Quoting the original statement from Colin Kolles, that started it all before Monaco:

From [f1adda.com]

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Kolles
But it is clear that the other cars are illegal. We agree with Charlie Whiting’s view and we are not the only ones who agree, and I think that if this is not stopped before Monaco then we have no other choice but to protest.

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Kolles
The point is that it has been very clearly stated that the off-throttle diffusers are not corresponding to the regulations, we have studied this very carefully. You cannot influence the aerodynamics with any movements such as pedals or moving devices on the engine, so this is illegal, and it brings the other teams a huge advantage.

Quoting Ross Brawns reasoning for supporting the ban, even if it would hurt his team:

From [www.autosport.com]

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Brawn
Leaving things as they were, we were going to get protests and we certainly did not want that. Fundamentally I would rather leave things alone, but what I would not want to see is a lot of protest and F1 getting into a mess and into issues and the appeal court.

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Brawn
We have all been there, and we all know what happened with the diffusers a couple of years ago. This is different because the FIA were completely happy with the legality of diffusers, but now they are saying, 'somebody made a point and we can see it is a valid point so we want to control this'.

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It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.

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Morbid
Agreed. But it became farcical when the affected teams began to whine about it, and claimed that their engines would explode if they had to run without off-throttle exhaust. That is why all the exemptions where made. What was the FIA supposed to do?

Request and publish information as to why a certain engine manufacturer have found the need to blow 50% of exhaust gases while off the throttle when the engines were supposed to be in a homologated state for the past 3 and a half years.

Quote
Morbid
It is illegal. Why do you think, that the FIA will only allow this, if ALL teams agree to it? Because that is the guarantee that no one will protest it!

I'm still not convinced that it's illegal.

I'm not aware that any drivers who are physically moving devices (ie pedals) in order to control the blown effect (as we originally thought) - I thought it was engine maps and done automatically. If so, I'm not sure that it's off-throttle blown exhausts which would be illegal, but blown diffusers full stop, and if you're being pedantic, all exhausts regardless of where they exit.

Unless there's more to it, then the only way for us to find out for sure would be to protest and see where we ended up.

The question is - is it definitively illegal, or do the teams just want to avoid a damaging protest situation?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/2011 12:51PM by gav.

If the rules have to be changed to outlaw it, then it isn't illegal.

Unanimous agreement on the blown diffuser issue was not reached this morning. Ferrari and Sauber voted against the decision. Isn't it good to have a group of teams that can work together? Oh wait.

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gav Wrote:
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> Request and publish information as to why a
> certain engine manufacturer have found the need to
> blow 50% of exhaust gases while off the throttle
> when the engines were supposed to be in a
> homologated state for the past 3 and a half
> years.

This you know is an impossible challenge, since nothing other-sourced has published about it. The teams would just invent whatever they want out of the data they possess, just as they are programming the electric motor that opens the throttle, to whatever values they can claim are equivalent to 10% or 19% (or whatever), as they did yesterday. The current situation is a wild west scenario. There is just no way for the FIA to properly inspect and verify claims. So it that is a fools errand which proves or disproves nothing. But to clarify, Mercedes claim that their engines cannot sustain the vacuum, that having all valves closed while braking creates.

> I'm still not convinced that it's illegal.

Luckily for us, the legality of F1 does not rest on you being convinced.

Edit: clarification

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It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/2011 01:33PM by Morbid.

DaveEllis Wrote:
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> If the rules have to be changed to outlaw it, then
> it isn't illegal.

The rules are not being changed to outlaw it. The rules are being created to legalize it!

Whatever you might think, the FIA are creating rules on the fly, to help the stricken teams. The FIA are aiding the teams that ARE using off-throttle blown diffusers. They keep changing them as the Cosworth teams find ways to show they are not harmonious with the technical regulations. Thus the solution, unanimous agreement among the teams (tantamount to the FIA saying "we give up"!) or else...

Edit: removed unintended emoticon.

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It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/2011 01:32PM by Morbid.

c'mon Vettel you've been having it too easy... fight for it lol...

great race, great drive from Fernando, too bad Webber couldn't overtake Seb, but great drives from almost everybody

Michael recovered to ninth,, nice

Great race for Fernando, unfortunate that schumi got the stop and go penalty..... (tbh classic racing incident) but hey, great ending to the race

Slash Wrote:
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> great race, great drive from Fernando, too bad
> Webber couldn't overtake Seb, but great drives
> from almost everybody
>
> Michael recovered to ninth,, nice

You mean too bad Webber weren't allowed to pass?

Quote
maintain the gap!

Kimi, so, Massa Fernando Sebastian is faster than you. Can you confirm you understood that message?

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Morbid
Luckily for us, the legality of F1 does not rest on you being convinced.

:D

gav Wrote:
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> > Luckily for us, the legality of F1 does not rest
> on you being convinced.
>
>
> :D

;-D

Weak of Red Bull to team order Webber. They should be fined like Ferrari was last time. Amazing that Hamilton converted 10th to 4th!

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It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.

They should be fined like Ferrari was last time.

Except that it was a violation of the sporting regulations last season and now it isn't. I agree it's unsporting, immoral and I'd prefer them to race (but if Webber ignored it, then we did actually see them racing anyway), but it's now 100% legal. But holding station has always been deemed legal, it's swapping cars and changing positions that was penalised.

edit: I accidentally a whole word.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/2011 04:05PM by DaveEllis.

DaveEllis Wrote:
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> They should be fined like Ferrari was last time.
>
> Except that it was a violation of the sporting
> regulations last season and now it isn't. I agree
> it's unsporting, immoral and I'd prefer them to
> race (but if Webber admitted it, then we did
> actually see them racing anyway), but it's now
> 100% legal.

Thanks for the update.

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It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.

di Resta just ratted out Force India by accident. I guess they forgot to tell him they lied about the "unscheduled stop" and he told everybody what we all knew about that stop. Force Indias strategy this season has been awful.

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No-one seemed to be this angry at Red Bull in 2009 when they stopped Vettel passing Webber at Turkey with still about 10 laps to go. Anyway, that's probably a by-product of Vettel's domination.

A very good race, of course. If Ferrari can win at Silverstone of all tracks, then we might just have a championship on our hands, or at least a few closer races. Great drives from Alonso and Perez in particular.

As for the Massa/Hamilton issue, I think they should check the telemetry before determining any penalty. Considering Hamilton seemed to brake very early when Massa went around the outside, the question for me is that did Hamilton lift off the brakes in order to push Massa wide? If so, I think a penalty is possibly warranted. If not, then there should be no penalty. Massa could still have got 4th if he didn't oversteer through the last corner. Maybe he'll claim there was damage, but I suppose it's unlikely considering the location of the contact on his car. Just like in Valencia, if Massa's strategy was even half-decent, he could have been 4th easily.

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X (@ed24f1)

Massa can only thank Massa for losing 4th. He threw it away, regardless of what happened in the previous corner.

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It's only after we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything.

Morbid Wrote:
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> Massa can only thank Massa for losing 4th. He
> threw it away, regardless of what happened in the
> previous corner.

Massa shouldn't have even been in that position anyway. His team mate is running away at the front with the fastest lap, and he's battling for 4th. That's not really good enough, even before the accident.

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DaveEllis Wrote:
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> Massa shouldn't have even been in that position
> anyway. His team mate is running away at the front
> with the fastest lap, and he's battling for 4th.
> That's not really good enough, even before the
> accident.

Fair point, but not for the first time this year the gap accentuated by bad strategy. At least his pitstops were good this time. Losing about 10 seconds through bad strategy at the final pitstop window alone doesn't help.

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X (@ed24f1)

The only thing I hate about all this team order talk is when we get told the team wanted this amount of point etc, well they would have got them anyway no matter which way the cars finished.

Also so what if Vettel had a Kers problem, Webber was not using his either from what the car cams showed us.

There was some good racing out there today, I am pleased the Massa Lewis thing will not be looked at it was racing and neither really done anything wrong.

marcl Wrote:
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> The only thing I hate about all this team order
> talk is when we get told the team wanted this
> amount of point etc, well they would have got them
> anyway no matter which way the cars finished.

I don't get it, people keep saying this. The answer is they wouldn't have had the same points if they had taken each other off, that's what Horner was getting at.

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