2253 replies to this topic

[HighTachPres]

it's legal... here we go

[yonson]

lulz. when i was on my snowboard trip, i brought my laptop. i'd check F1-crew and the CNN.com...they called my laptop my GF named "Dell"... It's hard to go w/o the interwebs. Even on the slopes, I'd be checking my email on my phone after I fell for the umpteenth time.

being a slave to technology FTL.

BOOOO HISSS


That's ok, I have a group of friends that call me Google they know that any time anywhere they can ask me something and I'll have the answer in under a minute

[yonson]

OHHHHHH BOY, I wonder how long it will be before teams start testing new diffusers during FP1 & FP2...

[DrDickAction]

OHHHHHH BOY, I wonder how long it will be before teams start testing new diffusers during FP1 & FP2...

2 GPs

[yonson]

I wonder if anyone started working on one as soon as they saw them perform in Australia, it's going to be an interesting next few races!

[DrDickAction]

Anyone else get the feeling that now that Schuey and Brawn have moved on, Ferrari is becoming more and more like they were in the early 90's? Failing and having woeful pace. I get a weird feeling of deja vu - but it may be the beers.

100% agree...every single high level position (for the f1 team anyways) has been filled by an italian since the dream team left. Hard to believe that the most competent person for each of those jobs is from the same country.

Just like in business...it's usually not a good sign when every board seat goes to the CEO's frat buddies.

[DrDickAction]

I wonder if anyone started working on one as soon as they saw them perform in Australia, it's going to be an interesting next few races!

I'm sure some teams started, even if not full force...it's a perfect way to hedge your protest bet.

Adrian's gonna have some late nights ahead of him though:

Newey starts work on new diffuser

By Steven English and Gerhard Kuntschik Wednesday, April 15th 2009, 15:34 GMT

Adrian NeweyRed Bull Racing technical director Adrian Newey will not travel to this weekend's Chinese Grand Prix and will instead focus on re-designing the diffuser of the RB5.

Today's ruling by the FIA's appeal court that the diffuser designs used by Brawn, Williams and Toyota are legal has prompted Red Bull to change its car, which the team hopes will be ready for the Monaco Grand Prix at the end of May.

"We are working flat-out on a new solution already," said Red Bull's motorsport advisor Helmut Marko. "As the verdict became official, Adrian [Newey] immediately cancelled his flight to Shanghai and will stay in the factory. If everything goes according to plan, we will have the 'new' car ready for Monaco."

Marko says Red Bull was angered by the decision to approve the three double-decker diffusers because it had already submitted a similar design for approval and had it rejected.

"What angers us is the fact that we had approached [Charlie] Whiting for a clarification on a diffuser solution like the one in question and we were told it was illegal, therefore we did not pursue it any further though our design team had similar ideas," said Marko.

"I wonder what impact this will have on cornering speeds. I assume there will be problems soon when cars are going too fast, and the airflow the double diffuser creates for sure will make overtaking more difficult again. Thus it is against the spirit of the rules agreed in the working groups."

http://www.autosport...rt.php/id/74483

[_R_]

I wonder if anyone started working on one as soon as they saw them perform in Australia, it's going to be an interesting next few races!

I'm guessing the major teams started some "research" into the matter just in case...

Renault said they have something they can fit onto their car for China, but the major diffuser would be weeks/months away
Newey has canceled his trip to China to work rear of the RB5 as soon as he heard the news

and I honestly doubt that Ferrari and McLaren have just been sitting around...

[Dr. Jimmmah!]

100% agree...every single high level position (for the f1 team anyways) has been filled by an italian since the dream team left. Hard to believe that the most competent person for each of those jobs is from the same country.

Just like in business...it's usually not a good sign when every board seat goes to the CEO's frat buddies.

chris dyer is brit
chris tombazis is greek

[DrDickAction]

chris dyer is brit
chris tombazis is greek

save for 1 extremely recent promotion.

[DrDickAction]

chris dyer is brit
chris tombazis is greek

and tombazis came back in '06...before the dream team was disassembled, so that isn't covered by my previous point.

[Nacho]

I'm guessing the major teams started some "research" into the matter just in case...

Renault said they have something they can fit onto their car for China, but the major diffuser would be weeks/months away
Newey has canceled his trip to China to work rear of the RB5 as soon as he heard the news

and I honestly doubt that Ferrari and McLaren have just been sitting around...

Officials of the Renault and McLaren teams on Wednesday insisted there will be no quick fix now that Brawn/Toyota/Williams-style rear diffusers have been declared legal by the FIA.

With the Court of Appeal hearing now over, and seven teams all but obliged to now follow the path of the 'diffuser three' clan, work at factories will be at fever pitch to make up for lost time.

It was previously reported that Renault, one of the diffuser appellants, was ready to use some sort of new diffuser design as soon as this weekend in China. But engineering boss Pat Symonds, referring to the Spanish Grand Prix next month, said: "It would be possible to have something done to our car by the first race in Europe."

To the Guardian newspaper, however, he warned that Renault's first 'double decker' diffuser version will not immediately close the gap.

"That could find us maybe three-tenths of a second.But in order to find the other two or three tenths necessary to put us on a par with the three cars carrying what I believed to be an illegal diffuser will require a substantial reworking of the rear of the car."

"Ironically, the three would have had a much easier job converting the other way," added Symonds.

Norbert Haug, boss of Mercedes' racing activities, agrees. "What some did in nine months cannot be done by others in nine weeks," the German told Germany's SID news agency.

"Our sporting spirit tells us: 'it is time to get to work, we accept the challenge' but we are going to need some time," said Haug.

[Skyliner]

The International Appeal Court has ruled that the diffusers used by Brawn, Toyota and Williams are legal. So now we have clarity and we move on, although there will be rumblings from the other teams, they can do nothing more and have to bring their own versions of the double decker to their cars as quickly as possible.

But bad feelings remain. The hearing yesterday certainly got nasty, it seems, as it dragged out into yesterday evening, Paris time.

It was a bruising encounter for the protagonists, with some real niggle between former colleagues and lawyers getting stuck in to others’ reputations. But some of the things said yesterday will surely come back to haunt those who said them.

The impression the protesters are keen to give is that they are unanimous in their feeling that the three diffuser teams have not only been crafty, but have violated the spirit of sporting competition.

Certainly I’m told that all the teams are backing the protest, with the exception of Toro Rosso (no point in paying twice if Red Bull have already paid) and Force India, for political reasons.

One argument, advanced by Adrian Newey and Flavio Briatore, is that the diffusers should be banned on safety grounds, the Brawn car in particular, because they make the cars too fast.

Although three teams are in the dock, only one team owner seems to be getting the flak and that is Ross Brawn. He had to sit there, while Nigel Tozzi, Ferrari’s lawyer and a man who was on the same side as Brawn until two years ago, described him as a ‘person of supreme arrogance,’ because he sees things one way when everyone else sees things a different way, “Only a person of supreme arrogance would think he is right when so many of his esteemed colleagues would disagree.”

Instead, Brawn is now looking like a person of supreme intelligence.

Tozzi then went on to say something which a lawyer representing an F1 team in an FIA hearing really should have thought twice before saying, because the words will surely be used against him one day,

“Anyone with a command of English will tell you it is a hole, so do not let someone attempting to be clever with words defeat the express purpose of the rules,”

Being clever with words to defeat the purpose of the rules in F1 is what getting an edge in F1 is all about. It happens every time someone comes up with something the others haven’t got and every time there is a protest and an appeal into some genius device, or loophole.

I remember in 1999 sitting in a steaming hot Ferrari office in Sepang after the race as Ross Brawn showed us with a ruler why the barge-boards had been ruled illegal by the stewards. And yet a few days later, through using words at a hearing in Paris, Ferrari’s lawyer managed to get the judges to agree that by viewing the car from a certain angle and by applying tolerances mentioned elsewhere in the rules, the barge-boards were legal after all.

Brawn may forgive and forget, maybe not. But I was very surprised to hear Tozzi having a go at the FIA for inconsistency. The FIA denies that other teams had applied to use a similar diffuser design and were knocked back. In any case I was surprised to see Tozzi using the terms he used,

“The position of the FIA is totally baffling. We urge you to save the FIA from itself,” he is alleged to have said, according to Press Association.

That is strong stuff. Whatever you may think of the historical relationship between Ferrari and the FIA, this line shows you that as of right now, they are at loggerheads and that there is a huge amount of frustration on Ferrari’s side.

Ferrari are frustrated by the FIA’s position on this issue, by the way they have allowed this uncertainty and dispute to develop. The FIA say that their position is clear and as always been consistent; the diffusers are legal.

But also bear in mind that Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo heads the team’s association, FOTA and is more than a little frustrated by the way the FIA World Council ignored all of FOTA’s hard work and suggestions and instead voted in a £30 million budget cap for 2010.

These things work themselves through in the end and Ferrari and FIA will be friends again at some point in the future. But right now they are the focal point for the needle, which is central to this issue over the diffusers.

Source: James Allen's blog

Oh no! Teams other than Toyota try to bend the rules to their advantage! LULLLLLLLLLLLLLZ!!!!1one111!

[mads]

chris dyer is brit
chris tombazis is greek

dyer is australian.

[_R_]

I'd hate to be a Ferrari lawyer going head to head with what Brawn develops...
that's kinda like shooting yourself in the foot after the fact...

[draobpi]

[Dr. Jimmmah!]

while im not surprised by the verdict, this below is a bit

What angers us is the fact that we had approached [Charlie] Whiting for a clarification on a diffuser solution like the one in question and we were told it was illegal, therefore we did not pursue it any further though our design team had similar ideas

http://www.autosport...rt.php/id/74483

what. the. fuck.

[More&Faster]

while im not surprised by the verdict, this below is a bit


http://www.autosport...rt.php/id/74483

what. the. fuck.

ya that pissed me off as well. people are fucking up all over the place.

[MrHahn]

dyer is australian.

Damn straight!

while im not surprised by the verdict, this below is a bit


http://www.autosport...rt.php/id/74483

what. the. fuck.

I still don't understand how some teams developed the diffuser while others were told it was illegal. Were the diffuser teams told something different and not saying anything? Or did they get told it was illegal and go ahead with it anyway. Puzzles me

[shallow777]

Anyone else get the feeling that now that Schuey and Brawn have moved on, Ferrari is becoming more and more like they were in the early 90's? Failing and having woeful pace. I get a weird feeling of deja vu - but it may be the beers.

I agree totally.


Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. - George Santayana

Seems like Ferrari are falling into the same trap twice. In the rush to make the team as Italian as possible they forgot all the lessons they had learned from the foreigners on how to run an efficient modern F1 team. They are starting to make more and more frequent mistakes when they were a team that hardly ever made a misstep.

[_R_]

about the other teams and diffusers... maybe they had a diffuser but it didn't fall in the loophole like BGP, Toyo and Williams?

[Nacho]

I still don\'t understand how some teams developed the diffuser while others were told it was illegal. Were the diffuser teams told something different and not saying anything? Or did they get told it was illegal and go ahead with it anyway. Puzzles me

The diffusers were likely slightly different. Similar != the same.

Brawn said that he proposed different wording to clarify the rules, but no one else seemed to care. IMO that was their chance to make it 100% clear, but everyone likely had the same loophole idea, just some implemented it less well than others, and were subsequently called on it. Since Williams, Brawn and Toyota all stated they asked Whiting about their cars and were given the OK, I\'d think they did something different than the teams who were told their cars were not legal.

Additionally, they could be making it up after the fact totally.

The FIA denies that other teams had applied to use a similar diffuser design and were knocked back.

[Dr. Jimmmah!]

you have some pretty interesting sources

[Skyliner]

Thanks for posting. :biggthumb:

I'm really not looking forward to Toyota falling back in the pack again.

[MrHahn]

Additionally, they could be making it up after the fact totally.

This sounds the most believable I think (I hope).

It seems the major teams have been caught with their pants down and are desperately trying to save face.