Red Bull- illegal engine mapping?

Stewards have cleared RB amigo

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/18943608

I think every team pushes the envelope. Worse one of late was the double diffuser of 2009. No I don't blame Brawn for winning with it especially as they brought this loophole to the attention of the FIA who in turn refused to do anything about it. I believe 3 teams including Williams and Toyota used the double diffuser while the others didn't. Shows you how badly many sports are managed.

Well if that was the sequence of events Mr Head but it wasn't. Three teams, Brawn, Williams and Toyota came up with the double diffuser arrangement over the winter while the others didn't. The regs may not have covered the loophole and as you know these things are interpreted to the nth degree just to find that advantage - nothing wrong with that. it remains that the three teams exploited the loophole.

Well having designed it for his cars while appreciating it was an exploitation of a loophole, Ross Brawn brought the presence of this loophole to the FIA. He was happy for the component to be outlawed but as it is, the technical delegate Charlie Whiting refused to go back on what was written in the rulebookl so Brawn thought well if they are not bothered why should I be? And so that which should have been an illegal component was ' overlooked ' by the FIA.

Contrast this with 1988 when both turbos and atmospherically-induced engines were allowed. All the teams went the ' atmo ' route except Mclaren which used their Honda turbo engines for one last year. As you may recall, they walked away with both titles and 15 out of 16 race wins. That was entirely legitimate but the double diffuser was not and the FIA acted badly by not accepting Brawn's findings and closing the loophole. Sports management sadly is tinged with inconsistencies as we know only too well in football. The damning aspect of this is that these people are paid huge sums to get it right and they demand huge sums from teams as a bond to participate in the sport so they have a duty to get it right.

No my friendI don't blame Ross Brawn at all which was what I said above.

It's the FIA I blame for ruining F1 that year because they refused to act to do the right thing. As I said earlier, sorts management has it's many inconsistencies.


TTFN

I don't want a sport (sorry- its Bernie's Business) where clever guys get success by finding things they can do to cheat. Rules are rules.

Without going over old ground - Schuey 'won' 3 titles by cheating condoned by stewards, FIA, FOTA, Benetton, Ferrari. And Bernie wanting the money from Ferrari/German buying public having him as a hero....

The FIA's reluctance to discourage Michael Schumacher's strange need to resort to questionable tactics has only served to rubber stamp bad driving, what should be viewed as illegal tactics and promote a new era where sportsmanship takes a back seat.

I could at at stretch understand that he felt the authorities were against him in 1994. Observers may recall that out of the blue he began with two victories out of two, Japan and Brazil, both virtually Senna's backyard. Then after Imola, he was virtually unchallenged until the FIA decided that they needed to open up the championship which was becoming a Schumacher/Benetton show. Thus at the British Grand Prix it was adjudged and after the race had started that he should be brought in for a stop go because and now can you believe this.....for running ahead of a Williams during the warm up lap. It sounds a pretty flimsy excuse and really was. There was a picture in Autosport that clearly showed Mika Hakkinnen running ahead of the Ferraris but no penalty was applied to him and this was during the warm up anyway. Not exactly a mortal sin. No, I am not sure for how long Schumacher ran in front of the Williams. Thus began an extended debate between Tom Walkinshaw then with Benetton and the FIA officials until the latter decided to blackflag the Benetton driver.

The whole affair took weeks to resolve and went to an FIA court in Paris where Schumacher was handed a two race ban. In the meantime his win in Belgium was negated because the Benetton was adjudged to have had a lower ride height. OK these things happen. However as a result of the two race ban and the exclusion at Spa, Damon Hill became the chief beneficiary, scoring a full house of points. The FIA certainly got what they wanted, a final showdown at Adelaide. Well, we all know what happened there. It was not right. It couldn't be. The move by Schumacher was pretty obvious but at least I could understand that he and the entire Benetton team felt aggrieved at the manner by which the FIA attempted to open out the title chase. They had done everything to win it and bar the result at Spa should have all but been crowned champions before the F1 circus journeyed all the way to Australia.

No such sympathy though for Michael in 1997 when in his second year with Ferrari which if you'll remember was only coming back to form with him as it's lead driver and motivator. In his hands, the car and team's fortunes were transformed and a tilt at the title was in the offing. However there was competition from the Williams team and not helped by some difficult results, not least being taken out by his own brother Ralf ( called Half Schumacher in some circles ) at the Luxembourg Grand Prix which was held at the Nurburgring. The move on Jacques Villeneuve though was clumsy and unnecessary and in sidelining his car, quite rightly Schumacher found himself a victim of his own actions. Villeneuve won the title though not the race which went to Hakkinnen but more on that later. The FIA could not fail to act on this and took away all of Michael's points but left him with his wins. I think they should have totally excluded him from the 1997 results and indeed taken away his wins. What good are the points to him when he has finished as the runner-up anyway? But take away his wins and he would have had something about which to think on long and hard during the winter.

Now back to Hakkinen's win. It came to pass that Williams and Mclaren came to an arrangement that they would render each other assistance during the race so each would achieve it's own aims. Williams needed a world drivers' champion and Mclaren needed a race win essentially for Mika Hakkinnen since he had been out of luck and was Ron's favourite. So Jacques Villeneuve who should have been running at the front to the flag conceded victory to Mclaren, saying that his car did not feel right after the incident with Schumacher. Mclaren then required David Coulthard to cede the win to Mika Hakkinnen. In fact readers may recall Ron Dennis requiring David Coulthard to step aside again in Australia the following year when the team brought in Mika Hakkinnen it was said, by mistake, a move which meant that Coulthard was motoring towards the chequered flag unopposed. Such are the in house policies of the Mclaren team especially under Ron Dennis but that is another thread on it's own.

Back to Schumi then. Having arrived in Ferrari and from 96 to 99, a total of four years there had been no driver championships. He was quite desperate by then and patented the Schumacher chop, a move calculated to squeeze a rival and secure the lead at the start of a race. There was a time when this would have been considered bad form and unsporting but instead of acting, the FIA sanctioned the ' one defensive move ' rule. It has since allowed for questionable tactics. Some drivers of course make a habit of this more than others. Formula One used to be more of a gentleman's sport and for me the rot has it's roots largely implanted from the days of Ayrton Senna. That too is fodder for another thread.