FIA-Ferrari PU Statement Controversy

[izzy]

My hypothesis from day one was that it was a dynamic exploit observed in static conditions. Do we even know if the investigation included running the ferarri engine on a FIA test bench?

All ferarri needs for plausible deniability is to have kept the FIA from being able to test it in the conditions that it was active.

"turn it on" "no" "if you have nothing to hide you must turn it on" "that's not what the rules say we have to do" "that looks like an ability to modulate the fuel pump in phase with the FFS" "prove it" "turn it on" "we don't have to"........ Settlement

FIA confiscated a complete system didn't they. What else would they do with it apart from put it on a workbench, turn it on and measure frequencies? It has to be run through the FIA ECU doesn't it? i don't see how it can do anything FIA can't get at, that is the point of the standard ECU

i'm not saying your scenario isn't what happened, but if it was like that then that's what FIA decided to let happen

after all FIA don't need to prove anything, it was Ferrari who had to prove it didn't do anything naughty that's what the rules say, so the story Jean came out with was a semi cover up, not at all convincing but better than a complete cover up. But the settlement being secret but announced was him stitching them up if you ask me, just asking for it to be a drama

[saviour stivala]

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/57996/bi ... o-me-.html

Win by cheating. I have to say I just getting a really bad taste of this win. They were cheating and they knew it. Otherwise Hamilton would have won.

Surprised having been let to declare on such a strict site that they (Ferrari) were cheating when facts show that after a season long intensive scrutiny by the governing body as a result of accusations thrown at them that stopped short of cheating accusations said governing body had to declare that they had ‘SANCTIONED’ them because they did not find that they were cheating.

[toraabe]

It is the PU I am referring to. See context

[toraabe]

https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/57996/bi ... o-me-.html

Win by cheating. I have to say I just getting a really bad taste of this win. They were cheating and they knew it. Otherwise Hamilton would have won.

Surprised having been let to declare on such a strict site that they (Ferrari) were cheating when facts show that after a season long intensive scrutiny by the governing body as a result of accusations thrown at them that stopped short of cheating accusations said governing body had to declare that they had ‘SANCTIONED’ them because they did not find that they were cheating.

Fia and Ferrari are not agree on the way the engine were operated was legal or not. Ferrari is still convinced that they were within the rules. Fia not,. Let's see when the season begins how the engine will behave

[Tim.Wright]

FIA confiscated a complete system didn't they. What else would they do with it apart from put it on a workbench, turn it on and measure frequencies? It has to be run through the FIA ECU doesn't it? i don't see how it can do anything FIA can't get at, that is the point of the standard ECU

If you've ever put something on a testbench or had to trawl through code to find out how it works you could appreciate how it totally feasible that it's not the magic bullet that you think it is.

[toraabe]

Anyway. That Ferrari as a team won't tell anything, just makes it more suspect. And it will be until everything is being put on the table. Their reputation is damaged and how on earth are they going to relate to the other teams....

[izzy]

If you've ever put something on a testbench or had to trawl through code to find out how it works you could appreciate how it totally feasible that it's not the magic bullet that you think it is.

Lol well i knew someone would have to come and tell me vaguely it's ever so difficult

If it was my job to do f1 fuel systems programming then i think I'd be able to tell why a second randomising private sensor was a great idea and has had gerdoink! a magical effect

[dans79]

Surprised having been let to declare on such a strict site that they (Ferrari) were cheating when facts show that after a season long intensive scrutiny by the governing body as a result of accusations thrown at them that stopped short of cheating accusations said governing body had to declare that they had ‘SANCTIONED’ them because they did not find that they were cheating.

It's no different than when some constantly say they did nothing wrong, even though they had to agree to a closed door settlement.

[strad]

after all FIA don't need to prove anything, it was Ferrari who had to prove it didn't do anything

I'm thinking you'd feel differently if you were being accused of something "naughty".
I'm sure you have heard of innocent until proven guilty.
You don't approach it from I think you are guilty so prove you're not. It's up to the FIA to prove them guilty and they can't be made to testify against themselves or make the FIAs case for them.

[saviour stivala]

This subject revolves only around the FERRARI formula 1 power unit ‘output’ legality out of the 4 being used on the grid. The first screams of illegalities were directed at the electric power output of the FERRARI power unit, the illegality screams migrated to oil burning for illegal output gains, then to other substances being burned, after that to accumulating fuel past the flow meter reading to use in greater volume than what the max flow permit. The final illegality scream settled on tricking the fuel flow metre reading into flowing more than what is permitted. The facts to this day shows that these illegality screams all of which lacked the final all important step of officially lodging a protest with proof in hand of illegalities resulted in one of F1’s season long most intensive investigation of the FERRARI power unit, An investigation that resulted in the investigating body having ‘sanctioned’ the FERRARI power unit for lack of proof of any illegalities. The FERRARI power unit is one of only 4 on the grid of which is used by 3 teams out of the 10 teams on the grid. The other 7 teams between them make use of the other 3 power units (Mercedes, Renault and Honda). The irony of it all, bar the illegality screaming, which as explained above falls short of an official protest with illegalities proof in hand. And which most seems to conveniently forget is as follows:-. Since the introduction of the maximum fuel flow rules in 2014, 4 of the 7 non FERRARI powered teams using all of 3 of the other power units other than FERRARI are the only once to have had either their race or qualifying time disqualified from results for breaching the max fuel flow rules, this apart from those having been warned of being over the fuel flow rate, which was the norm at start of the new fuel flow rules. Stats shows the following: ‘2014 Albert Park practice, both Mercedes cars both with Mercedes engines having been warned that they were breaching the fuel flow limits. Mercedes (the team) reduced their fuel flow rate to comply with rules. Later on the FIA accommodate them some by easing the tolerances by which fuel flow rules breach are measured’. ‘2014 Albert Park race, RBR team one car with Renault engine. Disqualified from race results for fuel flow breach.’ ‘2018 US GP Force India one car with Mercedes engine. Disqualified from race results for fuel flow breach’. ‘2019 Baku qualifying Toro Rosso car with Honda engine. Disqualified from qualifying results for fuel flow breach’.

[izzy]

after all FIA don't need to prove anything, it was Ferrari who had to prove it didn't do anything

I'm thinking you'd feel differently if you were being accused of something "naughty".
I'm sure you have heard of innocent until proven guilty.
You don't approach it from I think you are guilty so prove you're not. It's up to the FIA to prove them guilty and they can't be made to testify against themselves or make the FIAs case for them.

It's not common law tho, it's contract law and in their contract is a clause that says the entrant has to satisfy the FIA that their car is legal at all times

So if it's code they can make them explain each section. FIA already know most of it as it's their ECU

They must basically know the sensor was being tricked in order to specify that exact countermeasure, and let's face it we had Ferrari in testing all slow and poor Mattia saying they've changed it for reliability!

Plus it's pretty obvious HPP had worked out exactly what the naughtiness was and could've put their cursor on it in a minute

So there are the dots to join afaics. The second sensor is specified, is does vary its frequency randomly and secretly and it has had a big effect and only on the Scuderia. I'm not trying to spoil things for Ferrari fans yelling cheat but i do think another team like Renault would've had a different penalty and it wouldn't have been secret

So imo Jean did what he could, which was fix it and tell us there was a settlement and leave us working out the obvious

[turbof1]

after all FIA don't need to prove anything, it was Ferrari who had to prove it didn't do anything

I'm thinking you'd feel differently if you were being accused of something "naughty".
I'm sure you have heard of innocent until proven guilty.
You don't approach it from I think you are guilty so prove you're not. It's up to the FIA to prove them guilty and they can't be made to testify against themselves or make the FIAs case for them.

It's not common law tho, it's contract law and in their contract is a clause that says the entrant has to satisfy the FIA that their car is legal at all times

So if it's code they can make them explain each section. FIA already know most of it as it's their ECU

They must basically know the sensor was being tricked in order to specify that exact countermeasure, and let's face it we had Ferrari in testing all slow and poor Mattia saying they've changed it for reliability!

Plus it's pretty obvious HPP had worked out exactly what the naughtiness was and could've put their cursor on it in a minute

So there are the dots to join afaics. The second sensor is specified, is does vary its frequency randomly and secretly and it has had a big effect and only on the Scuderia. I'm not trying to spoil things for Ferrari fans yelling cheat but i do think another team like Renault would've had a different penalty and it wouldn't have been secret

So imo Jean did what he could, which was fix it and tell us there was a settlement and leave us working out the obvious

It could have become common law though. The FIA was afraid of exactly that: Ferrari going to a public court, taking matters outside FIA's jurisdiction while the FIA could not provide indisputable proof. You would get into a legal argument about precedence, what the FIA used as arguments to declare something legal or illegal,... . And that will be a very costly affair for all parties.

I am not going to bother explaining why code is very nasty to unravel and how you can so easily convolute things in even megabytes of code. I think what Dans79 told is correct: you can't just try to fish out anomalies out of huge murky pond of it, and you certainly cannot make a potentially offending party incriminate itself.

Basically, if everything was as straight forward as you said, don't you think they would have done that? Now I agree the FIA should have put more resources into it; hire outside experts. Do whatever it takes. Or, accept it's that much into a grey zone and declare Ferrari did nothing wrong. They should never have settled.

[saviour stivala]

While the FIA was at it but before they decided to settle for lack of solid evidence of any wrong doing they (the FIA) specifically and personally its president (Jean Todt) begged the accuser teams to go the final step and lodge an official protest. But to no avail simply because the accusers had no solid evidence of any wrong doing in hand themselves, all they had was suspicions that resulted in speculative accusations.

[toraabe]

Why didn't they have two fuel sensors from the beginning?

[izzy]

It could have become common law though. The FIA was afraid of exactly that: Ferrari going to a public court, taking matters outside FIA's jurisdiction while the FIA could not provide indisputable proof. You would get into a legal argument about precedence, what the FIA used as arguments to declare something legal or illegal,... . And that will be a very costly affair for all parties.

I am not going to bother explaining why code is very nasty to unravel and how you can so easily convolute things in even megabytes of code. I think what Dans79 told is correct: you can't just try to fish out anomalies out of huge murky pond of it, and you certainly cannot make a potentially offending party incriminate itself.

Basically, if everything was as straight forward as you said, don't you think they would have done that? Now I agree the FIA should have put more resources into it; hire outside experts. Do whatever it takes. Or, accept it's that much into a grey zone and declare Ferrari did nothing wrong. They should never have settled.

what i've read is that courts don't like to interfere in commercial contracts, it's not like consumer law, the parties are expected to look after themselves and take responsibility for what they sign. i haven't seen anything about Ferrari threatening legal action, and it'd just backfire spectacularly wouldn't it? What a nightmare! Massive courtroom drama and then FIA would get serious defending themselves and the code would get analysed and code is in sections, it has to be structured to be maintainable and then the output has to be there with the extra fuel in the calculations for all the combustion

The whole idea so far is to keep a lid on it. The story is it was toooo difficult to actually see but quelle chance mes amis voici zis solution parfait aucun probleme! i don't believe it. FIA had the system, they could run it, they could make Ferrari explain everything about it, account for the gps, swap in the randomising sensor, whatever. When rosberg cheated in Monaco FIA brought in McLaren as experts, they could have brought in HPP just the same, but they didn't

instead John called Ola and Ola called Toto and i get the impression something's upset Toto and it might be that. Anyway the whole thing's happened in the context of Ferrari and their position in F1, and it's a realpolitik thing that F1 can't just nail Ferrari. They didn't want to, so this is the story, that it was tooooo obscure, but Jean's dished out some public humiliation which he didn't need to do and probably that's had some effect backstage in Ferrari

At least Ferrari didn't win a championship with it, that would've been too awful. As it is they did some good races with it and now it's fixed. Sometimes, you have to settle for what's possible and that's what personally i've done, but the dots are there and i'm joining them