.

What if mercedes make a valid point? A fair verdict is reached by all points being heard.
Mercedes do not have power over the verdict.

Except mercedes didn't made a point. They made a comparison with a different technical infringement which was 9 years ago and asked to have the same punishment applied. It isn't like they came to the court with data and said "look according to this data you can see our sensor worked well during that period".

It can be readed here:
http://www.racer.com/latest-stories/ite ... -sanctions

Of course every team is out to get an advantage. But that in itself doesn't invalidate their points. For example, the fact that Ferrari doesn't beat up on Red Bull doesn't necessarily mean that they're showing great sportsmanship, but more likely that they'd like to turn up the fuel flow as well.

Similarly, the fact that Mercedes is up in arms isn't necessarily out of bad blood. From Mercedes POV, they built the best car according to the specifications and now Red Bull comes along and wants to change these specifications in order to get an advantage. So from Mercedes perspective, if anyone it's Red Bull who are showing bad sportsmanship and of course they want to protect the fruits of their labor.

It's like you being defrauded out of some money. Of course you'll be present at the trial and your attorney will do everything to prove your point. If Red Bull is running an illegal car, then they're effectively defrauding everyone else on the grid.

Of course these are all interpretations. I don't claim to know the minds of everyone involved. All I'm trying to point out is that you're also relying on your interpretation of their motivation when you made your assessment. Instead of looking at their motivations, we should however rather look at the facts and I think the Mercedes lawyer made a very good comparison with the BAR team. I looked it up again and their defense back then sounded a lot like Red Bull's now: "It doesn't matter what you measured, we were legal because our engine couldn't possibly run with less than 6kg of fuel, therefore we didn't go below the weight limit at any point." If anything BAR's case was much stronger as they could prove their case whereas Red Bull only has a mathematical model which they claim is accurate to 1%, but which is impossible to verify. Worse: Unlike BAR, Red Bull were repeatedly warned, yet they ignored it and ran with their illegal settings anyway.

Can the BAR case serve as a precedent? I don't know. AFAIK, the structures back then were quite different. But assuming that the reasoning back then was sound, the same sort of reasoning may very well apply now. Still, I don't think Red Bull will get any further bans. It just doesn't seem to fit within modern F1, can't really tell why though. I'm sure that Ricciardo won't get reinstated, but the worst case scenario would probably be an additional penalty in the form of a reduction of the team's championship points. But that's all speculation. On the one hand, the court may not want to incentivize further lawsuits which could endanger the sport by turning every result provisional, in that case Red Bull may face an additional penalty. On the other hand the court may follow Red Bull's argument that they seriously believe to be in the right and declare this to be a one off in order to get a solid legal grounding for the fuel sensor situation.

[thomin]

It's like you being defrauded out of some money. Of course you'll be present at the trial and your attorney will do everything to prove your point.

[...edited out disrespectful comments-Flyboy2160]

All the Teams use the same bank for their financial transactions but the bank software has a random bug in it creating rounding errors, some teams are getting rounding errors in their favour but others are being short changed when then FiA pays them their WCC winnings.

I've tried to present a less devious motivation for Mercedes position. What you described on the other hand may be what Red Bull is arguing, though it's not even that. It's more like Red Bull feared that they might get short changed so they grabbed some money from behind the counter just to be safe.

To me personally, that is still fraud, because everybody involved knew about the tolerances of the fuel flow meters and agreed to abide by those rules. To decide on your own and against the governing body to ignore those rules because you feel that it would be fairer is not viable. Even if the motives were pure, that's not acceptable in a fair competition. At the same time, the motives may very well have not been pure. I said so weeks ago, but I may very well repeat why I think Red Bull weren't ever interested in running a legal car:
1) They knew on Saturday that they would be running a sensor they supposedly didn't trust, yet they did nothing. They could have complained then or they could have put in their third sensor which has been unused throughout the weekend.
2) They were told by the FIA by how much they had to offset their own fuel injectors in order to be legal on Saturday and again on Sunday before the race. Red Bull knew then that they would ignore that demand, yet they said nothing.

Very fishy if you ask me. It reeks of intended fraud. If indeed they feared that they would get short changed, they could have protested before the race or they could have run the race by the rules and protested afterwards. But to ignore the rules and grab some money from behind the counter simply doesn't help their case at all.

Of course that's just my perspective. I assume that we're both biased, so it's probably best that an independent court decides.

[djos]

To me personally, that is still fraud,

No, fraud is claiming your sensors are accurate and fit for purpose when they have been shown across both F1 and WEC to be anything but rock solid!

[Cam]

To me personally, that is still fraud, because everybody involved knew about the tolerances of the fuel flow meters and agreed to abide by those rules. To decide on your own and against the governing body to ignore those rules because you feel that it would be fairer is not viable. Even if the motives were pure, that's not acceptable in a fair competition. At the same time, the motives may very well have not been pure. I said so weeks ago, but I may very well repeat why I think Red Bull weren't ever interested in running a legal car:
1) They knew on Saturday that they would be running a sensor they supposedly didn't trust, yet they did nothing. They could have complained then or they could have put in their third sensor which has been unused throughout the weekend.
2) They were told by the FIA by how much they had to offset their own fuel injectors in order to be legal on Saturday and again on Sunday before the race. Red Bull knew then that they would ignore that demand, yet they said nothing.

Very fishy if you ask me. It reeks of intended fraud. If indeed they feared that they would get short changed, they could have protested before the race or they could have run the race by the rules and protested afterwards. But to ignore the rules and grab some money from behind the counter simply doesn't help their case at all.

Of course that's just my perspective. I assume that we're both biased, so it's probably best that an independent court decides.

Bias does indeed flow freely in these threads - yes. Short memories too. Hypocrisy also.

If the FIA wanted the flow to be measured a specific way, it should have 'regulated' that from the beginning. They didn't. They stuffed up. There was an oversight that any team could exploit. *Alarm* The FIA scrambled to 'clarify', but only as an 'opinion' - because that's all they can do now - give opinions, until 2015. Red Bull could either capitulate to the TD (out of their own good will), or ignore it. Either way, there is no law broken from disregarding it.

How you draw 'fraud' from that is mind blowing. The only fraud committed here is by the FIA to the fans - we've been short changed of results, again, through their negligence and incompetence!!

[thomin]

To me personally, that is still fraud,

No, fraud is claiming your sensors are accurate and fit for purpose when they have been shown across both F1 and WEC to be anything but rock solid!

While they're not rock solid, it's apparently quite obvious when they fail. The sensor in question didn't though.

[djos]

While they're not rock solid, it's apparently quite obvious when they fail. The sensor in question didn't though.

There are two parts to the issue as demonstrated by RBR's evidence to the hearing, they clearly demonstrated that the sensor produces bogus data that does match what is happening in the ICE as controlled by the FiA ECU as well as having an unacceptably high fail rate.

[thomin]

To me personally, that is still fraud, because everybody involved knew about the tolerances of the fuel flow meters and agreed to abide by those rules. To decide on your own and against the governing body to ignore those rules because you feel that it would be fairer is not viable. Even if the motives were pure, that's not acceptable in a fair competition. At the same time, the motives may very well have not been pure. I said so weeks ago, but I may very well repeat why I think Red Bull weren't ever interested in running a legal car:
1) They knew on Saturday that they would be running a sensor they supposedly didn't trust, yet they did nothing. They could have complained then or they could have put in their third sensor which has been unused throughout the weekend.
2) They were told by the FIA by how much they had to offset their own fuel injectors in order to be legal on Saturday and again on Sunday before the race. Red Bull knew then that they would ignore that demand, yet they said nothing.

Very fishy if you ask me. It reeks of intended fraud. If indeed they feared that they would get short changed, they could have protested before the race or they could have run the race by the rules and protested afterwards. But to ignore the rules and grab some money from behind the counter simply doesn't help their case at all.

Of course that's just my perspective. I assume that we're both biased, so it's probably best that an independent court decides.

Bias does indeed flow freely in these threads - yes. Short memories too. Hypocrisy also.

If the FIA wanted the flow to be measured a specific way, it should have 'regulated' that from the beginning. They didn't. They stuffed up. There was an oversight that any team could exploit. *Alarm* The FIA scrambled to 'clarify', but only as an 'opinion' - because that's all they can do now - give opinions, until 2015. Red Bull could either capitulate to the TD (out of their own good will), or ignore it. Either way, there is no law broken from disregarding it.

How you draw 'fraud' from that is mind blowing. The only fraud committed here is by the FIA to the fans - we've been short changed of results, again, through their negligence and incompetence!!

I explained it. Read it again. You are building a false dichotomy. Breaking the rules and "capitulating" weren't the only options.

[thomin]

While they're not rock solid, it's apparently quite obvious when they fail. The sensor in question didn't though.

There are two parts to the issue as demonstrated by RBR's evidence to the hearing, they clearly demonstrated that the sensor produces bogus data that does match what is happening in the ICE as controlled by the FiA ECU as well as having an unacceptably high fail rate.

I cannot verify the claim that the sensor produced bogus data during the race from where I am. So far, nothing I heard supported that claim. But of course that doesn't mean anything. We'll know by tomorrow what the court thinks. I'd bet that the DSQ will stand though.

As for the fail rate, that seems to directly correlate with the fact that Red Bull drills into the fuel meter very close to the sensitive glass body with the actual sensor in order to mount it differently. But that will be banned by the beginning of the European season at which time I expect Red Bulls sensors to fail as little as those of the other teams who don't tamper with their sensors.

[dans79]

While they're not rock solid, it's apparently quite obvious when they fail. The sensor in question didn't though.

There are two parts to the issue as demonstrated by RBR's evidence to the hearing, they clearly demonstrated that the sensor produces bogus data that does match what is happening in the ICE as controlled by the FiA ECU as well as having an unacceptably high fail rate.

did you notice that while being cross examined an RBR "expert" admitted that their method in only accurate to +/- 1% ? That's twice as large as the worst error a mandated sensors is allowed to have before it's considered faulty........

[djos]

did you notice that while being cross examined an RBR "expert" admitted that their method in only accurate to +/- 1% ? That's twice as large as the worst error a mandated sensors is allowed to have before it's considered faulty........

Gill "claim" their sensor is accurate to +/-.25% however the information in the public domain suggested in the real world it can be out by as much as 4% (see comments by Toto Wolf).

[dans79]

did you notice that while being cross examined an RBR "expert" admitted that their method in only accurate to +/- 1% ? That's twice as large as the worst error a mandated sensors is allowed to have before it's considered faulty........

Gill "claim" their sensor is accurate to +/-.25% however the information in the public domain suggested in the real world it can be out by as much as 4% (see comments by Toto Wolf).

Thank you for correcting my mistake and also making my point even stronger. Basically RBR admitted that their method has roughly 4 times the error a sensor is allowed to have before it's considered faulty. Yes, some sensors have been found to have errors above the allowed limit, and those have been rejected. Every manufacturing process has rejects regardless of how good quality control is.

it's ridiculous that RBR is arguing a measurement devise is inaccurate using an even less accurate method.

[Cam]

While they're not rock solid, it's apparently quite obvious when they fail. The sensor in question didn't though.

This is exactly why we have 'Product Recalls'. Manufacturers recall all products when a fault is detected - not just the ones that are broken. They don't assume one working product is fit and proper, so leave it there. The fact that most seem quite happy to accept that the sensors are not "rock solid" beggars belief. It's either fit for purpose, or it's not.

You are building a false dichotomy. Breaking the rules and "capitulating" weren't the only options......They were told by the FIA by how much they had to offset their own fuel injectors in order to be legal on Saturday and again on Sunday before the race. Red Bull knew then that they would ignore that demand, yet they said nothing.

Horner stated that they only made the decision during the race - after they had the facts - there were two choices. Where does it say on Saturday they "knew then that they would ignore that demand, yet they said nothing"?

“It’s a decision that was made in the race,” he told Sky. “We were presented with the facts: we’ve got a [fuel flow] sensor that we believe to be erroneous, we’ve got a fuel rail that we believe is reading correctly. The regulations are very clear, you make a call.”