Absolutely but other than that it's just another good reason to bin the Sprint format. This would not have happened if the teams had enough time to test.
F1 2023 Season
- Thread starter pauldyson1uk
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OK had time for the DQ to sink in , it’s happened, they broke the rules, got caught take the consequences.
My questions are, did Merc and Ferrari purposely lower Leclerc’s and Lewis’s car, knowing that the wear would be too much and risked not being checked ? If so that’s clear cheating is it not ?
Or did they run all 4 cars that low, right to the limit.
Or was it the fact there was only 1 FP and the wear was more than indicated.
I don’t for one minute think cheating was the issue, COTA is a bumpy track and lack of set up time is the issue.
Last one, how many cars did they check ?
My questions are, did Merc and Ferrari purposely lower Leclerc’s and Lewis’s car, knowing that the wear would be too much and risked not being checked ? If so that’s clear cheating is it not ?
Or did they run all 4 cars that low, right to the limit.
Or was it the fact there was only 1 FP and the wear was more than indicated.
I don’t for one minute think cheating was the issue, COTA is a bumpy track and lack of set up time is the issue.
Last one, how many cars did they check ?
Take me down to 9 I think
50% of the cars checked had excessive wear.
If the FIA checked all the cars, you might have had half the field DQd and some very wacky results.
If the FIA checked all the cars, you might have had half the field DQd and some very wacky results.
Well, the cars are picked based upon what the stewards see during the race I believe. So they probably saw more sparks and/or more porpoising from Hamilton and Leclerc's car than they did with Russell and Sainz. Russell's struggles compared to Hamilton also suggest his car was running higher. I think they took a risk based on an educated guess from the data in FP1 and in the end it didn't work out. It's what you get with the (crap) Sprint format. There's not enough time to test properly.
To answer your final question, the cars tested were those of Verstappen, Hamilton, Leclerc and Norris. The RB and McLaren were deemed legal, the Merc and Ferrari were not.
so salty. it’s f1, and rules are sometimes rules.
Cheers your points make sense.
Did not realise inspection was based on what the stewards saw.
Where any cars checked after the sprint race?
just hamilton’s.
Really screws me up as I had the correct podium. Can’t catch a break at all the last few racesTake me down to 9 I think
I also didn’t know this. I assumed the checks were random.
Shame Lewis didn’t get DQd from the sprint, then he might have scored more points in the race.
Brings back the possibility that Russell’s car is the actual competitiveness of the Merc
Found some more info on this in this Motorsport.com article if you're interested: https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/...f1-us-gp-disqualifications-10536707/10536707/
Especially this bit
Again cheers, did not know any of this, but reading, makes perfect sense. See and smell something is not right check it out.
Can’t wait to hear Toto’s and Horner’s views on this and Ferrari’s
The scrutineering notes only mention 4 cars - "A physical floor and a plank wear inspection was carried out on car numbers 01, 16, 44 and 04"
https://www.fia.com/sites/default/f...ed States Grand Prix - Race scrutineering.pdf
The track in Austin is very bumpy and notoriously hard on the wear of the cars floors. The Dutch ViaPlay interviewed Toto Wolf after the race, it was weird because Toto is usually brutally honest and in hindsight it was clear he knew something was up. The Mercs are trying things out for next season, he basically admitted they’re using the remainder with next years car in mind. Toto certainly didn’t seem too interested in the result yesterday. You do feel McLaren, Ferrari and the Mercs are slowly starting to catch up with the Red Bulls, the question is how far are RB ahead with developing next year’s car?
I thought all cars were checked after the race in parc ferme ?
"We just want F1 to be consistent in applying the rules"
-applies rules consistently with all the times this happened before-
"No, not like that!!"
That's how some people talking about this read.
Now I do think when you find some in violation, they should have probably checked the rest of the grid.
Thanks for translating my english post into english. Appreciated.
Not sure. Hamilton and Leclerc were significantly faster than Russell and Sainz in pretty much every event, other than when Leclerc’s race was ruined by the failed 1 stop strategy.
Apologies for being a bit of a dick. Only point I wanted to make is that one is not like the other. Id be very curious if George in particular ran his car as low too because if he didn't - that would explain why he was so far back/struggled a lot more.
Accepted.
Agree that it would be very interesting. Didn't Fernando also retire because of under-body damage? Would be really interesting to know how many of the 20 cars were affected. It also makes more sense that others could keep up with Max (by this seasons standard) if RB decided their speed advantage was enough to be really conservative on Max's car. ( him wanting to be left alone under braking makes more sense if he had less down-force than he's used to).
However despite that I'm also a bit skeptical how much advantage can be achieved if the skid plate is worn to the point the actual under-body makes contact. After all it's disrupting the air flow that is supposed to give you significant down-force.
Andrew Sholvin (Mercedes trackside lead), said they screwed up in FP1. Having not tested the car on track with high fuel load. Then going into parc fermme conditions. So unlike a usual weekend coulsnt adjust the ride height.
Mark Hughes from autosport said neither driver would have gained an advantage from the ridge height the cars were set at (leclerc and hamilton). Just a combibation of a bumpy track and not enough time for the teams to notice the wear.
I bet Sainz and Russell probably had illegal plank wear as well. Crazy that they dont test all the cars after a GP, every GP.
Mark Hughes from autosport said neither driver would have gained an advantage from the ridge height the cars were set at (leclerc and hamilton). Just a combibation of a bumpy track and not enough time for the teams to notice the wear.
I bet Sainz and Russell probably had illegal plank wear as well. Crazy that they dont test all the cars after a GP, every GP.
Mark Hughes is certainly wrong to state that neither driver would have gained an advantage.
They very well could have as ex engineers have said on twitter.
Ride height is a major factor on the pace of a car. Generally with this era the lower it is the quicker your car. Although not in every case.
For him to say it didn't give them extra pace is quite simply an assumption based on nothing.
There is a reason the teams try to run as low as possible.
Also other teams for example ran higher than usual sacrificing pace likely because they wanted to avoid any issues with plank wear. So it's all relative
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All prediction gone down the drain.
It reflects poorly on the FIA that all cars arent check after a GP and its random sample. Also why didnt FIA check plank wear after the sprint? They would have started to see the wear and could have instructed ferrari and mercedes to raise the floors.
Mistakes happen. Any suggestion it was done on purpose for performance gain is tin foil hat conspiracy.
https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/the-rule-breach-that-led-to-hamilton-and-leclerc-austin-dsqs/
"...However, there’s nothing to suggest that the Mercedes or Ferrari were running in a ride height range that would have transformed their pace either way.
Teams are also cautious about plank wear because it is almost inevitably an instant exclusion, so it would be absurd to deliberately take the risk just because it confers a performance gain..."
"..It’s reasonable to contend that neither Mercedes nor Ferrari would have tripped up on a normal weekend with three free practice sessions.
Mercedes was convinced this was what had gone awry in its case.
Trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin added: "Unfortunately, it is one of the pitfalls of the sprint format where we have a solitary hour of running before parc ferme.
"Without running at a race fuel load in FP1, combined with a circuit as bumpy as this and the parts of the track where the drivers have to put the car during the grand prix, have contributed to the higher than expected wear levels."
Not only do sprint weekends leave only a single practice session rather than three, but the set-up is locked when the cars enter parc ferme at the start of Friday afternoon qualifying.
That means subsequent changes would have led to having to start from the pits. Effectively, Ferrari and Mercedes were locked into this outcome on Friday.
I assume Mercedes and Ferrari would have checked their own plank wear after the sprint.
I did not suggest they did it on purpose to gain perferomance. They simply tried to get the best performance possible and obviously when they initially went with that setup they thought it would be within limits. But sadly for them that was not the case.
They likely knew from after the sprint that they might be at risk but changing would have meant a pit lane start. So they had the option to change if they wished.
It is what it is. Merc and Ferrari don't really have anyone to blame but themselves. Obviously the sprint makes it harder but that's why we saw other teams go with a very conservative ride heights and sacrifice pace to do so.
Sometimes you takes risks and they don't pay off. It is what it is.
TLDR: Every team knows the risk of running low to the ground. It's up to them to take as much or as little risk as they feel comfortable with.
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Cars should be checked before a race, and that's it. If they measure up good, then let them get on with it.
If Hamilton had "accidentally" gone off into the gravel after the sprint, surely that could have damaged the plank making all future checks moot! The fools! Always go off on your warm down lap.
If Hamilton had "accidentally" gone off into the gravel after the sprint, surely that could have damaged the plank making all future checks moot! The fools! Always go off on your warm down lap.
Down to a pathetic 9 points (worst ever I think) but it's saved me overall as only 1 point behind 1st when it was about 3 and kept my cushion over 3rd which had got worryingly close
Sprint format will be changed for 2024, due to lack of ticket salea for saturdays and the general boredom with the current format.
Reverse grid or reverse top ten being considered. As is a seperate sprint championship.
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/r...ong-ideas-for-f1-sprint-race-revamp/10537004/
Reverse grid or reverse top ten being considered. As is a seperate sprint championship.
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/r...ong-ideas-for-f1-sprint-race-revamp/10537004/
Get fecking rid of them. Cancer of the sport.
Why not race in reverse? Would make more fecking sense than reverse grid.
If they want to make Friday more interesting, I think they should have a Fri two free practice like normal but then a third one lap shootout bracket like formula e. Winner gets 5 WC points
not possible due to saftey grounds. moving techpro barriers etc etc.
What about Stars in a reasonably priced F1 car Saturday?
All drivers get a stock F1 car and they can only make limited setup tweaks, it's a separate run championship to sort out the best drivers and have lots of paint trading fun.
All drivers get a stock F1 car and they can only make limited setup tweaks, it's a separate run championship to sort out the best drivers and have lots of paint trading fun.
If they're going to continue with sprint as a format then they need to create some specific rules for it, I agree with @redshaw in having limited setup tweaks for that race. Pirelli should create a one off sprint compound so that we don't get the conservative approach from teams around tyres.
It's not different enough from the normal race. Perhaps Pirelli could develop a special sprint tyre that has enough grip for 15 laps. And then it's a battle of driver skill.
We have hard tyre for that. I would rather see them on softs as must, on two stints with one mandatory pitstop.
How fast can F1 reverse gears possibly be?