F1 Malaysia, is ferrari screwed?

[Alpine Autowerks]

Originally posted by War
It's F1 what do you expect, they push the rules to the limit. I'm see all the Ferrari hater's posting here jumping on them for this one. But it is legal, it's a grey area but it's still legal.

its not a grey area - moveable aerodynamic surfaces are absolutely forbidden since the 1960's. McLaren developed a new technology that was reviewed and subsequently banned.

[War]

Originally posted by Alpine Autowerks


its not a grey area - moveable aerodynamic surfaces are absolutely forbidden since the 1960's. McLaren developed a new technology that was reviewed and subsequently banned.

It is a grey area because at those speeds and loads things move and they are known to move.

Just like the a-arm suspension, they build it to be aerodynamic and not to produce and downforce or lift however it's know and accepted that as the suspension moves and the angle changes some downforce or lift will be produced. This is know to the teams and to the F1 stewards, but it's generally accepted that they can't do anything about it, and no teams will be get penalties as long as they don't perposely design it to give extra downforce.

McLaren and Renault were under "review" for wings that moved under load last year and they were cleared. Ferrari wasn't under review for it last year, this year Ferrari made their wings less stiff so they flex under load, Renault and McLaren's still flex under load as well, just not quite as much.

Everyone's wings are going to flex to a certain degree, hell 747 wings flex, it's going to happen the question is how much do they flex and how much flex is legal under the rules.

When it comes to the rear wing, the F1 steward attach weights to the rear wing and measure the flex, if the wing is under the flex limit it's deemed legal. Ferrari's rear wing passed, they are within the rules on the rear wing.

[iceburns288]

All cars have flexing wings... they have tons of pressure on them. Ferrari's flex just like everyone else's

[Alpine Autowerks]

Ferrari got busted by a microphone. all teams record the other teams engine note, from that plus live timing data they can get engine rpm vs speed. from tire dimensional data they can map gear ratios. That data is put into a CFD (computational fluid dynamics) simulator to get drag data. the ferrari's acceleration curve has a upward jerk (rate of change of acceleration (metres/sec to the forth power)) that proves an unexpected reduction in drag at high speed.


no grey area fans ...they are CHEATERS


http://www.grandprix.com/ft/ft00345.html

[retro-steve]

oh man this all reminds me of tournament paintball...you're always going to bend the rules as far as they can go in order to give yourself an advantage, it's highly competitive. i remember the biggest issue was "ramping" or "bouncing" guns (more than 1 shot per trigger pull) so what happened on the highest level? with all the technology and grey areas in the rules they just decided to make a certain level of former "cheating" legal and it eliminated a lot of problems.

it looks like ferrari is doing the same thing here, they are just bending a grey rule to be advantageous to them. they figure they'll get some points off of it before a rule is made strictly forbidding it and they won't be penalized. or maybe the rules will be changed to accomodate this and other teams can develop similar technology.

basically everyone will do what they can to have a slight advantage, it's a reality of competitive sports so i say we all calm down about it and see what the officials have to say about it. also props to ferrari if they get away with it

[Alpine Autowerks]

why do all you guys think there is a grey area involved here . it is a ancient rule going back to when wings were made of a wonder material called "metal" whose deflection could only be measued with a dial indicator with a guy using it for a trampoline. if you and see it move on a wireless webcam sized camera stuck on the side of a vibrating F1 car on NTSC broadcast ...it is not deflecting it is pivoting

[E30318is]

no offence to any one but what i dont understand is you all have a problem with schumacher why??? hes the best driver so automatically everone thinks hes cheating.......right....... but he wont win this year i personally think renault/alonso are gonna win this one..

[Alpine Autowerks]

My feeling for MS are not behind this. there is technical proof that Ferrari is breaking/bending/testing... a rule with demonstratable advantage being gained. Why do MS fans automaticaly defend him just because he has a great record (which includes verified cheating )?

[habsfan]

Originally posted by E30318is
no offence to any one but what i dont understand is you all have a problem with schumacher why??? hes the best driver so automatically everone thinks hes cheating.......right....... but he wont win this year i personally think renault/alonso are gonna win this one..

please pull your head out of your ass. this has nothing to do with hating or loving MS, this is ferrari clearly "bending" the rules to work in their favor. i personally don't have anything against schumacher, he's a phenominal driver no doubt. i do however highly dislike ferrari and their buddy buddy relationship with bernie.

[War]

When Ferrari "bends" the rules and goes into the "grey" area eveyone accuses them of cheating and makes a huge stink of it. When McLaren, Renault, Honda/BAR, Toyota, etc do it no body hardly takes notice.

McLaren and Renault both have flex wings as well!!!!! That you can see move on the camera, and they had them last year.

Hell doesn anyone remember when Honda/BAR was caught cheating with the weight of their car by balasting it with fuel at the last stop? Ya they got caught and penalized, but no one really paid that any attention because it wasn't Ferrari.

How about McLaren working with Michelin to develope the tires so the groves got narrower (so you had more rubber on the ground) as the tire wore down. This was a violation of the rules but because they only measured the width of the groves at the begining of the event and not at the end of the event they never got caught until the season was over 1/2 over. Ferrari and all the Bridgestone runners could have protested the entire season up to that point and got every Michelin runner excluded from the race results upto that point in the season. Bernie talk with Ferrari and convinced them not to do that because it would reck the entire year of F1 and damage the sport badly.

Hell and what about toyota, they have what something like 5 engineers that were now charged with steeling ferrari's f1 drawings/data to help design the toyota f1 car. Talk about cheeting, the individuals are getting criminally charged for it, toyota says they knew nothing about it at the time, but the head technical engineer of the toyota project at the time was fired and then charged right after he was fired (like that wasn't arranged to try and keep toyota's name out of it).

These are huge violations and there are lots more, however no one seems to care unless it's Ferrari.

I'm sure Ferrari's wing is legit, Ferrari pushes the rules to the limit but doesn't brake them. Remember when they got "caught" running illegal bardge boards a few years ago. The bardge boards measured 0.006" out from the flat bottom profile. Which you are not allow to have anything stick out from the flat bottom profile. However they have a 0.005" "tolerance" area that you are allowed to stick out into, this alows for distortion and slight manufaturing errors. Well Ferrari appealed the ruling, the machine used to measure it had a tolerance of 0.003" on it and so the bardge board was somewhere between 0.003" and 0.009". Ferrari re-measured the car for the FIA a proved that the boards were 0.004" out from the flat bottom profile, which is legal and the ruling was overturn with Ferrari found not guilty.

I have no doubt that ferrari "pushes" the rules to the very edge, but they usually don't brake them.

[rage2]

Originally posted by War
McLaren and Renault both have flex wings as well!!!!! That you can see move on the camera, and they had them last year.

There is a certain level of movement allowed on the wing. Vibrations can cause movement, thin CF can cause flexing thus it's in the rulebooks. In Ferrari's case, it's a little more than vibrational movement. The wing separates by what looks to be almost an inch! Not even a grey area.

Originally posted by War
Hell doesn anyone remember when Honda/BAR was caught cheating with the weight of their car by balasting it with fuel at the last stop? Ya they got caught and penalized, but no one really paid that any attention because it wasn't Ferrari.

WTF are u talking about? They got banned for 2 races! I'd say that caught EVERYONE's attention. And Honda felt they were unfairly punished (because they weren't signing on to the concorde agreement). FIA ruled there was no breach of the rules, the ballast was never specified in the rulebooks as solid or liquid (in BAR's case liquid). The penalty was the fact that BAR could not sufficiently prove to the FIA that the car never exceeded minimum weight during the duration of the entire race. It also helped that the FIA did not allow BAR to use any of their telemetry evidence, nor data from the friggin' FIA fuel rigs (which would've proved clearly either guilty or innocent).

Originally posted by War
How about McLaren working with Michelin to develope the tires so the groves got narrower (so you had more rubber on the ground) as the tire wore down. This was a violation of the rules but because they only measured the width of the groves at the begining of the event and not at the end of the event they never got caught until the season was over 1/2 over. Ferrari and all the Bridgestone runners could have protested the entire season up to that point and got every Michelin runner excluded from the race results upto that point in the season. Bernie talk with Ferrari and convinced them not to do that because it would reck the entire year of F1 and damage the sport badly.

This wasn't a violation of the rules. There was no rules for what grooves looked like after the race. Other than the first 1/2 of the first grooved season, there's ALWAYS been rules for grooves, widths, measurements even at the end of the race. Michellin may have started it, but Bridgestone was also guilty of worn grooves turning tires into slicks but it didn't work as well for them, which prompted the FIA to add the 50% of the grooves must be remaining on used tire rule. FIA never deemed the tires illegal. They just clairified the grooves rule without consulting Michellin, forcing them to build a new tire in a week's time.

http://www.f1technical.net/articles/1

Originally posted by War
I'm sure Ferrari's wing is legit, Ferrari pushes the rules to the limit but doesn't brake them. Remember when they got "caught" running illegal bardge boards a few years ago. The bardge boards measured 0.006" out from the flat bottom profile. Which you are not allow to have anything stick out from the flat bottom profile. However they have a 0.005" "tolerance" area that you are allowed to stick out into, this alows for distortion and slight manufaturing errors. Well Ferrari appealed the ruling, the machine used to measure it had a tolerance of 0.003" on it and so the bardge board was somewhere between 0.003" and 0.009". Ferrari re-measured the car for the FIA a proved that the boards were 0.004" out from the flat bottom profile, which is legal and the ruling was overturn with Ferrari found not guilty.

I have no doubt that ferrari "pushes" the rules to the very edge, but they usually don't brake them.

You just proved my point. FIA favors Ferrari heavily, always have always will. Ferrari broke the rules, sweet talked FIA, and they were deemed legal lol. I remember this story well, and here's a quote from Max Mosley on why it was deemed legal:

Max Mosley: "We've never been partial to Ferrari...The main basis for that accusation is the famous bargeboard case, where McLaren screwed up their case. ... If McLaren had pressed the point properly, they would have won the case. Had they asked Ferrari to prove that their deflector was at the correct angle, they couldn't possibly have done it because it had been removed from the car and the car wasn't in court. But they didn't make that point."

Isn't it the FIA's job to investigate? They said McLaren didn't tell them to do something properly, and they screwed up their case. Uhh.... McLaren were there to observe, that's it. They were asked by the FIA to show up. FIA stewarts at the race were the ones that said the boards were illegal, not McLaren. They showed up as observers to the case on the request of the FIA. It's up to the FIA to investigate and find out if the rules were broken. What a load of shit. He just said if McLaren said something different then it would've been illegal.

Here's more Ferrari madness for you. Remember the McLaren independant rear brake? Inspected by the FIA, deemed legal. They perfected it, and other teams picked up on it. 1998 came along, McLaren owned everyone. 4s a lap owned. Ferrari bitched, and voila, deemed traction control device, rules were rewritten so that system was banned. Later on that year, photographers and cameramen caught Schuey's Ferrari clearly showing only REAR brakes glowing exiting a corner. FIA asked to investigate, came back said nothing's wrong. Now, don't need to be a CSI to figure this one out. Only rear brakes lighting up at corner exit... what could that be?

Next was the McLaren gearbox controversy. Claimed it was traction control based on how it manipulates throttle (drive by wire) on shifts as well as a full auto mode. Rules rewritten, banned. Ferrari works on similar system, other teams notice it. During this time Ferrari gets the system perfected, each shift having 100ms "traction control" window and gearbox mapped for each corner along with engine mapping to get the most grip out of each corner of the track. Rules rewritten, traction control is now legal. Hrm......

[ninjak84]

As much as I hate Massa, anyone who wants to discredit his Malaysia performance because of some "moving spoiler" didn't watch the race. You think he moved up the ladder because of that? Nope. Not a chance.

What kind of performance gains does everyone think Ferarri gets out of the "moving spoiler" anyway?
This should be interesting... It probably has as much to do with lap times as how much deodorant the driver is wearing. I'm being sarcastic, but the difference is negligable at best.

[Alpine Autowerks]

Originally posted by War
The bardge boards measured 0.006" out from the flat bottom profile. Which you are not allow to have anything stick out from the flat bottom profile. However they have a 0.005" "tolerance" area that you are allowed to stick out into, this alows for distortion and slight manufaturing errors.
I have no doubt that ferrari "pushes" the rules to the very edge, but they usually don't brake them. [/B]

close but the tolerance in question was 5mm or .2" not 5 thou. ferrari found an oversite in the rules and used it. FIA clarified the rules.

the miclelin tire unfolded during the race to become wider, it was legit cause the dimension spec was for pre-race, FIA changed the rule include post race dimension check.

etc

[Chandler_Racing]

Originally posted by War
It's F1 what do you expect, they push the rules to the limit. I'm see all the Ferrari hater's posting here jumping on them for this one. But it is legal, it's a grey area but it's still legal.

Right, they just voluntarily obliged to changing the wing, even though it was "still legal." I think if BAR was caught with this system, they would have been torn a new asshole.

I think the interesting bit will be the effect it has on performance, kind of hard to guess at until next week though.

For anyone who is interested: