[Rules] The FIA - what's occurring there?

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

Yes, Charlie had informed both Bernie and Max what Piquet Snr had told him, but they asked Charlie to investigate it and confirm that it wasn't just more than the rumour that had been floating about. And that didn't happen, I believe, until the following year and that then led to the Council banning Briatore and Symonds.

Possibly, Bernie and Max could have instructed Charlie to have done his questioning prior to the end of the season, but they would still have needed to call the Council together before the the Championship had been decided, but from memory, I don't think that that they had the time.

Hence Charlie only started his investigation the following season.

And... maybe the sequence of actions on all of the above might have been the intended sequence if those in charge didn't want it to impact the outcome of the 2008 season?

I think the issue is there is a long standing narrative of how it played out. With BE recently starting to tear apart the existing narrative. So it questions how much of that old narrative is accurate. I guess BE was unable to keep his mouth shut and take some of the secrets to the grave.

Whatever Massa is doing is risky. And as I said above, the impact to his legacy depends upon who he targets. If he makes a real play for the 2008 title, it will hurt him.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

Bernie did an interview with F1 Insider a week or so ago.

I suspect many are just looking at the headlines, not reading the articles and assuming nothing has changed since then. The point being that there really is new information (per admission from BE).

Richard

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

Possibly, Bernie and Max could have instructed Charlie to have done his questioning prior to the end of the season, but they would still have needed to call the Council together before the the Championship had been decided, but from memory, I don't think that that they had the time.

I looked up the original article that touched this off recently.

https://f1-insider.com/formel-1-eccl...-rekord-53946/

To the point around knowledge and having time to do anything. Per BE in the article above...

We had enough information in time to investigate the matter. According to the statutes, we should have canceled the race in Singapore under these conditions. That means it would never have happened for the World Cup standings. Then Felipe Massa would have become world champion and not Lewis Hamilton.

Again, I am not arguing to strip Lewis of his championship, but rather just pointing out that have the knowledge, knew it was wrong not to act and still didn't act so as to try to protect the sport from drama. I suspect the entire thing got out of control in 2009 and was exposed to a level they couldn't ignore/hide. The Renault team (rightly) took the blame and they let their complicity remain undiscovered until now.

Richard

[Adam43]

It is all about justice! Justice for Bernie and him not being in the news, especially as the new series about him comes out.

Shame Massa has got worked up about it because at the time he was dignified about losing at the very end. But maybe the reports are exaggerated for effect.

As for the championship, shouldn’t be used to justify a different outcome. It was something outside the control of any party that was directly involved.

[Mike Harte]

From a personal point of view, taking into account what Bernie has said and done about other matters in the past, and also very aware of his age and possibly how accurate his memory now might be, I wonder whether everything he may now be saying is truly 100% factual.

One has to bare in mind that he has often in the past said and done things almost purely to be controversial, or to disguise something else. Could this be the case here?

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

From a personal point of view, taking into account what Bernie has said and done about other matters in the past, and also very aware of his age and possibly how accurate his memory now might be, I wonder whether everything he may now be saying is truly 100% factual.

One has to bare in mind that he has often in the past said and done things almost purely to be controversial, or to disguise something else. Could this be the case here?

Mike, I am astounded that you should suggest such a thing!

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by Adam43

As for the championship, shouldn’t be used to justify a different outcome. It was something outside the control of any party that was directly involved.

thats really it isnt it.

had it been investigated prior to the end of 2008, or more specifically between the Brazilian GP and they formal awarding of the championship (which is how i understood Massa's position), the outcome would have been the same....sanctions against Piquet Jr, Briatore, and Symonds.

vacating the results of that entire GP was never going to happen as letting Alonso's win stand suggests that annulment was never an option right?

and if anything, the FIA has less incentive now days to change an Alonso podium then it did back then!

but for Massa, i hope he can make a claim and sue Bernie in civil court and/or even get some remediation in the court of public opinion.

or even better, write a book Felipe Baby!

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

From a personal point of view, taking into account what Bernie has said and done about other matters in the past, and also very aware of his age and possibly how accurate his memory now might be, I wonder whether everything he may now be saying is truly 100% factual.

fair point but it does sound like something BE would do...at that time, protecting the commercial value of the sport, which was essentially his purview as the chief agent in charge of a hedge fund's major asset, was his primary concern.

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by VIVA GT

Mike, I am astounded that you should suggest such a thing!

I know; I'm ashamed of myself!

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

vacating the results of that entire GP was never going to happen as letting Alonso's win stand suggests that annulment was never an option right?

Alonso could have kept the "win", but points could have been adjusted (ala Schumacher in 97). My point is there were options that could have had championship implications. Of course it will all be speculation and we will never know what might have be the result if they had not covered it up.

Richard

[Adam43]

For Schumacher in 1997 his points were removed, no one else’s changed. He effectively was just removed from the standings. They also didn’t change everyone else’s points with the BAR secret fuel tank in the ‘90s, despite that having an impact on races other than the one where it came to light.

When Tyrell got disqualified in the ‘80s I can’t remember if they rejigged everyone else’s points after the season. That might have been an example where they did?

There are options, of course, but some are unlikely and start bordering on silly.

And none of this considers that there is a difference from doing after than at the moment. If that race had been annulled. Which would be rather silly, rather than just DSQ Renault, then people would have known and it would influence the races after.

Thinking about this, I guess that if it had been known at the time of the Singapore the most likely outcome would have been DSQ for Renault. Which would have given Nico Rosberg and Williams a win (woo!). It also would have given Hamilton 2 more points. Making the result different depending on when something was found out is silly.

#justiceforBernie #morecolumninchesforBernie #getallworkedupatcodswallopforBernie

[E.B]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

Yes, Charlie had informed both Bernie and Max what Piquet Snr had told him, but they asked Charlie to investigate it and confirm that it wasn't just more than the rumour that had been floating about. And that didn't happen, I believe, until the following year and that then led to the Council banning Briatore and Symonds.

Possibly, Bernie and Max could have instructed Charlie to have done his questioning prior to the end of the season, but they would still have needed to call the Council together before the the Championship had been decided, but from memory, I don't think that that they had the time.

Hence Charlie only started his investigation the following season.

By coincidence I watched the 2014 doco "Architects Of F1 - Max Mosely" today and he explains (very eloquently) the whole timeline, what was said by and to whom when, plus the reasons why nothing was done at the time.

Actually the whole documentary is good viewing and Max explains a lot of the USGP 2005, Spygate, Crashgate etc. Also covers other controversies such as the Senna Prost business, Balestre et.

Anyone who wants to watch it it is available in full here
Architects of F1__Max Mosley - https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3th0ls

Tip click the settings (gearwheel) in the video window and ensure you turn the quality up. The default seems to be only 380p.

For those who dont want to watch the whole doco (49 mins) the 'Spygate' bit starts at 29 mins in with 'Crashgate' immediately after).
If you can spare 49 minutes though its all quite interesting (it was to me anyway)

[S griffin]

A bit of a mysterious man was Mosley. He seems less hands on than he appeared, only coming in when he felt necessary

2005 US GP was a low point for him and Spygate could have been avoided. I still think there's a few myths about Crashgate. Either way he had been at it a long time and did some good work

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by E.B

Anyone who wants to watch it it is available in full here
Architects of F1__Max Mosley - https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3th0ls

Fascinating. I've never seen this before, thanks for posting.

[BTCC frog]

My personal view is that, when somebody cheats, it doesn't make sense to declare the entire race null and void. I don't know where Bernie Ecclestone got the idea that this is somehow what is supposed to happen, but find it hard to believe much that comes out of his mouth anyway nowadays, and he might just be deliberately stirring the pot. If the race has to be annulled because someone cheats, doesn't the same apply to any race involving any cheating from anybody in history. So every race in 1984 bar the last three is scrapped because of Tyrrell and Alain Prost takes the title on 18 points, but countback with two wins over Niki Lauda. And if cheating makes a race invalid, then surely the drivers and teams are racing assuming that the Singapore GP counted so the final three races are sort of dependent on the race having happened, and if the mentality is that races with cheating need to be declared null and void, you could say the same about the entire championship. In short, to take away Lewis Hamilton's championship, particularly 15 years later, would be nothing short of insanity. Fernando Alonso's win should have been taken away at the time that they found out in 2009, although perhaps with no winner for that race rather than promoting anybody, but again, 15 years later seems a bit silly and I don't mind that Alonso is listed as the winner of that race anyway, because it makes for an interesting quirky story about Formula 1 history.

A second thing I would say is that Felipe Massa didn't lose the championship because of Crashgate. The safety car was practically irrelevant to the fuel rig problem that lost Massa the lead, and it could have happened in a normal race situation. He lost out in that race because of a Ferrari blunder. A weird similarity that this reminded me of was the League One season in 2019/20. At the start of the year, Bolton were in dire financial trouble and looked like they might go bust, as Bury already had in the same season. They were playing a team of inexperienced players and Ipswich Town beat them 5-0 at he start of the year, but Coventry City drew 0-0 with them. A few weeks later there was talk of Bolton going bust, which would mean that every game they played was declared null and void. I thought this was unfair that Ipswich would lose three points from it, while Coventry, who had failed to beat them, had their poor result deleted. In the end, Bolton survived and so the problem never actually became reality. But I would feel the same way if Singapore was invalidated and took away Ferrari's mistake. It would not be Felipe Massa getting justice for a title stolen from him, it would be him fluking the championship because the race that was invalidated happened to be one that went badly for him.

Another thought from the situation is that it is not a good look when it is so easy for a team to completely manipulate a race like Renault did in Singapore. On this occasion it was fixed, but it is perfectly possible that Piquet Jr could have crashed for real at the exact moment, and so a team that had been running outside the top ten could be put in prime position to win the Grand Prix, through complete luck, because of the stupid rule in place at the time that drivers couldn't pit for fuel immediately behind the safety car. It is less important now but continues to be the case that luck can play a huge part in the outcome of races because of the safety car and red flag. We saw it in Zandvoort last year when Tsunoda's retirement effectively gifted Verstappen victory (until another safety car spiced things up again), and I had suspicions at the time that it was the second edition of Crashgate. And with red flags now being used abundantly and at totally random moments, the opposite can happen with one drivers race being completely ruined through no fault of their own if a red flag comes out at a bad time, as was the case for George Russell and Carlos Sainz in Australia.

Personally, I think things need to change to prioritise sport over show in regards to race neutralisations. Firstly, the VSC needs to be used far more often, and the pitlane should be closed behind the VSC. With refuelling no longer a thing, this means that it is impossible for any driver to gain or lose any kind of unfair advantage behind the Virtual Safety Car. Meanwhile, if a red flag is used, aggregate times should be used for the races before and after the stoppage as they were in the past. Maybe it would make things a little less exciting but this is a sport, with huge amounts of money and dedication pumped into it. It needs to be more fair than it is at the moment. The safety car would then be the only type of neutralisation that can cause unfair advantages but it would be used far less often than it is currently. I think this would make Formula 1 more fair and reduce the element of luck.

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by BTCC frog

My personal view is that, when somebody cheats, it doesn't make sense to declare the entire race null and void. I don't know where Bernie Ecclestone got the idea that this is somehow what is supposed to happen, but find it hard to believe much that comes out of his mouth anyway nowadays, and he might just be deliberately stirring the pot. If the race has to be annulled because someone cheats, doesn't the same apply to any race involving any cheating from anybody in history. So every race in 1984 bar the last three is scrapped because of Tyrrell and Alain Prost takes the title on 18 points, but countback with two wins over Niki Lauda. And if cheating makes a race invalid, then surely the drivers and teams are racing assuming that the Singapore GP counted so the final three races are sort of dependent on the race having happened, and if the mentality is that races with cheating need to be declared null and void, you could say the same about the entire championship. In short, to take away Lewis Hamilton's championship, particularly 15 years later, would be nothing short of insanity. Fernando Alonso's win should have been taken away at the time that they found out in 2009, although perhaps with no winner for that race rather than promoting anybody, but again, 15 years later seems a bit silly and I don't mind that Alonso is listed as the winner of that race anyway, because it makes for an interesting quirky story about Formula 1 history.

A second thing I would say is that Felipe Massa didn't lose the championship because of Crashgate. The safety car was practically irrelevant to the fuel rig problem that lost Massa the lead, and it could have happened in a normal race situation. He lost out in that race because of a Ferrari blunder. A weird similarity that this reminded me of was the League One season in 2019/20. At the start of the year, Bolton were in dire financial trouble and looked like they might go bust, as Bury already had in the same season. They were playing a team of inexperienced players and Ipswich Town beat them 5-0 at he start of the year, but Coventry City drew 0-0 with them. A few weeks later there was talk of Bolton going bust, which would mean that every game they played was declared null and void. I thought this was unfair that Ipswich would lose three points from it, while Coventry, who had failed to beat them, had their poor result deleted. In the end, Bolton survived and so the problem never actually became reality. But I would feel the same way if Singapore was invalidated and took away Ferrari's mistake. It would not be Felipe Massa getting justice for a title stolen from him, it would be him fluking the championship because the race that was invalidated happened to be one that went badly for him.

Another thought from the situation is that it is not a good look when it is so easy for a team to completely manipulate a race like Renault did in Singapore. On this occasion it was fixed, but it is perfectly possible that Piquet Jr could have crashed for real at the exact moment, and so a team that had been running outside the top ten could be put in prime position to win the Grand Prix, through complete luck, because of the stupid rule in place at the time that drivers couldn't pit for fuel immediately behind the safety car. It is less important now but continues to be the case that luck can play a huge part in the outcome of races because of the safety car and red flag. We saw it in Zandvoort last year when Tsunoda's retirement effectively gifted Verstappen victory (until another safety car spiced things up again), and I had suspicions at the time that it was the second edition of Crashgate. And with red flags now being used abundantly and at totally random moments, the opposite can happen with one drivers race being completely ruined through no fault of their own if a red flag comes out at a bad time, as was the case for George Russell and Carlos Sainz in Australia.

Personally, I think things need to change to prioritise sport over show in regards to race neutralisations. Firstly, the VSC needs to be used far more often, and the pitlane should be closed behind the VSC. With refuelling no longer a thing, this means that it is impossible for any driver to gain or lose any kind of unfair advantage behind the Virtual Safety Car. Meanwhile, if a red flag is used, aggregate times should be used for the races before and after the stoppage as they were in the past. Maybe it would make things a little less exciting but this is a sport, with huge amounts of money and dedication pumped into it. It needs to be more fair than it is at the moment. The safety car would then be the only type of neutralisation that can cause unfair advantages but it would be used far less often than it is currently. I think this would make Formula 1 more fair and reduce the element of luck.

Agree
With all of it.
Sporting competition triumphs over entertainment value.

[Teretonga]

Gary Anderson on the red flag issue....

https://the-race.com/formula-1/f1-re...gary-anderson/

[wolfhound]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

Gary Anderson on the red flag issue....

https://the-race.com/formula-1/f1-re...gary-anderson/

Have to agree with him, he has always been a person who talks a lot of sence.

[Greem]

Originally Posted by wolfhound

Have to agree with him, he has always been a person who talks a lot of sence.

He is. But there's one section he suggests that won't work - the "partial" red flag. That could just as easily be done with double waved yellows which would be far less likely to propagate to other parts of the circuit.

What he doesn't say though is that it's the behaviour of the drivers in response to the single or double waved yellow that is the primary problem. The "I backed off by a tenth in that sector" means something akin to "I reduced speed from 150 to 149mph". It still hurts if you get hit at that speed!

They already have the electronics on board that could be programmed to reduce speed to the pit limit, or maybe a bit quicker.

If the drivers slowed right down, people and vehicles could be on track without any issues. We do this week in week out over here (at Donington and Silverstone particularly), and drivers get heavily penalised if they don't respect the flags/lights.

It's a problem of their own making, and it has a fairly simple solution - which means it won't happen.

[S griffin]

He's had a lot of experience in F1. However I don't see a need for a partial red flag. We already have yellows, double waved yellows, VSC, SC and red flags

Of course drivers should obey yellows at all times and slow down depending on how the flag is shown. It would be so much easier for the marshals. They need better discipline. I do question at times whether a SC is needed. Drivers show better discipline in club level. Missing yellows is no excuse

If that was a case, there would be less need for a SC, although a VSC might still be needed

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by Greem

They already have the electronics on board that could be programmed to reduce speed to the pit limit, or maybe a bit quicker.

no doubt a straightforward application of a technology they already have available but would it be safer?

i could be wrong here, but the pitlane limiter is used at the driver's behest. rather i dont believe it is automatic as we still do occasionally see drivers penalized for exceeding the pit lane speed limit.

my concern is that if this was something applied automatically at full race speed, as in the case of a yellow, would it be a distraction to the drivers? would it be safe to suddenly lose speed without (necessarily) knowing why?

and if its not and the expectation is that the drivers needs to be warned first and then the expectation is on them to select the yellow flag speed limiter then would we not have the same problem as we do now...some drivers will inevitably be late or careless in its application or awareness of the situation.

and would that then just leave us with the same problem we have now, drivers not paying attention to the rules

and on that point, as seen with Max not knowing how much distance Ham was required to leave between himself and the SC or the turn 6 almost pile up during the first re start procedures...is the underlying problem really drivers not knowing what the rules actually are in these (and frankly far too frequently changing) SC, yellow flags, re start procedure situations?

in short, i dont necessary know if further rule changes make this situation better or worse. this may just be an area where consistency is needed to the point where there is no excuse for not knowing what one is supposed to do in these situations?

obviously doesnt help when, these days, it seems a bit like FIA/FOM/race control are just making it up as they go along?

[Akrapovic]

I'm going to ask the usual question. Why does F1, once again, need a specialised solution for this? We have Safety Cars, F1 also has VSC, which have been used elsewhere for decades. There are slow zones and similar in other series. Why does F1 need something special again?

NLS can manage to have trucks on a live race track with amateur drivers. F1 can't have 20 of, supposedly, the worlds best drivers on a track without major issues.

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

I'm going to ask the usual question. Why does F1, once again, need a specialised solution for this? We have Safety Cars, F1 also has VSC, which have been used elsewhere for decades. There are slow zones and similar in other series. Why does F1 need something special again?

NLS can manage to have trucks on a live race track with amateur drivers. F1 can't have 20 of, supposedly, the worlds best drivers on a track without major issues.

Possibly because those twenty so called top drivers mostly, maybe not all, seem to believe that they must win at all costs; they cannot be trusted to "police" themselves. Case in point, and has been said in this discussion but not referenced any particular driver, was Bianci who, even knowing that a car had gone off the track in appalling conditions, barely slowed down at the same point. I am sure there have been plenty of other such incidents.

[Akrapovic]

Then you heavily penalise drivers for these actions.

Look at Suzuka last year. Gasly didn't slow down under yellow/red and then came across a tractor. And then everyone says how awful it was and said Gasly was the victim. Why wasn't Gasly sent home? If that happened on any other series the driver would be told to pack his suitcase - and in NLS case, it has happened.

Seems to be the issue is the FIAs inability to penalise the drivers for acting irresponsibly.

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

Then you heavily penalise drivers for these actions.

Look at Suzuka last year. Gasly didn't slow down under yellow/red and then came across a tractor. And then everyone says how awful it was and said Gasly was the victim. Why wasn't Gasly sent home? If that happened on any other series the driver would be told to pack his suitcase - and in NLS case, it has happened.

Seems to be the issue is the FIAs inability to penalise the drivers for acting irresponsibly.

Don't disagree at all. In fact, I have advocated this for years because I have long felt that whatever happens in F1 eventually, and sometimes very quickly, trickles down through all forms of motor racing.

I see this in those other branches of motorsport, where lower levels of the sport usually emulate what the drivers in the higher national classes are doing. For example, some of the saloon car racers in the UK will do what they think drivers in the BTCC are getting away with. And, unfortunately, some commentators almost encourage this behaviour, with comments such as they expect a bit of "rubbing", etc. during these close races. That's rubbish, because every regulation book that I have read for circuit racing states that it is a non contact sport, as it was in my days on the track.

[S griffin]

It's an interesting debate. F1 driving standards are usually not too bad, but it needs to come down on dangerous and/or dirty driving.

I don't think you can compare it to other series, we see great racing in plenty of series, close, competitive and clean. The BTCC has a bad rap, but it hasn't been that bad of late. Thing is there will always be a bit of contact in racing now and again, especially if the racing is quite close to front to back. Let's not get into the whole debate of what is and isn't acceptable, although drivers do need to make sure they race hard, whilst showing respect too.