Looking forward to see what Marko has to say on all this, always fun to try and keep a straight face when he's doing his thing. I'm sure he's going to lay into Mercedes and then claim RBR racing would never do such a thing
Didn't Red Bull say they weren't going to change anything for Malaysia and Bahrain? Was that ever accurate?
Judge: It is almost certain that Red Bull will be given incremental sanctions over and above the DQ of Daniel Ricciardo in Melbourne 2014. At least this will include an incremental fine, costs for the other parties participation at the hearing and costs for the administration of the FIA court. This itself will be a tasty 7 maybe even 8 digit number. This hearing will establish landmark principles for the governance of F1. The matter of the legally binding nature of technical directives will be now be clarified, and we may see prescribed classes of directives arising from this – each with varying degrees on authority and sanction. There has been an era in F1 where the co-operation between the teams and the FIA on regulatory matters which arise each month have been dealt with by and large by agreement and the clarifications issued by Charlie Whiting. The effect of this arrangement has been a reduction in teams’ protesting the legality of others cars, race results being overturned at a later date and lengthy court proceedings to decide upon these matters. Those days may well be over. What is clear, Red Bull’s decision to defy the FIA was taken prior to the start of the Australian GP. From lap 1 they refused to acknowledge the fuel flow sensor measurements and insisted on relying on their own modelled calculations. The potential ramifications for this course of action would have been clear to Marko, Newey, Horner et al, yet they chose to pursue the path they did. TJ13 reported hours following Red Bull’s announcement to appeal this decision, that there was more at stake than just the 18 points for Ricciardo and the team. Clearly, Red Bull were waging a battle to have the fuel flow sensors removed from the 2014 regulations. Yet unusually, the thinking behind this campaign appeared to be thwarted – even to to the layperson, due to the fact that the sporting regulations themselves were crystal clear in their intention, though required a small clarification to ensure they were watertight. The FIA realised this and briefed in detail influential media individuals that this would result in a reduction in safety – as closing speeds would rise due to clever engine maps delivering short high bursts of potentially unlimited power. Further this would see the engine manufacturers concentrate on the combustion engine development, rather than enhancing the auxiliary power available from the new ERS systems. It was a fight Red Bull could never win. The politics behind the events at the court of appeal were most interesting. Mercedes ‘pit bull’ legal advocate, Paul Harris, regularly poured scorn on Red Bull’s position. He mocked them for ‘forgetting’ to remove a spare unused sensor prior to flying their spare chassis back from Melbourne to Milton Keynes. He accused them of arrogance, insular thinking and provoking a course of action which if adopted by all the competitors would lead to the law of the ‘wild west’ and ‘anarchy’. (See TJ13 articles in the Daily News and Comment yesterday). Meantime, the FIA legal eagles remained sanguine and almost above the fray. It seems for a second time in 9 months, Red Bull have forced Mercedes and the FIA into bed together the result on both occasions has not been favourable to the Austrian team. To compose a sentence with the two words ‘F1′ and ‘crisis’ has become routine recently, as the concepts are regularly becoming synonymous. The commercial rights holders are desperate to sell their stake in F1; the long standing supremo of the sport, wheeler dealer Ecclestone, looks set to be convicted of a criminal offence in Germany; Lotus, Marussia, Williams, Sauber, Force India and Caterham are under some kind of threat; the sport is continually being degenerated by senior figures who should know better – Di Montezemolo. For many it appears the return of the dark days of 2008/9 are imminent. [more shortly]
I would agree with you, but only if they kicked Mercedes & Ferrari out and fine Renault £50m, otherwise it's a case of what's good for the gander. Mercedes are absolutely classless bunch of hypocritical cock-rims as far as I'm concerned, and this whole mess is because of what Mercedes did and got away with last year, and considering how far ahead of everyone the team who had a secret test on this years tyres are, one must question the legality of their lead and how it was acheived. It seems to be a case of if you build engines you can do what the f**k you like without any form of sporting censure, they may even change the rules slightly like they did for Ferrari in 99 so you can compete legally instead of being disqualified for racing the seaosn with an illegal car, but if you are just a team then you will be punished. Mercedes should've been massively censured last season, and Whiting should've been relieved of his position, that neither happened shows just what a political ****-pile F1 really is. People are shouting 'cheats cheats' but the sad truth is, if you want to compete on a level playing field in F1 then you have to cheat, because that's what the manufacturers are doing.
"this whole mess is because of what Mercedes did and got away with last year, and considering how far ahead of everyone the team who had a secret test on this years tyres are, one must question the legality of their lead and how it was acheived." Not condoning their illegal test last year, but surely you aren't suggesting that their 2 second a lap dominance this year is only as a result of doing that tyre test are you?
Its happened!!!!! (well, half of the statement, Vettel is to goody goody ) http://www.not606.com/showthread.php/232580-What-if-Red-Bull-and-Vettel-were-cheating
Depends what you class as cheating, for me cheating implies a covert action to defraud, like conducting illegal and secret tyre tests, or blatantly lying to stewards about an overtaking manoevure you know you did, or stealing your opponents data, or causing a crash so your team-mate can win, or giving covert team-orders when they are banned, that is cheating. Overtly questioning the 'rules' (although a technical directive wasn't actually a rule until they changed it the other night to make sure they could censure RBR) and then breaking that directive (not rule) while blatantly informing the stewards you were doing so, isn't a covert action to defraud, like the above mentioned incidents are. What I was saying is if you let teams like Renault, Ferrari and Mercedes BLATANTLY CHEAT WITHOUT ANY REAL PUNISHMENT, then don't be surprised if everyone else feels the need to push the limits of the rules (or directives) just to stay on a level playing field. so how about you Dhel, you support the team and driver that are statistically the biggest cheats in F1, hypocrite much? That's because he is probably the best driver of his generation,
So blatant cheating is morally preferable to covert cheating? What a funny idea. What about flexi wings that pass tests but obviously flex under race conditions? Does that count as blatant cheating or just cheating?
Come on everyone, we all know all teams 'push' the rules as much as they can get away with. Sometimes they win sometimes they loose. It's part of the fun in F1. It would be great if at the end of each year all their little 'pushes' had to be published for all to see.
Get the feeling Miggins is about to go all Silver and EMSC on us pretty soon.............. please log in to view this image
The problem with F1 is that it is the only sport that allows the competitors to decide the rules. Once they have decided them then is it too much to expect that they conform to them? In 2007 McLaren and Renault were found guilty of using other teams IP. Renault were not punished. McLaren were fined and then got the fine paid for from the so called prize money. F1 is a dodgy sport run by dodgy people. Can you imagine the WEC being run like this?
