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Articles by Darren Galpin
| A Game of Tyres (and when is cheating not cheating) - Sun 08th May 2005 |
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The Spanish Grand Prix was all about tyres, but the story of the weekend was BAR and their court-case against the FIA in Paris.
The rumpus dates back to the San Marino Grand Prix. When Jenson Button’s car was taken to scrutineering after the race, it passed its weight check. However, the FIA must have been tipped off, as they then asked the team to drain the fuel tank. When the last drop of fuel came out, the FIA asked BAR if that was all of the fuel. They said it was, but it turned out that there was an extra tank within the main fuel tank, and when this was drained, the car came in 5.4 kg underweight.
This is where the complications start. BAR maintained that this tank was necessary to maintain the correct fuel pressure to the engine, and that if it wasn’t there, then the engine wouldn’t even run. Therefore they always kept the tank full, and with it full they were always over the 600 kg weight limit. The stewards of the meeting accepted the explanation and passed the car as OK. However, the FIA didn’t agree with the interpretation, as they argued that the car could run below the 600 kg weight limit during the race, and took the BAR team to the sporting court to prove their case.
The problem is that the rules are a touch vague in this area. The rules say that the car plus driver must weigh above 600 kg at all times, and that movable ballast cannot be used. It does not say that this is the dry weight of the car, i.e. the car minus any fluids. In fact, when they measure the car, it includes oil and water weights, so is in no way a dry measurement. BAR argued that they were always above the weight limit. The FIA said that the tank wasn’t necessary, and that the car could run with less fuel until the final pit-stop, and so be below the weight limit, and then they could put enough fuel in to make sure that the car passed the weight limit after the race.
What is interesting is the decision of the court, as they stated that BAR did not cheat, despite whatever has been claimed in the press. What the court did state is that the team was negligent in not clarifying with the FIA that what they were doing was legal, and they lacked transparency in what they were doing – they should have discussed everything with the FIA. The FIA accepted that their rules were not clear in this area. It might have been accepted practice that the weight of the car was expected to be the weight of the car with an empty fuel tank, but it didn’t say this explicitly in the regulations. Therefore BAR hadn’t technically cheated.
As a result, the exclusion of the team for three races seems extremely harsh, as the team had been proven to have not done anything against the rules. I believe that the FIA should have disqualified the team from the San Marino Grand Prix for breaking the spirit of the rules, re-written the rules for the Spanish Grand Prix to clarify what they meant, and then let the team compete as normal. The FIA is effectively saying that despite whatever the court has said, they believe that BAR was cheating. This is a very good way of winning friends and influencing people, especially given their arguments with the Grand Prix teams and manufacturers. They have probably made an even bigger enemy.
What stinks about this entire situation is why the FIA didn’t do anything about this before, as it is obvious that they knew about it. Takuma Sato finished the race in Australia, and would have had to pass scrutineering then, and it had the same fuel tank. And yet they did nothing. They waited until BAR finished in the points before pouncing. In addition, Max Mosley, President of the FIA, then went on TV and publicly stated that BAR had cheated. Surely BAR have a case for libel here given the verdict of the court? However, given that BAR didn’t appeal the verdict “for the good of the sport”, I doubt that they will push this further.
Talking about the good of the sport, Jean Todt in the past two weeks has proven that Ferrari don’t care when it comes to the good of F1. In an interview with Autosport, Jean Todt stated that the rest of the F1 teams should “respect” the fact that Ferrari haven’t tested as much as they could have done. He stated that they could have tested at Imola before the race, and could have tested every day, but that they chose not to. Why should Ferrari be penalized for owning Fiorano and Mugello? This shows the total disconnect between the Ferrari world view and everyone else. It costs something like £1000 or so per lap of testing, and Ferrari have done three or four times the amount of testing of anyone else. And Ferrari call this cost-cutting. They also complain that there are seven teams testing Michelin tyres, and only three testing Bridgestone’s, and therefore they need to do more testing than the others. That is purely down to Bridgestone building tyres only for Ferrari – McLaren used to use Bridgestone’s, and switched to Michelin exactly for this reason. Ferrari have only themselves to blame.
Ah, yes, I remember now, the race! The race was all about tyres, and how the various cars used them. Easiest on the tyres is the McLaren, and Kimi Räikkönen demonstrated how effective a car he has when it holds together. He reeled off lap record after lap record as he scampered off into the distance, and he had the race won after about 20 laps, when he was almost a full pit-stop ahead of the field. As long as his car held together, there was little anyone else can do. An interesting aside is that the fastest lap of the race, set by Giancarlo Fisichella on the last lap, was 1.5 seconds faster than the fastest lap in 2004, and this is despite a cut in down-force, tyres which must last an entire weekend, and engines which must last for two races. Development in the world of F1 seems to get increasingly rapid.
The fact that McLaren finally solved their reliability issues pushed Renault into showing a chink or two in their armour. Although Alonso finished in second place, with Fisichella fifth, he was pushed hard enough to blister his rear tyres, which shows that the balance of the car isn’t as good as that of McLaren. Lacking a lot of balance is the Williams, which was showing extreme tyre wear even at the final pit-stops, with the grooves of Webber’s front left almost completely extinct with twenty laps to go. They are fast enough to qualify well, but lack the balance to maintain that over a race distance. Also, Webber is showing worrying signs of being too easily overtaken during races. He had a reputation of being a hard racer while at Jaguar, but this is being fast eroded at Williams.
And what of Ferrari? I would suggest that they will be racking up many more thousands of expensive testing miles to sort out their tyre issues. What was shown quite clearly by the disastrous showing this time around was how well Bridgestone had made their decision at Imola. Ferrari were two seconds a lap faster than anyone else in Schumacher’s hands, yet weren’t really there at all at Barcelona. When the fuel burnt off, Schumacher could set competitive times, but otherwise it wasn’t ever going to be a winning combination this weekend. It all became academic when Schumacher suffered a tyre failure, followed shortly later by another failure and/or a suspension failure. With Barrichello finishing outside the points following an engine change in practice, it was a rare null point for Ferrari. Perhaps we haven’t yet seen the full potential of the F2005 this year, but the likelihood of a constructors and drivers championship double is looking less and less likely. That will give the boys in Maranello something to think about, and it will be a good test of their temperament. They aren’t used to losing, and it will be interesting to see whether they throw their toys out of their pram, or whether they can channel their disappointment into doing something about it.
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