FIA-Ferrari PU Statement Controversy

[aral]

When joining dots, it does require some numbering, otherwise they can be joined in the incorrect sequence.
My view, (right or wrong) is that merc, who had the upper hand for a while,suddenly found that a competitor had found more power, and armed with a whisper from an ex ferrari employee, urged the FIA to investigate. If merc were so sure that there was something illegal on the Ferrari, they had a right to protest, but didnt, so clearly it was only a "suspicion". The FIA endeavoured to find out what the reason was but were unable to ascertain any precise power boosting device, and probably egged on by Merc, decided to have a second sensor installed. After all, unless Merc knew how to defeat a sensor, how could it have been considered that the original could in fact be defeated?
FIA after all their tests etc, could find no precise reason for the increased power, but as they had seen the intricate electronics used by Ferrari, they were prohibited from disclosing their actual findings as it could be of benefit to a competitor.
So, a settlement was reached and we do not know what was in that settlement. There could have been even something in Ferraris favour.....i guess that we will never know.
All this shows is that when a team finds itself being challenged, they will immediately cry "foul" in an effort to have them hobbled.
Simply put....if any team has information that any other team is cheating, they have a responsibility to protest and put their money where their mouth is ! Casting aspersions around is not the way to go about it. Either put up or shut up.

[izzy]

So, a settlement was reached and we do not know what was in that settlement. There could have been even something in Ferraris favour.....i guess that we will never know.
All this shows is that when a team finds itself being challenged, they will immediately cry "foul" in an effort to have them hobbled.
Simply put....if any team has information that any other team is cheating, they have a responsibility to protest and put their money where their mouth is ! Casting aspersions around is not the way to go about it. Either put up or shut up.

lol cmon we know John Elkann called Ola and brought the joint road car projects into it

and it doesn't tell us Mercedes were being unfair in any way whatsoever, we saw in testing that the second sensor has cut Ferrari's speed, that's the dot that finishes the picture it doesn't matter which way round we go

The Settlement was a mysterieux and tres intriguing public penalty, that was Jean's subtle way of dishing out ze punishment, being Max's successor after all

[turbof1]

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

A court has no preference. You can bring any dispute to the appropriate court, the specific court depending on what the case is. Sometimes and depending on the country/state a case will be dismissed early due to the claimant having little to no proof, sometimes a settlement will be reached before the court case actually starts. But there is not such thing as "a court does not like to interfere with commercial contracts". In fact, Guido van de Garde made this excessively clear with his case against Sauber.

From what I get from the comments of the FIA, this is exactly what would have happened. It would first appear in front of the FIA tribunal, and if Ferrari lost their case their they would have gone to a public court (a commercial court in this case, because those actually exist), if the FIA wished to challenge the legality. A court case would be an extremely costly affair for both the FIA and Ferrari, but I definitely see Ferrari doing that. Ferrari will fight that official stamp of cheating.

Again, the way the FIA tackled the whole affair is awful, to the point they undermined themselves. They came considerably weaker out of it and should have dealt with this in a much more black and white fashion: either guilty or not guilty. But, I do believe them when they say they made a genuine effort to get to the bottom of it, and by their own admission could not make heads or tails of it. I can believe that and accept that. What is not understandable, is how they dealt with it afterward.

[aral]

izzy, what joint road car collaboration is there between merc and ferrari? i havent heard of one and they are really in 2 different markets
and yes, a second sensor could have caused a reduction in power due to a restriction of normal flow, OR a reduction in pace could be caused by alterations in aero ,as happened with merc in 2018, when they had to revert to an earlier aero combo when they lost some pace, etc etc. incidentally, one of the most noticable ares where ferrari had a march on mercedes, was with their traction coming out of corners. nothing to do with actual power, but due to better grip. there are many many variables other than fuel flow, that affect a cars performance, not least the actual track, surface, radii etc
when joining dots, make sure that you are joining the right ones rather than just stabbing at what you believe to be correct

[izzy]

A court has no preference. You can bring any dispute to the appropriate court, the specific court depending on what the case is. Sometimes and depending on the country/state a case will be dismissed early due to the claimant having little to no proof, sometimes a settlement will be reached before the court case actually starts. But there is not such thing as "a court does not like to interfere with commercial contracts". In fact, Guido van de Garde made this excessively clear with his case against Sauber.

From what I get from the comments of the FIA, this is exactly what would have happened. It would first appear in front of the FIA tribunal, and if Ferrari lost their case their they would have gone to a public court (a commercial court in this case, because those actually exist), if the FIA wished to challenge the legality. A court case would be an extremely costly affair for both the FIA and Ferrari, but I definitely see Ferrari doing that. Ferrari will fight that official stamp of cheating.

Again, the way the FIA tackled the whole affair is awful, to the point they undermined themselves. They came considerably weaker out of it and should have dealt with this in a much more black and white fashion: either guilty or not guilty. But, I do believe them when they say they made a genuine effort to get to the bottom of it, and by their own admission could not make heads or tails of it. I can believe that and accept that. What is not understandable, is how they dealt with it afterward.

okay i searched that phrase and got:

Case demonstrates Court`s reluctance to interfere in commercial contracts
08 February 2013 #Dispute Resolution

Although it is a general principle under English law that parties should be free to negotiate their own contract terms, the Court may decide that a clause is “unenforceable” in certain circumstances, even where both parties have signed up to it.

However, the recent case of Cavendish Square Holdings BV & Another -v- Makdessi [2012] EHWC 3582 (Comm) demonstrates that the Court will exercise that power rarely.

https://www.clarkslegal.com/Blog/Post/C ... _contracts

we can't rely on what the FIA said, because the whole thing is whether or not they're 100% squeaky clean so it begs the question. Once we accept they might not be, the rest of it makes perfect sense

[turbof1]

A court has no preference. You can bring any dispute to the appropriate court, the specific court depending on what the case is. Sometimes and depending on the country/state a case will be dismissed early due to the claimant having little to no proof, sometimes a settlement will be reached before the court case actually starts. But there is not such thing as "a court does not like to interfere with commercial contracts". In fact, Guido van de Garde made this excessively clear with his case against Sauber.

From what I get from the comments of the FIA, this is exactly what would have happened. It would first appear in front of the FIA tribunal, and if Ferrari lost their case their they would have gone to a public court (a commercial court in this case, because those actually exist), if the FIA wished to challenge the legality. A court case would be an extremely costly affair for both the FIA and Ferrari, but I definitely see Ferrari doing that. Ferrari will fight that official stamp of cheating.

Again, the way the FIA tackled the whole affair is awful, to the point they undermined themselves. They came considerably weaker out of it and should have dealt with this in a much more black and white fashion: either guilty or not guilty. But, I do believe them when they say they made a genuine effort to get to the bottom of it, and by their own admission could not make heads or tails of it. I can believe that and accept that. What is not understandable, is how they dealt with it afterward.

okay i searched that phrase and got:

Case demonstrates Court`s reluctance to interfere in commercial contracts
08 February 2013 #Dispute Resolution

Although it is a general principle under English law that parties should be free to negotiate their own contract terms, the Court may decide that a clause is “unenforceable” in certain circumstances, even where both parties have signed up to it.

However, the recent case of Cavendish Square Holdings BV & Another -v- Makdessi [2012] EHWC 3582 (Comm) demonstrates that the Court will exercise that power rarely.

https://www.clarkslegal.com/Blog/Post/C ... _contracts

we can't rely on what the FIA said, because the whole thing is whether or not they're 100% squeaky clean so it begs the question. Once we accept they might not be, the rest of it makes perfect sense

A case against the FIA would need to be made in France. English law does not apply.

[izzy]

izzy, what joint road car collaboration is there between merc and ferrari? i havent heard of one and they are really in 2 different markets
and yes, a second sensor could have caused a reduction in power due to a restriction of normal flow, OR a reduction in pace could be caused by alterations in aero ,as happened with merc in 2018, when they had to revert to an earlier aero combo when they lost some pace, etc etc. incidentally, one of the most noticable ares where ferrari had a march on mercedes, was with their traction coming out of corners. nothing to do with actual power, but due to better grip. there are many many variables other than fuel flow, that affect a cars performance, not least the actual track, surface, radii etc
when joining dots, make sure that you are joining the right ones rather than just stabbing at what you believe to be correct

the collaboration is in self-driving vehicles:

Insiders have revealed Ola Kallenius, chairman of Mercedes owner Daimler, intervened following discussions with Fiat Chrysler and Ferrari chairman John Elkann. At Kallenius’s request, Mercedes F1 CEO and team principal Toto Wolff began moves to pull the team’s support for the collective action.

An Italian source says that agreement was then struck between Kallenius and Ferrari CEO Louis Camilleri due to the “bigger picture”. Daimler, BMW and Fiat are believed to be cooperating on autonomous car technologies, while Elkann was concerned that the mud-flinging was damaging Formula 1’s image.

https://www.racefans.net/2020/03/17/mer ... ettlement/

i'm not stabbing at anything, don't start talking about me Mattia had to explain the performance in testing, and he said it was higher drag and the new engine being designed for reliability being not as strong: https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/14850 ... nst-rivals

[izzy]

A case against the FIA would need to be made in France. English law does not apply.

okay so all we need is a link to French contract law

[Big Tea]

A case against the FIA would need to be made in France. English law does not apply.

okay so all we need is a link to French contract law

I believe in French law the onus is to prove innocence, not to prove guilt, so Ferrari start at a disadvantage.

(Not 100% sure on this, but it has historically been so)

[aral]

Izzy. that is not collaboration on a road car. it is just that there will be some sharing of knowledge about systems for autonomous vehicles, and such shared info is throughout the auto industry. at this stage it means little or nothing. further, autonomous cars will not be on our roads in my lifetime.....mind you i am rather old. far too many legal hurdles to overcome
but glad to see that you agree that there are other factors involved rather than just the installation of a sensor......and as you are aware ALL teams have to install this just to allay any suspicions by others. after all, can you tell me why the Merc pu in a RP or a Williams, is not as powerful as the one in the actual Merc team?

[63l8qrrfy6]

and yes, a second sensor could have caused a reduction in power due to a restriction of normal flow

Not really, fuel pumps are positive displacement so mass flow would not change.

[izzy]

Izzy. that is not collaboration on a road car. it is just that there will be some sharing of knowledge about systems for autonomous vehicles, and such shared info is throughout the auto industry. at this stage it means little or nothing. further, autonomous cars will not be on our roads in my lifetime.....mind you i am rather old. far too many legal hurdles to overcome
but glad to see that you agree that there are other factors involved rather than just the installation of a sensor......and as you are aware ALL teams have to install this just to allay any suspicions by others. after all, can you tell me why the Merc pu in a RP or a Williams, is not as powerful as the one in the actual Merc team?

aral i may be young but i'm not as easily deflected as that As you say they put the extra sensor on all the cars, and one car got slower relative to the others

imo you being a fan can only but the best face on the unavoidable and focus on how it was very clever, great engineering as usual, perhaps someone got carried away or whatever with how in a team people do tend to just refer to each other and they are desperate to win a championship again, but there it is you can embrace it or just regret it as an individual thing that happened, like i regret Mercedes supporting Rosberg in Monaco 2014 when they had the tyre load data, or whatever individual things

[izzy]

I believe in French law the onus is to prove innocence, not to prove guilt, so Ferrari start at a disadvantage.

(Not 100% sure on this, but it has historically been so)

oh, anyway i don't think anybody really wanted it to go to court and certainly not Ferrari! that'd be pure voting for Christmas

[dans79]

For the love of god man, please use paragraphs.

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’.

[aral]

izzy....still clutching at straws? you have absolutely no proof that the sensor was the reason for any loss in speed. only supposition ! neither you, or i or anyone else can make an assertive statement like that. cars and pus are being developed continually during the season....somethings work, others dont....it is part of race development and has been going on for yonks. anyway, if that is what you want to believe, then that is grand by me....
have you even considered that merc may have boosted their power by running their PUs in their quali mode? Merc began having mechanical problems at the end of the season too !