Motorsport Off Topic Thread

Armageus said:
There is speculation that last year they had to use a lower fuel flow restriction as punishment for the 2019 cheating, and should be back to normal flow rate this year.
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I did see the rumours of that, I'm not sure I believe it personally but who knows. Seems a 'weird' arrangement - "We think you're cheating, but can't prove it, so lets come to some agreement that gimps you just for the next year, but you're not allowed to tell anyone you're being gimped..."
 
Armageus said:
There is speculation that last year they had to use a lower fuel flow restriction as punishment for the 2019 cheating, and should be back to normal flow rate this year.
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More likely they just had to use what everyone else was using, which meant they couldn't compensate for their poor aerodynamics with extra engine power.
 
SKILL said:
I did see the rumours of that, I'm not sure I believe it personally but who knows. Seems a 'weird' arrangement - "We think you're cheating, but can't prove it, so lets come to some agreement that gimps you just for the next year, but you're not allowed to tell anyone you're being gimped..."
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Steampunk said:
More likely they just had to use what everyone else was using, which meant they couldn't compensate for their poor aerodynamics with extra engine power.
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Whilst I don't read a huge amount into it, it keeps being circulated, so possibly some truth to it e.g. even in @JRS link above

Ferrari ailed to its worst season for 40 years in 2020 as it struggled with a draggy car design and poor power unit performance, the latter induced by a private settlement with the FIA over its 2019 engine.
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@Armageus - yeah, I can't quite decide if everyone is just citing the same piece of conjecture/projection/nonsense (choose your preference) with that or if it's genuinely true.

If it is true then I reserve the right to hang lampshades on the OcUK Motorsport forum's obsession with non-existent pro-Ferrari bias at the FIA ;)
 
Armageus said:
Whilst I don't read a huge amount into it, it keeps being circulated, so possibly some truth to it e.g. even in @JRS link above
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Yes, that settlement happened in secret after a big performance loss happened in the Ferrari engine when two things happened. Red Bull and other teams developed ways to cheat the FIA flow rate sensors and get more fuel into the engine than the sensor measured and got the FIA to declare these methods illegal. The FIA then added a second and more sensitive fuel flow sensor into the engines. Then the Ferrari engine performance dropped off a cliff.

Because of this the secret settlement is rumoured to have been the FIA catching Ferrari with the capability to cheat the fuel flow sensor, but not being able to prove that they actually did so. Ferrari had to lose their cheats (and the performance it gave them), and the FIA had to keep quiet about it all under the threat of legal action from Ferrari (and the probably the usual threats to leave F1).

Any other team would have been excluded from the championship, and massively fined into the tens of millions.
 
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There's some discussion of it over here:
https://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=21958&start=5550

basically it stems from a comment made by Mika Salo, but it's likely been mis-translated or taken out of context.

However it sounds like the 2020 engine was perhaps still designed for the 2019 fuel flow (i.e. with cheat), and therefore the Turbo etc wasn't sized adequately for lower fuel flow. The turbo has now been downsized for 2021, so perhaps should perform more optimumly etc.
 
Armageus said:
Whilst I don't read a huge amount into it, it keeps being circulated, so possibly some truth to it e.g. even in @JRS link above
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I take that part quoted to be more that due to them being found cheating, but not proved, so the 'settlement' was basically to use the right amount of fuel/no extra oil or whatever they were doing, not going beyond that to intentionally gimp them. But then who knows.

JRS said:
@Armageus - yeah, I can't quite decide if everyone is just citing the same piece of conjecture/projection/nonsense (choose your preference) with that or if it's genuinely true.

If it is true then I reserve the right to hang lampshades on the OcUK Motorsport forum's obsession with non-existent pro-Ferrari bias at the FIA ;)
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I'm so tempted... Ferrari International Assistance innit. :D :p

Armageus said:
There's some discussion of it over here:
https://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=21958&start=5550

basically it stems from a comment made by Mika Salo, but it's likely been mis-translated or taken out of context.

However it sounds like the 2020 engine was perhaps still designed for the 2019 fuel flow (i.e. with cheat), and therefore the Turbo etc wasn't sized adequately for lower fuel flow. The turbo has now been downsized for 2021, so perhaps should perform more optimumly etc.
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I think the latter is quite probably true, obviously the 2019 engine and maybe even 2018 were following a development path based on whatever cheating they were doing, and 2020 would inevitably have been going down that path as well. I think there were initially rumours of a new combustion chamber for 2020 that went very quiet when their performance dropped. So I would definitely expect gains in 2021, and following years, but after spending time going down the 'wrong' development path I'd expect they will be behind basically all the other teams engine wise now.

But who knows, we won't really see until the first qualifying session...
 
It's understandably raising some "ethics" questions amongst people who still aren't aware that F1 is solely, unapologetically only about the money (of which Saudi is paying a huge amount) and not the "sport".
 
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