F1: McLaren banned from '07 Constructors Championship.

[ShortysTRM]

Yep. McLaren has been banned from the 2007 World Constructors' Championship, fined $100 Million, and their 2008 car will be scrutinized by the WMSC to be sure it has no Ferrari-like qualities. Alonso and Hamilton's points are safe, and they can continue to battle for the Drivers' Championship.

If you don't know why, either look it up, or I'll explain later. Feel free to give your opinion...

:uhoh:

[SentraWV]

Alonso and Hamilton's points are safe, and they can continue to battle for the Drivers' Championship.

This I don't get. If Mclaren cheated during the races, how do they're results stand? I'll be blogging about this, I imagine.

NP: Boud Deun, Astronomy Made Easy

[johnnytavo]

I was going to post something about this, but you beat me too it Troy

[SentraWV]

More of my thoughts here (http://infinityranch.blogspot.com/2007/09/what-punishment-for-cheaters.html).

[ShortysTRM]

I thought this penalty was a bit confusing, if not drastic. I knew today's FIA press release would shed light on it, though, and it defnitely has. I think they deserve it, though I'm not so sure that the drivers' points shouldn't have been altered, too.

Details from SpeedTV.com:

F1: FIA Reveals McLaren Judgment Details
Written by: Adam Cooper, RACER Magazine
Paris, France – 9/14/2007


The FIA has published a 14-page document detailing the findings of the World Motor Sport Council in respect of McLaren.

The document has Max Mosley’s name at its conclusion, which suggests that he has personally overseen every word of it.

The document outlines the new evidence that led to Thursday’s reconvening of the WMSC to discuss the spy saga. As previously revealed, much of it revolves around contact between Mike Coughlan, McLaren test driver Pedro de la Rosa, and Fernando Alonso.

Copies of emails from de la Rosa are reproduced, including messages where he asked Coughlan about Ferrari’s weight distribution. In another he tells Alonso of information that came direct from Nigel Stepney, including mention of Stepney telling Coughlan on what lap Kimi Raikkonen would stop in the Australian GP.

There is also a discussion of a gas that Ferrari used to inflate its tires to reduce the internal temperature and blistering. Although in the FIA document the details have been censored, this is believed to have been nitrogen.
The FIA concluded there was a lot more Ferrari information used by McLaren than the British team admitted. (LAT photo) MORE PHOTOS




In addition to Coughlan’s contacts with de la Rosa, the WMSC also heard more details about the degree of contact between Coughlan and Stepney, thanks to information provided by the Italian police.

It is claimed that “at least 288 SMS messages and 35 telephone calls appear to have passed between Coughlan and Stepney between 11 March 2007 and 3 July 2007.”

De la Rosa claims that he did not discuss the information he gleaned with anyone else within the McLaren team.

However the WMSC clearly does not believe him and its conclusions appear to be based largely on the supposition that he must have talked to others. The same goes for Coughlan, and the WMSC clearly believes that he was aided in doing his duties for McLaren by information that he had gleaned from Stepney.

Key conclusions include the following:

• Coughlan had more information than previously appreciated and was receiving information in a systematic manner over a period of months;
• The information has been disseminated, at least to some degree (eg to de la Rosa and Alonso), within McLaren;
• The information being disseminated within the McLaren team included not only highly sensitive technical information but also secret information regarding Ferrari’s sporting strategy;
• De la Rosa, in the performance of his functions at McLaren, requested and received secret Ferrari information from a source which he knew to be illegitimate and expressly stated that his purpose was to test in the simulator;
• The secret information in question was shared with Alonso;
• There was a clear intention on the part of a number of McLaren personnel to use some of the Ferrari confidential information in its own testing. If this was not in fact carried into effect it was only because there were technical reasons not to do so;
• Coughlan’s role within McLaren (as now understood by the WMSC) put him in a position in which his knowledge of the secret Ferrari information would have influenced him in the performance of his duties.

McLaren argued that there was no evidence of Ferrari intellectual property featuring on its car. However the WMSC said that “neither the finding of a breach nor the imposition of a penalty require evidence of McLaren having directly incorporated Ferrari technology.”

In addition the WMSC said that it had concluded that “some degree of sporting advantage was obtained, though it may forever be impossible to quantify that advantage in concrete terms.”



Some more "exclusive" information:

F1 EXCLUSIVE: McLaren Listened to Ferrari Radio, Says Raikkonen
Written by: Adam Cooper, RACER Magazine
Spa, Belgium – 9/14/2007


One of the key submissions to the World Motor Sport Council on Thursday came from Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen, we can reveal.

The Ferrari driver stated in writing that while he was at McLaren from 2002 until 2006 the team systematically listened to Ferrari’s radio transmissions, which are supposed to be scrambled.

This was put to Ron Dennis in Paris on Thursday, and reportedly a long silence followed before he came up with a reply.

Intriguingly, the Kimi evidence was not part of the report released by the FIA today, and thus has not reached the public domain until now.

Ironically in July Mika Salo revealed to a Finnish newspaper that when at Ferrari in 1999 he regularly received transcripts of Mika Hakkinen’s radio conversations.

Unfortunately for Salo he was driving a Ferrari at the Spa 24 Hours the week that story emerged. A “correction” was soon sent from Maranello explaining what the Finn had meant to say was that in those primitive days sometimes teams accidentally overheard the conversations of rivals…

[SentraWV]

• The information has been disseminated, at least to some degree (eg to de la Rosa and Alonso), within McLaren;
• The secret information in question was shared with Alonso;

This makes the penalty even more confusing. Alonso was in on the dirty deeds but gets to keep his points, while the team loses theirs? BS, I say!

http://www.countingcows.de/baeh1_boese.gif

Thanks for posting that info, Troy. http://avalonsoftware.org/foro/images/smiles/mano2.gif

[ShortysTRM]

Yeah, I'd have to agree, but they offered the drivers amnesty for the evidence they submitted.

The craziest part is that we now know that Ron Dennis himself brought the new evidence to light. It is rumored that Alonso was intending to use the evidence to "blackmail" McLaren into contractual changes, among other things. Instead of giving in, Ron Dennis turned the evidence in himself. If you know anything about the tensions rising at McLaren, especially with Fernando, you know this has been a long time coming.

[SentraWV]

Methinks there was a little bit of automotive karma at work in Brazil today!

:f1:

[SeanB]

Ferrari for teh win!!!

I should repaint the CRX in Ferrari F1 livery.

[ShortysTRM]

I'd love to start talking about how great the season was, but there's yet another asterisk to add to the record book. Because Rosberg, Heidfeld, and Kubica were found to have fuel that was 12-14 degrees C below ambient temperature at the fuel rig nozzle, which is outside the 10 degree window of allowance, Hamilton may still win the championship. They finished 4th, 5th, and 6th, ahead of Hamilton in 7th, and if they're DQ'ed from the race, Hamilton will win the championship by 2 points. Though the stewards determined there would be no penalty, McLaren, of course, has appealed the decision.

[SentraWV]

I've got an idea - how about we just call "do over," force Alonso to stay with McLaren, and do it all again next year?

[ShortysTRM]

I'm down with that, so long as Ferrari can keep their information to themselves this time around.

[RallyEX]

I've only been paying attention to F1 for about 3-4 years now, with interest building each year, so there are certain rules / regs that I might not be aware of.

My concern with this "discrepancy" in fuel temps is why would it occur, and if so, what's all the fuss about? Such a discrepancy would (I think) be due to using a more dense fuel than allowed. The FIA requires a sample of the fuel being provided by the vendor be submitted before a race. Once the checkered flag has fallen, the FIA reserves the right to pull a sample from the car and compare it against the "fingerprint" sample provided by the vendor prior to the race. If the samples don't match, there is usually swift and severe punishment. I would think that if they were so concerned over this, we'd have heard about a difference in the blend samples by now.

McLaren lost the title due to driver mistakes, and Kimi (who generally has the worst luck in F1) got a lucky break. He won 2 more races than anyone else this season, he deserves it.

All things being equal, it was a fair fight IMO. One of Ferrari's engineers went rogue and passed along trade secrets. McLaren didn't benefit from them (that we know of). Concerning the drivers.. Hamilton, Alonso and Raikkonen all had a fantastic season despite the negativity surrounding their situations.

[ShortysTRM]

The theory I heard was that the predicted temperature for the day was much lower than the actual, and that the team may not have changed settings to compensate. Peter Windsor said that the predicted/actual temp difference was the highest it's been in decades, IIRC.

[SentraWV]

I think that's backwards, Troy. The temp was higher than predicted (same reason the super-soft Michelins sucked) by a wider margin than ever before. But the end result is the same - the teams didn't change settings to compensate.

DP: Trey Gunn, Live Encounter

[RobbieNelson]

I think that's backwards, Troy. The temp was higher than predicted (same reason the super-soft Michelins sucked)

Reread his unedited post. That's what he said. He just used different words to say it.

Now playing: Brittany Spears, Gimme More (j/k)

[ShortysTRM]

Yeah, that's what I meant.

My unedited post? Did it get edited? :confused:

[SentraWV]

My bad - that's what I get for posting from work!

[RobbieNelson]

My bad - that's what I get for posting from work!

Sadly, my "work" has banned most of the internet. I'm blocked from forums, blogs, anything regarding a game, picture searches... which has to be like 90% of the net. I'm even blocked from engineering forums and I'm an engineer working for an engineering department. Sigh...

They haven't blocked google's cache or Wikipedia yet.

[ShortysTRM]

Well, today's big F1 headline is that they've enacted a freeze on engine development for the next 10 years. I don't even know how to react to this besides hoping it's all a big internet hoax. They had huge plans to bring back turbos, start using alternative/hybrid drivelines, etc.. I guess they opted out of that at the last minute just like they did with allowing customer cars for 2008.

[SentraWV]

Wonder how fast the UK press finds a new golden boy, with Hamilton packing up for Switzerland (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsport/formula_one/7068001.stm) in order to avoid the excess tax . . . er "publicity."