Technical Red Bull floor declared illegal by the FIA

[Mephistopheles]

The problems lay in the way things are scrutinized and which test are applied a really clever engineer can do something that is clearly illegal and yet pass every test in the rule book as was shown by the flexi wings last year it was obvious they were flexing but no matter what they tried it did not show up under scrutineering. were RB cheating Yes could they prove No.

Another instance of this was Ferrari I can't remember when but it was to do with the barge boards they were disqualified because they were too high, but Ross Brawn proved that if you measured them in one way they were but if you measured them in another they were not and so they were reinstated back into the race results.

And of course there was the double diffuser and now the double DRS both of these are down to Ross as well..

Also the movable skirts when ground effect was banned, I could go on and on..

This nothing new and it will never end...

And by the way the teams don't call it cheating they call it exploiting the grey areas and the only reason a team complains is because either they can't copy it or they didn't think of it first and cannot put it on their car without a complete redesign...

 

[F1 Shift.net]

I am not even close to a Red Bull fan, but isn't the great part of F1 seeing how the engineering minds in the paddock interpret the rule book and then create those solutions? The double diffuser, the f duct, blown exhaust, braking stabilization, ect...These are ingenious solutions and teams should not be punished for being creative.

 

[Kewee]

no-FIAt-please......Charlie Whiting is clearly not an idiot. When a technical rule is vague and in this case it was considered a gray area, and a car passes scrutineering it is legal. In high technology sport things are often not black and white as this issue shows. For a car to be considered illegal it has to fail scrutineering at which point it can be disqualified if the issue can't be rectified. The only other option is for another team to lodge a protest. If this protest is upheld then disqualification is not an option as the stewards allowed the car to race, points deduction is the likely outcome. In this case Red Bull passed scrutineering and no protest was lodged so I'll say it again, up until now the Red Bull has been legal.

 

[The Pits]

I think the main point is down to the scrutineering process, which was discussed here:

http://cliptheapex.com/threads/what-is-the-scrutineering-process.4823/

If I understand, not everything is checked on every car every race weekend. If the floor was not checked, it cannot be found illegal, which is different to being checked and found to be legal.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Correct The Pits it is a completely random process just like being called into the weighbridge during a qualifying session...

 

[Kewee]

The Pits.......Your quite right, though Red Bull were already under the microscope as everyones attention had been drawn to the issue so it shouldn't have been overlooked. It was clearly a rule that was open to some degree of interpretation, which has now been clarified, so Red Bull shouldn't be penalized in any way for taking advantage of a rule that was open to exploitation.

 

[the_roadie]

Kewee the one above your latest:
Yes, it's an application of the common legal principle of "innocent until proven guilty". (In fact in the free world the only place I can think of where you are guilty until you prove your innocence is under CDM regulations in the UK construction industry.)

Even in F1 with all its regulations you can in fact do absolutely anything you like at all as long as it isn't actually formally banned.

12 teams 12 different cars, all in compliance with the same formula and all directly competitive.

 

[Mephistopheles]

I guess the point of the CDM is to try and stop people from being hurt before an accident happens and so prevention is better than the cure in that case, so to say something is wrong before it is proven to be wrong is fair enough I reckon, but that's another subject.

But health and safety and the rights of employees against cost saving and profits is a fascinating subject which deserves it's own thread.

After all formula one has been guilty of these things just like any other industry...

 

[gethinceri]

Health and Safety is Political Correctness gone mad.

Not my own joke.

 

[Mephistopheles]

I'll get your coat..

 

[gethinceri]

Wear a hard hat, goggles and gloves.

 

[KekeTheKing]

Lot of good posts in this thread.

My take is that Red Bull would have certainly investigated the system with the slots, as Ferrari have implemented, and found out that it was simply not as effective as a fully enclosed hole system. They knew that their design would most likely contravene the regulations but proceeded anyway as it almost always takes several races for any action to be taken by the FIA. The notion that they would retroactively be docked points is pure fantasy. Especially when they had Charlie's green light!

It shouldn't surprise anyone that Newey is pushing the boundaries once again. And it should be equally unsurprising that the FIA was slower than molasses to react.

I honestly didn't care whether this was found legal or illegal, I just can't understand why the process takes so long. Especially when several teams found this regulation so cut-and-dried that they designed a system in accordance to the rules as they were clearly written.

 

[Senna's_right_foot]

It shouldn't surprise anyone that Newey is pushing the boundaries once again. And it should be equally unsurprising that the FIA was slower than molasses to react.

Quite right, and further to this point - having just watched the 2007 season review on Sky F1, i'd completely forgotten that the FIA were forced to tighten the flexi-wing test after Red Bull's rear wing was shown to be flexing excessively under braking/acceleration. So they were at it even before 2010 and their front wings.