I think you're missing the point. This is not about putting blame on someone, but about how to properly deal with when regulations are broken.Goran2812 wrote:with all due respect ray, some things you wrote/ "accused" Alonso/Ferrari here are wrong and hold no ground...raymondu999 wrote:That's like saying "cheating is supposedly controlled by the invigorating to not be done during tests. You can't blame that on the student."Pierce89 wrote:Blatant disregard? The DRS is supposedly controlled by FIA software to not be allowed to open up outside a DRS zone. You can't blame a software glitch on Ferrari.
Sure the FiA system was broken. But the facts are that Fernando pushed the button where he shouldn't have. To me that leaves one of two possible explanations:
- he (genuinely) didn't remember that the activation was some way down, and just remembered to use DRS "on the pit straight" - in which case you have to wonder if their qualifying lap was then legal.
- he knew he had an excuse to plead memory shortage against the FiA, and knew that he had a get out of jail free card by saying, "how was I supposed to remember?"
If it was on purpose, I believe we can call it, as Cam says, "blatant disregard." If it was a genuine error - then less of the blame (in a moral/ethical sense) on Fernando. But I'm quite sure Vettel in Abu Dhabi 2012 qualifying and Hamilton in Spain 2012 qualifying were genuine underfueling mistakes too.
The DRS was used outside its intended zone. That's a fact.
Some of it is probably down to the on-site technical requirements not working as they should, thus allowing DRS to be technically used outside the intended zone. So how do you deal with it, if you have a driver that uses it by reflex outside the zone and assumes it's not his problem vs. a driver who only uses it in the intended zone?
If the instruction is "don't use the DRS button/trigger outside the zone", then it is clear that any driver who does exactly that shall be punished. If the FIA did not think about this and assumed that their systems are faultless and that it's impossible that DRS could be used outside the zone and for some reason, a driver is still able to use it, then I guess it's a bit more difficult to police and/or punish it. It's still an unfair advantage though, to those who used DRS correctly.
If you don't deal with this issue, then what is to stop other drivers using it outside the zone and putting it down to reflex or hiding behind the stance 'that it is not their problem/responsibility'?
Think about the implications, i.e. if someone had a defective KERS unit that allowed him to use more than the intended amount within the lap? Should that go unpunished as well? It's easy to deal with errors when they cost time and performance - the big question is, what do you do when an error in the system/car gains an unfair advantage?
In the case of Alonso - over the course of the entire race day, his faulty DRS clearly cost him, so I agree that in this particular case, he shouldn't be punished, even if he did use DRS outside the intended zone while it was working (and there is a rule somewhere that states that drivers shouldn't attempt to use it outside the designated zones). However, if his DRS hadn't ended up breaking, then IMO, you need to police it. Or else you'll have teams designing faulty DRS systems that break in a way to give them some form of advantage eventually during the race.
no need for bashing or developing stories that it was done on purpose or smth like that