Ferrari Power Unit Hardware & Software

[Polite]

How can Ferrari sue the FIA for actions that they didn't carry out? If someone steals something from you and gives it to the police, you don't sue the police, do you?

Fia is not Police.. is a private player under: international laws, national laws, its own regulation.
And also.. a private who reports to police something cant be anonymous, so that the accused can defend himself.
Here we got the: 1-Fia which is not like Police; 2-an anonymous leak of confidential information and under license; 3-a regulation that makes FIA responsible for leaks of those information to other companies or teams.

[Just_a_fan]

How can Ferrari sue the FIA for actions that they didn't carry out? If someone steals something from you and gives it to the police, you don't sue the police, do you?

Fia is not Police.. is a private player under: international laws, national laws, its own regulation.
And also.. a private who reports to police something cant be anonymous, so that the accused can defend himself.
Here we got the: 1-Fia which is not like Police; 2-an anonymous leak of confidential information and under license; 3-a regulation that makes FIA responsible for leaks of those information to other companies or teams.

Whistle-blowing is protected in most decent jurisdictions. If "confidential information" was leaked and that information showed illegal actions by Ferrari, then the rest of it is bluff and bluster.

It appears that Ferrari's problem was that they had an employee who believes that cheating is a bad thing to do.

If the information was given to other teams in some form of industrial espionage, it would have been assessed and incorporated by those other teams in to their own designs if legal (or if there was a decent chance of getting away with it even though it's illegal). That other teams appear to have been able to point the finger at Ferrari suggests that those teams knew it was illegal. The problem is that the other teams have way more understanding of the cars than the FIA do. Which is why the FIA had to let Ferrari off with a whitewash statement about helping the FIA in the future.

[Tommy Cookers]

whistle blowing is protected in public legal jurisdictions
but isn't the FIA's a 'private' jurisdiction ?
ie in effect a club whose 'members' (the teams) have agreed in advance to accept the authority of any and all of its rulings
in this position there's little of the legal leverage available in a 'public-law' environment

[Dr. Acula]

How can Ferrari sue the FIA for actions that they didn't carry out? If someone steals something from you and gives it to the police, you don't sue the police, do you?

Fia is not Police.. is a private player under: international laws, national laws, its own regulation.
And also.. a private who reports to police something cant be anonymous, so that the accused can defend himself.
Here we got the: 1-Fia which is not like Police; 2-an anonymous leak of confidential information and under license; 3-a regulation that makes FIA responsible for leaks of those information to other companies or teams.

Whistle-blowing is protected in most decent jurisdictions. If "confidential information" was leaked and that information showed illegal actions by Ferrari, then the rest of it is bluff and bluster.

It appears that Ferrari's problem was that they had an employee who believes that cheating is a bad thing to do.

If the information was given to other teams in some form of industrial espionage, it would have been assessed and incorporated by those other teams in to their own designs if legal (or if there was a decent chance of getting away with it even though it's illegal). That other teams appear to have been able to point the finger at Ferrari suggests that those teams knew it was illegal. The problem is that the other teams have way more understanding of the cars than the FIA do. Which is why the FIA had to let Ferrari off with a whitewash statement about helping the FIA in the future.

Well, you have to differentiate. If a whistleblower was directly involved in a project or what ever and received the Documents to proof his case in a normal way, for instance E-mails where he/she was receiving at least CC/BCC all is right.
If the whistleblower had to steal the documents though, for instance by hacking into anothers employe account, then juristically this is a problem. In most decent jurisdictions stolen things can't be used as evidence.

[Just_a_fan]

whistle blowing is protected in public legal jurisdictions
but isn't the FIA's a 'private' jurisdiction ?
ie in effect a club whose 'members' (the teams) have agreed in advance to accept the authority of any and all of its rulings
in this position there's little of the legal leverage available in a 'public-law' environment

Whistle blowing schemes can exist in private situations too, and any decent organisation will include them and protect those who abide by the scheme i.e. the whistle blowers. In this case, the FIA/WMSC is the jurisdiction and so, if they are decent and proper, they will protect a whistle blower.

The FIA has a whistle blowing scheme. It starts here:
https://fia-ethicsline.com/

[Just_a_fan]

If the whistleblower had to steal the documents though, for instance by hacking into anothers employe account, then juristically this is a problem. In most decent jurisdictions stolen things can't be used as evidence.

Other than Ferrari fans wanting to protect the image of their team, is there any allegation that information was stolen from Ferrari in such a manner? If so, that's a criminal offence and would certainly lead to a court of law.

[PlatinumZealot]

Perhaps...

Information extracted by the FIA scrutineering of Ferrari PU - which is legal to do - was deemed within the rules, then this same information was loosely handled by said scrutineers and passed onto another third party for review, who then has connections to a rival team. This third party passes the certain details
for review yet again by that rival team who then find something that they think is illegal. The rival team then sends in a inquiry to the FIA doing their best to cover up that they received top secret information. FIA calls in Ferrari for questioning not realizing that the information they got was something unique to Ferrari and only disclosed to them (FIA) in confidentiality, and was actually derived from the information they got before! Sort of a Merry go round of illegaly obtained information. This was when Ferrari said... Hey! How did a rival team give you this information that we gave you in confidentiality!! What did you do? Broadcast our information out to the world?

So basically FIA F'ed up by not being technical enough to understand Ferrari's PU details, then getting help from a loose lipped third party, who loosely fed information to a rival team... Who figured it out and reports that interpretation back to the FIA.. Ferrari realise that all of a sudden the protetesr from rival team has confidential information that Ferrari only gave the FIA..

Mercedes back down... Not wanting to be part of a spygate again...??

[Just_a_fan]

It's interesting how the conversation has been steered away from Ferrari cheating to others carrying out espionage, McLaren-gate stuff etc.

Rather than defending the actions of one, the focus seems now to be on creating rumours of wrong doing by others.

All very Machiavellian.

[3jawchuck]

It's interesting how the conversation has been steered away from Ferrari cheating to others carrying out espionage, McLaren-gate stuff etc.
Rather than defending the actions of one, the focus seems now to be on creating rumours of wrong doing by others.
All very Machiavellian.

Ferrari cheating isn't really interesting, par for the course some would say. Talking about FIA incompetence is like talking about the colour of dandelions.

Underhand, backroom dealings and espionage are way more exciting to talk about. This topic offers almost unlimited opportunities for theory and postulation.

Regardless, most of it is pretty off topic.

[RZS10]

It would appear that all the talk and rumours about Ferrari bringing an updated engine that easily made up the power loss they supposedly suffered was just talk and rumours.

Binotto said they have the same engine as in Australia since they did not have the chance to fix anything during the shutdown.

[Nano4k]

now the weakest engine in formula1?

could this be true?

[McMika98]

now the weakest engine in formula1?

could this be true?

Gains/losses for Austria qualifying vs 2019 times:
Racing Point -0.921
Williams -0.737
Renault -0.493
McLaren -0.473
AlphaTauri -0.360
Mercedes -0.323s
Red Bull +0.038
Haas +0.619
Ferrari +0.920
Alfa Romeo +1.119 #F1

Guess you could say that, only Ferrari power cars went backwards and by quite a margin

[Tzk]

Yep. Looks like the Ferrari engine is the weakest right now when it comes to qualy performance. No clue about sustained (race) power. I'd also conclude that the agreement with the FIA last year has made them stop with whatever they were doing back then.

So i'd say Ferrari was up to something and the FIA couldn't prove it 100%. Thus they made said agreement (Ferrari doesn't get punished, but must state what they did)...

[jumpingfish]

Mark Hughes in June 2020

... one of the four new technical directives issued a couple of weeks ago has tightened up further on fuel flow. Now, there are further restrictions on how much fuel can flow on part-throttle. Previously, the permitted flow rose at a specified rate with the revs until reaching its maximum of 100kg/hour at 10,500rpm. Now there is an additional requirement on part-throttle matching the flow to the engine’s power: below 50kW the fuel flow must not exceed 10kg/hour. As power increases, so the flow can increase at the rate determined by a set formula. This should prevent an excess of fuel being delivered at low throttle which could be somehow stored between tank and injectors and used to increase flow at full throttle.

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/arti ... e-trickery





2 FIA documents - 2019 and 2020, we see there maximum volume of fuel outside the survive cell decreased from 2l to 0.25l. Also: "5.10.3 All cars must be fitted with a single fuel flow sensor" - it is in PDF dated 06 march 2020, so I don't think it was an oil that leaks from cooling system, then mixed with air right into combustion chamber or there was something to break flow meter by electric vibrations - it is totally bs. It's so easy to find holes which allows oil to leak or unusual extra electric device to change flow meter data. And that's why FIA didn't changed 5.10.3 part for flow meters in march. (Don't know how it looks in regs now in Jule though)

I think Ferrari gathered some fuel during Qualy into that 2l bottle and simple burned it when they need. Do you remember that slow preparation lap before Qualy lap? It could be only simple something which is in grey area of regulation, Ferrai can used when they want (not as uncontrolled oil leaking ).

[Jolle]

Mark Hughes in June 2020

... one of the four new technical directives issued a couple of weeks ago has tightened up further on fuel flow. Now, there are further restrictions on how much fuel can flow on part-throttle. Previously, the permitted flow rose at a specified rate with the revs until reaching its maximum of 100kg/hour at 10,500rpm. Now there is an additional requirement on part-throttle matching the flow to the engine’s power: below 50kW the fuel flow must not exceed 10kg/hour. As power increases, so the flow can increase at the rate determined by a set formula. This should prevent an excess of fuel being delivered at low throttle which could be somehow stored between tank and injectors and used to increase flow at full throttle.

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/arti ... e-trickery

https://i.imgur.com/rQUmdFc.png

https://i.imgur.com/xAK8MQZ.png

2 FIA documents - 2019 and 2020, we see there maximum volume of fuel outside the survive cell decreased from 2l to 0.25l. Also: "5.10.3 All cars must be fitted with a single fuel flow sensor" - it is in PDF dated 06 march 2020, so I don't think it was an oil that leaks from cooling system, then mixed with air right into combustion chamber or there was something to break flow meter by electric vibrations - it is totally bs. It's so easy to find holes which allows oil to leak or unusual extra electric device to change flow meter data. And that's why FIA didn't changed 5.10.3 part for flow meters in march. (Don't know how it looks in regs now in Jule though)

I think Ferrari gathered some fuel during Qualy into that 2l bottle and simple burned it when they need. Do you remember that slow preparation lap before Qualy lap? It could be only simple something which is in grey area of regulation, Ferrai can used when they want (not as uncontrolled oil leaking ).

You don’t have to use a lap for that, it’s just a few cc’s per straight you need for a good boost, any corner before a straight can do that. A simple air bubble or “badly” bled overflow tank would provide the capacity to play with the amount of fuel past the sensor, providing an extra boost.