Williams and Toyota DQed

[Dr. Corkski]

For running illegal brake cooling ducts. (http://f1.racing-live.com/en/headlines/news/detail/040614005908.shtml)

Revised classifications:
1. Michael
2. Woobens
3. Timberlake
4. Fisico :thumbup:
5. Kimi
6. DC
7. Glock
8. Heidfeld

Looks like Puffy got lucky as key evidence from a comprehensive arse kicking by Ralfi this weekend is now erased.

Poor Pantano though. He misses the race and Glock lucks into the points in his car.

[RTKar]

Wow , what would have been the ruling had Ralfie won?

[Ed_Severson]

Here's an interesting quote from Sam Michael:

"The front brake ducts of Ralf and Juan Pablo's cars are not in accordance with the regulations. It was a mistake and it was unintentional. There was no performance gain and no gain for brake cooling because the inlet area was not bigger. However the ducts are not in compliance with the technical regulations. Therefore we accept the FIA's decision."

Kinda makes you wonder, if there was no increase in the duct size, what in the world would they have done wrong?

Very bizarre, and it seems to reinforce the idea that Williams are lost at the moment -- if you're going to get busted for illegal parts, you should at least bother to do it the right way and gain some advantage from cheating. :saywhat:

[Insomniac]

Funny, they were using those same brake ducts to qualify yesterday. Did Ferrari wait until after the race to tip off the FIA? It would explain the seemingly bone headed move of keeping Rubens behind Michael and throwing away a Ferrari 1-2.

[Insomniac]

Ohhh, and why weren't these things found yesterday after qualifying. Don't they check the car after qualifying? If so, FIA dropped the ball big time.

[jonovision_man]

Glock scores points in his first ever F1 race. :)

He had a rough one, tangled with Klien, lost some of his front wing off the start... not sure it was a performance deserving of a points finish :) but there you have it.

Ferrari 1-2.

[Methanolandbrats]

Damn, Ralfi drove a great race for nothing. I'll be the wants to push Frank into busy traffic for this one....no excuse for an illegal car.

[Hink]

From first hand info from a former Scuderia Ferrari member: If a penalty seems too severe for the crime, the real issue is being kept under wraps.

I don't buy the brake ducts / no competitive advantage story. It's crap. Something else happened.

[Railbird]

damn shame for Ralf, not often he gets the kind of race he excells at.

Drivin' around by himself with no real racing required and then following big bro home.

On the penalty I agree with Hink, we ain't gettin' the whole story.

[Dirty Sanchez]

I'll take this over the standard OC "the race was boring because Ferrari won thread" :o :cry:

:thumbup:

[Ziggy]

I posted this a while ago, it must be floating around in cyberspace

What is the deal, to many washers under the mounting of the duct to the caliper? A duct does nothing except cause drag. I can see if they are using it as an aero device, but a bigger duct does nothing but create drag (and cool the rotor or course)

I know they have a size limit on how far the duct can protrude outside the wheel opening (ie, have to keep it inboard) and there is an overall limit on size. If they were running larger than legal ducts, someone on the team should have been aware of it.

Ziggy

[Fenster]

A shame for daMatta as well, who would have had a points-paying finish.

[Lizzerd]

From first hand info from a former Scuderia Ferrari member: If a penalty seems too severe for the crime, the real issue is being kept under wraps.

I don't buy the brake ducts / no competitive advantage story. It's crap. Something else happened.


What you say makes sense, but doesn't make sense (but I'm just dumb sometimes). Sounds to me that the ducts were in accordance with inlet size, did not provide a performance advantage, and had not gained Williams and Toyota a performance advantage.

So what do you speculate may be the real issue, if anything? I'm not confronting you or you comment, I'm wondering what you think it may be in reality. Nothing to do with brake ducts?

[Dirty Sanchez]

Sam Michael was on record as saying that the inlets themselves were in accordance with the rules... but didn't say exactly what the infraction was for? I'd guess that the overall size (volume) of the ducts was too great?

His quote: "The front brake ducts of Ralf and Juan Pablo's cars are not in accordance with the regulations," he said. "It was a mistake and it was unintentional. There was no performance gain and no gain for brake cooling because the inlet area was not bigger. However the ducts are not in compliance with the technical regulations. Therefore we accept the FIA's decision."

Not sure how they can claim no performance gain when Williams, especially, have struggled big-time with brake performance in Canada in the past. I don't know exactly how these things work, but I'd think that added volume within the ducts themselves might still help heat dissapation?!

They can't expect us to believe that they got it right all of a sudden.

[Cam]

This is all there is about the brake ducts from the FIA Technical regs. It does not say anything about the opening size or capacity. :saywhat:

11.4 Air ducts

: Air ducts for the purpose of cooling the front and rear brakes shall not protrude beyond :

- a plane parallel to the ground situated at a distance of 160mm above the horizontal centre line of the wheel ;

- a plane parallel to the ground situated at a distance of 160mm below the horizontal centre line of the wheel ;

- a vertical plane parallel to the inner face of the wheel rim and displaced from it by 120mm toward the centre line of the car.

Furthermore, when viewed from the side the ducts must not protrude forwards beyond the periphery of the tyre or backwards beyond the wheel rim.

[pfc_m_drake]

Just guessing out of the blue...

I wonder if they got caught using an anti-lock braking system?

[Ed_Severson]

The FIA said that the brake ducts "did not meet dimensional requirements."

That being the case, I'm inclined to think that Williams had them improperly placed, if Sam Michael was correct in saying that the ducts were not too large.

[Rogue Leader]

From SpeedTV.com :


It is believed that the brake ducts of the cars were too far away from the wheels, rather than too big, as is usually the case in such exclusions.

Also Ralf is a Holic... I dont blame him tho!


"The hotel had been very nice and brought a bottle of champagne to my room before the news, and I think I'm going to need a few more bottles now to drown my sorrows with some friends!"

[Mike Kellner]

I can see no reason for brake duct regulations in the first place. It stuff like this that makes racing suck so much these days. As long as it really is a brake cooling duct, and is not a wing or a Ben Hur style tire shredder, what difference does it make?

If three cars really did violate some other rule, why not just say so? Is there a secret rule book these days?

My take. The FIA should find the officials in charge of brake duct regulations, and reassign them studying how to bring competition and passing back to F1. In case they have forgotten what that looks like, they should watch some MotoGP.

mk

[4wheeldrifter]

I can see no reason for brake duct regulations in the first place. It stuff like this that makes racing suck so much these days. As long as it really is a brake cooling duct, and is not a wing or a Ben Hur style tire shredder, what difference does it make?

If three cars really did violate some other rule, why not just say so? Is there a secret rule book these days?

My take. The FIA should find the officials in charge of brake duct regulations, and reassign them studying how to bring competition and passing back to F1. In case they have forgotten what that looks like, they should watch some MotoGP.

mk

Can I get an Amen? A-men!!!

BTW... two, count 'em, two Mickey C's in the pernts this week. :thumbup: Watch for the three guys in black riding black horses this week. Yikes.

Sato-San had to mosquito fog all by himself this week. Mosquitos must not be that bad in Montreal this time of year.

[oddlycalm]

In case they have forgotten what that looks like, they should watch some MotoGP.

And while they are at it, they should look at the attendance figures for those MotoGP races. While the Canadian GP is always a succesful F1 event for attendance, a lot of F1 races are struggling while MotoGP attendance is booming.

That success is both due to the racing, which has always been pretty great, but also to killing off the half liter two strokes and implementing a more relelvant and contemporary formula. What we have now is an era very reminiscent of the close racing during the 1960's pre-two stroke period where the Hailwood, Agostini and Read battled on the factory Honda, Yamaha and MV Augusta. In addition, the current MotoGP iron is insanely powerful and difficult to ride. These bikes are capable of spinning their rear tire at will at any speed and in any gear right up to 200mph. You don't keep your tires under you and slide the bike around too much and you finish back with Nicky Hayden... ;) The net result is hold-your-breath-edge-of-your-seat action for nearly the entire race, something F1 could use a lot more of.

oc

[Ankf00]

the end of the 500 era was good racing too :p

and I like your philosophization about Hayden ;)

[Rogue Leader]

Speaking of MotoGP I just got that movie "Faster" that was reccomended here... worth the $$ it was awesome!