r/F1Technical • u/some_guy30 • Jul 28 '24
Regulations Hypothetically, if Russel crashed the car just after he won, would he have evaded disqualification?
I know there is no cooldown lap at spa, so assume Russel just crashes on the straight. He loses significant amounts of his car. Would he retain the win, as his car wouldn’t be weighed (or if it is weighed, it would obviously be below min weight but for good reason I.e. pieces of car have come off) ?
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u/Jeff_Banks_Monkey Jul 28 '24
The team radio for that sure would have been interesting
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u/big_cock_lach McLaren Jul 29 '24
Lol what happened to all of the replies getting deleted?
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u/SellMeSomeSleep Jul 29 '24
They were probably replies trying to make a joke rather than staying on the topic seriously as per the rules of this sub.
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u/big_cock_lach McLaren Jul 29 '24
Yeah seems like you’re right. 3 were removed for being a joke, 3 were removed for low quality, 2 of which were replies to a joke. I’m guessing those 2 replies got deleted for being off topic or maybe someone got upset by the joke but who knows.
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u/No_Lychee_7534 Aug 26 '24
It’s getting downvoted but it’s such an important rule for this kind of sub. The entire top comments of Reddit is just a shit post for likes. You have to wade through crap to get to the real discussion about the topic at hand. I like this rule.
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u/n4th4nV0x Jul 29 '24
"Ok, George. The wall is faster than you. The wall is faster than you. Please confirm you understood the message."
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u/B3Biturbo Jul 28 '24
If a driver damages his car during the race it could be theoretically that his car is underweight but then the team is allowed to change the broken part(s) with a new item from the same spec.
So in your situation, the damaged parts needs to be the parts that are underweight and then needs to be changed with the legal parts in order to be at weight. But in practice: you then have a lighter front wing for example, why would you then produce a heavier one which is homologated and which is used in every practice session (in qualifying you could be weighed) but then changed during the race for the lighter one. It will lose you time in the pits and it would be to costly.
And someone crashing after the finish? Vittorio Brambilla once won his first raced and crashed after getting over the finishline back in 1975 and in 1993 two Minardi’s crashed at Monza at the finish.
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u/Zinjifrah Jul 28 '24
But isn't it most likely that ballast (vs a valuable part) was the difference in the weight calibration?
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Jul 28 '24
Saw somewhere a comment that said only doing 1 tyre stop could easily have accounted for the 1.5kg the car was underweight.
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u/Zinjifrah Jul 28 '24
I don't disagree. But the way to compensate for that wouldn't be by changing equipment. It would be by adding ballast.
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u/Economy_Link4609 Jul 29 '24
Add to that that unique to Spa they have no major chance to pick up rubber on the cooldown lap. Quick U around Turn 1 and into the pit exit.
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u/PrettyPoptart Jul 29 '24
What? That makes no sense
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u/eidetic Jul 29 '24
Well, they're saying it was 375g off each tire, and he did do a longer stint on his last set of tires than anyone else in the race. Combine that with no cool down lap to pick up marbles, and maybe?
But I feel like it's more likely something else causing them to be underweight.
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u/myurr Jul 29 '24
That also sounds... predictable by the team, so something they should have know and done something about prior to reaching the scales.
Something else is definitely up. Seems far more likely they forgot to add some ballast due to procedural cock up, that was perhaps exposed by the tyre strategy.
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u/stillusesAOL Aug 06 '24
Potentially just careless, risky engineering habits gone a bit too far, exposed (as you said) by the one-stop. They may have gotten into the habit of running that thing very close to the weight limit (as evidenced by George’s recent premature quali ending where he missed the track at its fastest). It could’ve been just one or two decisions to push it just a little beyond where the data said was optimal and safe, not accounting for the differences in marble pickup and worn out one-stopped tire weight.
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u/splashbodge Jul 29 '24
We have had occasions where drivers have done 1 stop before tho and this has never been an issue. We've had cases where drivers have driven the tyres down to the carcass and it wasn't an issue before... George's tyres weren't down to the carcass, in fact they looked pretty good, he never had the fall off the cliff with them.
Even if 1.5kg was from the tyres, don't they weigh the car without the tyres, it is the car weight after all. I know in Ted's notebook you could see them taking the tyres off and weighing the car again, so they either weighted it without tyres or they replaced the tyres to find out what the true weight was
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u/eidetic Jul 29 '24
Even if 1.5kg was from the tyres, don't they weigh the car without the tyres, it is the car weight after all.
No, they weigh them with the tires. This is literally why drivers are instructed to pick up loose rubber on their cool down lap, just to make absolutely sure they have some extra weight just in case to be safe.
Like I said, that was just the team's explanation, I suspect something else is at play here.
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u/splashbodge Jul 29 '24
That's weird, if a part was broken due to a crash they would replace it with a like for like part for the weigh in. Why wouldn't the same be true for worn tyres then, replace it with non worn tyres for the weight... Or weigh without tyres and add on the typical tyre weight.
Are you sure it includes tyres
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u/eidetic Jul 29 '24
Yes I'm sure. They literally roll the cars straight onto the scale. This is something you can easily Google too.
They are weighed with the tires because a car must always be above the minimum weight throughout the entire race, including tire wear.
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u/splashbodge Jul 29 '24
The reason I question it is because you could in theory finish the race with a puncture and the tyre partially destroyed. Like Lewis in Silverstone a few years ago. Normally if it were a car part damaged they'd replace it with an equal part for the weigh in. Do they do the same if a tyre is destroyed - if not that seems a bit unfair as it is no different than a damaged component, like when they'd lose their bargeboard back in the day. If they did replace the destroyed tyre with a new one for weigh in then I don't see why tyre wear should even matter for this.
It seems weird to me. They drain the fuel from the car for the weigh in but could easily take the tyres off too and only count the actual car without wheels. I just don't think a cars minimum weight should include the tyres & fuel.
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u/Select_Worldliness94 Jul 29 '24
Yes but still his car was on the exact min weight so even with 1kg more rubber he would’ve been under and why has it never happened before.. was definitely a fuel ballast the reason they were telling them to lift and coast.
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u/fastf1cars Jul 29 '24
The minimum weight is measured with no fuel on board. Ballast is added to bring the driver + race suit + helmet + seat up to the 78 kg minimum. This is purely an issue about the car, and as the team has said it's likely entirely explained by the lack of in-lap to pick up marbles.
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u/Select_Worldliness94 Jul 29 '24
Why did Mercedes leave so much fuel in the car after saying they had drained it?
I’m not the only one saying it…
“Yet the question now will be is whether Lewis Hamilton’s car is also weighted. Further, was this a Mercedes plan to disguise an underweight car by hoping the FIA 1 litre fuel extraction would be the only amount of fuel removed?”
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u/fastf1cars Jul 29 '24
This is pure conjecture, but perhaps if a car's weight is close enough to the limit that it warrants draining 100% of the fuel to be sure of the weight then that's what they do, otherwise they decide it's not worth the effort?
Here's what the technical delegate said:
After this, fuel was drained out of the car and 2.8 litres of fuel were removed. The car was not fully drained according to the draining procedure submitted by the team in their legality documents as TR Article 6.5.2 is fulfilled.
I am interpreting this to say "we removed the amount of fuel we needed for tests, but did not do the additional work required to remove 100% of the fuel."
Then:
The car was weighed again on the FIA inside and outside scales and the weight was 796.5 kg.
So, "we removed enough fuel to do our sampling and that alone put them under the weight limit, we don't need to do the extra work to drain it to confirm the car is illegal."
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Jul 29 '24
Has anyone managed the 44 laps at Spa with only 1 tyre change? Given the weight of the tyres / wheels now I can see how the discrepancy could have occured - the comment came from someone "high up" within F1.
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u/Select_Worldliness94 Jul 29 '24
Quite hard to find the stats now after the commotion yesterday.. but never mind Spa when has it ever happened? They used fuel as a ballast and got caught out and are using tyres to avoid further penalties like Brawn did
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u/fastf1cars Jul 29 '24
They didn't use fuel as ballast because they know the car will be drained by the procedure the teams submit for homologation and the weight is calculated without fuel on board.
As for "it's hard to find the stats now," no, it is not. Alonso did a one-stop yesterday and his car was legal.
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u/Select_Worldliness94 Jul 29 '24
They normally only take a 1L sample.. this time they decided to drain it and found a breach in Mercedes SOP.
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u/fastf1cars Jul 29 '24
Perhaps you have it inverted and they decided to drain it fully because it was so close to the weight limit that they needed to be sure, when normally they have enough information to say that removing the remaining fuel would not put it under the weight limit?
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u/fastf1cars Jul 29 '24
Alonso did a one stop yesterday.
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Jul 29 '24
Only saw highlights - hadn't realised Fernando had done similarly...
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u/fastf1cars Jul 29 '24
It’s an honest mistake but pit stop summary graphics are easy to find and would have shown that four cars used a single stop strategy yesterday
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u/Dando_Calrisian Jul 29 '24
Only if he'd somehow worn an extra 1,5kg off the tyres, doesn't seem likely
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u/uristmcderp Jul 29 '24
So Russell would have had to damage the ballast and leaked fluid everywhere. But even then, they had already declared how much ballast they used before the race, so they can't change the amount or type of fluid they used. They'd need to come up with a heavier container system to account for the extra weight they'd need.
FIA only does occasional spot tests, but they have the reported weights of every part that goes on a Formula 1 car before and after every race weekend, and driver gets weighed before and after each race. They can add up all the constituent parts if they felt like investigating underweight cars, and it would be on the teams to explain the discrepancy.
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u/Select_Worldliness94 Jul 29 '24
Yes it is… ballast is the main reason. If they never drained 2.8L of fuel it would’ve been over the mark.
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u/IndependentRepairMan Jul 29 '24
According to rule book (Sporting Regulation 2024, Articles 35.3), underweight is fine if a car is damaged.
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u/AUinDE Jul 28 '24
Maybe if a non Mercedes crashed into him?
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u/StructureTime242 Jul 28 '24
i Dont know if the FIA would weigh the car with an identical part if its a small amount of damage like front wing having a flap or even the whole wing clipped off
But id take the 200-250 ish k a wing cost for 25 points
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u/Other-Barry-1 Jul 28 '24
I think that is what they have to do - weighed with identical parts. Though one would suspect the FIA would have to watch the rebuild to make sure they didn’t add weight
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u/tango101-official Jul 28 '24
…. I guess if he had known, but some risk to take? (As he crossed the line, would be a good point to do it)
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u/WVY Jul 28 '24
Cross the line and loose the front wing. Seems doable
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u/sidewinderaw11 Jul 28 '24
it's happened in F1 before.... and would be a mixup of that and crashgate
Wikipedia on Vittorio Brambilla, AKA "The Monza Gorilla" on his first and only victory:
"His great day came at the Österreichring in 1975, when he won a wet Austrian Grand Prix. He spun off and wrecked the nose of his car as he took the chequered flag, and completed his slowing down lap with the front of the car destroyed while waving to the crowd."
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u/Formulafan4life Jul 28 '24
Or just turn in to late at the hairpin and not make the pitlane exit
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u/Silver996C2 Jul 28 '24
The marshals are standing on the track stopping you from going anywhere but pitlane.
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u/Independent_Lab3872 Jul 28 '24
I feel like this was theorized to have happened in NASCAR once with Jimmy Johnson. I can’t remember what race or if it actually happened, but I think the theory was that he intentionally damaged the car doing donuts to cover the fact that his fenders were flaired out too much.
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u/therealdilbert Jul 28 '24
it has been alleged many times, and one crew chief was caught on camera telling his driver to make sure to damage the back of his car if he won
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u/Olhapravocever Jul 29 '24
That 100% happened lol the crew chief was even caught saying that to the driver
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u/ihatemondaynights Jul 28 '24
i mean FIA has telemetry, even without that just zooming after the finish line would be immediately suspicious for anyone watching lol even for casuals let alone FIA.
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u/DriftingSifting Jul 28 '24
Celebratory weave and fuck it up, easy enough to do with plausible deniability.
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u/GeckyGek Jul 28 '24
maybe but the cost cap and parts limitations prevent that from being incentivized
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u/harrisoncassidy Jul 28 '24
Well 18 points lost for constructors so say it was 1mil of damage then that’s only 55k a point which isn’t too bad
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u/GeckyGek Jul 28 '24
sure but you risk damaging other stuff that has limits on how often it can be replaced
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u/com487 Jul 28 '24
If he did it right he could just break front suspension and still claim that it messed with the weight
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u/GeckyGek Jul 28 '24
yes, but how would you explain that? they have telemetry so making it look accidental would be very difficult, especially since you aren’t meant to be pushing at all after a race. the penalty for unsafe driving after could well be worse than whatever gains you’d get from being slightly underweight
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u/com487 Jul 28 '24
Just say no comment, let the FIA cry, eat the public scorn and take the win
Edit: autocorrect
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u/Blothorn Jul 29 '24
It’s not enough to just claim that it messed with the weight; you need to convince the stewards that it actually did, and that despite the FIA having access to your inventory of spare parts (including measured weights, CAD drawings and other engineering documentation, etc.) it’s impossible to verify that claim.
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u/Accomplished-Lab-198 Jul 28 '24
The same George Russel who spun a Williams around behind a safety car keeping tires warm?
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u/Equivalent-Weird3749 Jul 28 '24
What if he "forgot" that there was no cooldown lap and "accidentally" picked up discarded marbles on his way back?
Not that he would have had enough fuel to do this
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u/Mr_Otterswamp Jul 29 '24
That was my thought as well. Would be more helpful than forgetting to drain the car completely.
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u/Jack_Krauser Jul 30 '24
I think there were marshals standing on the track guiding them in. It would be pretty hard to say you didn't notice all the orange and white wearing pedestrians.
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u/Equivalent-Weird3749 Jul 30 '24
Yeah, I realised afterwards that might be the case. Still, it might be an easier mistake to explain to the stewards than somehow binning it between the finish line and the hairpin with marshals on the track.
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u/Prasiatko Jul 28 '24
Thining of Vettel 2017 i suppose there must be some way to allow an exception. That said if you were to very obviously do it yourself.
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u/-Racer-X Jul 29 '24
They weigh parts when they are changed I believe fwiw for this exact reason
People used to use water and lead to cause cars to make weight post race so they already try to account for this situation
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u/Visual_Humor_8461 Jul 29 '24
Possibly a naive question but have FIA ever adopted an approach of weighing the cars at the start of the race, then let them have at it? Surely theres enough scrutiny on things like oil burning and fuel flow rates. If it is to guard against cars shedding ballast parts on purpose, could that be penalised by black/orange flagging anyone suspected of this? I guess that could leave open the possibility of water-filled voids being dumped after scrutineering..?
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u/vmaxmuffin Jul 29 '24
Not quite the same but long ago used to allow teams to replenish cooling fluids in the car prior to weighing. This went wrong in 1982 when Williams invented "water cooled brakes", which was basically a system to let them dump out a whole bunch of water in the opening few laps, run underweight, and then refill the system prior to the weigh in.
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u/Prasiatko Jul 29 '24
Early Nascar had that. It lead to stuff lile carrying lead shot in part of the frame covered by a hatch that would fall off at high speed and dunp the weights.
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u/StuBeck Jul 28 '24
Unlikely because he would have had to have a reason to crash the car. If they intentionally knew it was underweight and ran it that way, they’d be up for a race ban or two for trying to hide it.
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u/Select_Worldliness94 Jul 29 '24
No because they are allowed to replace any missing parts before being weighed
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u/teamswiftie Jul 29 '24
So fresh tires at proper weight/no wear?
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u/Select_Worldliness94 Jul 29 '24
They apparently were trying that after the disqualification.. not sure of the outcome, it’s not the first time in history a car has won off of one stop but the first time they are blaming tyre wear for being below weight as far as I know.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Can9159 Jul 31 '24
It’s remarkable that they are that close on weight that this messes it up.
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u/Spartan_Millenium Jul 28 '24
The ability to pick up clag on the tires during the cool Down lap at spa cost him. There is your 2kg right there. Slight miscalculation.
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u/madewithgarageband Jul 29 '24
i don’t understand how that works. Do you just drive slow and pick up the spent rubber on the track by it sticking to your tires?
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u/noethers_raindrop Jul 29 '24
Exactly this. You drive off-line wherever the most marbles are and a lot of them stick.
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u/madewithgarageband Jul 29 '24
ah that makes more sense. Thats ridiculous lol, F1 is really a game of inches and grams
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u/joyous-flute559 Jul 28 '24
Do they have to drive a cool down lap or can you stop after you cross the finish line?
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u/Disastrous_Answer787 Jul 28 '24
I believe as per the rules the car is meant to be able to get back to parc ferme without assistance, so if you run out of fuel on a cool down lap you would have to face the stewards as you’ve had an advantage all race of being under fueled. Rarely been enforced from memory though.
Edit - obviously Spa there is no cooldown lap, I think you were talking about races in general though?
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u/joyous-flute559 Jul 28 '24
Correct, I meant in general. I thought if you ran out of fuel you get disqualified because the stewards wouldn’t be able to take a sample
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u/Aussiehash Jul 29 '24
Your team could instruct you to pull over and walk to save fuel, to ensure that there was enough left in the tank to provide a sample.
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u/Disastrous_Answer787 Jul 28 '24
Ah yeah that happened to someone recently didn’t it, maybe a Haas or something? There are some famous clips of people getting rides on top of other cars back to the pits coz they’ve broken down or run out of fuel, I don’t think they were disqualified from memory, just slaps on the wrist for safety.
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u/DasGaufre Jul 29 '24
The most recent out of fuel incident I remember is Vettel in 2021 with Aston Martin.
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u/daan944 Jul 29 '24
You can stop, but I suspect not without valid reason. E.g. Checo did so in Baku (2021, if I recall correctly) as they feared there was something wrong with the car.
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u/Alarmed-Secretary-39 Jul 29 '24
I'm pretty sure there is a rule allowing you to replace part for part. I think of Alonso's accident at Brazil in 2003.
Unless they picked up all the bits and weighed them!
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u/marcc28 Jul 28 '24
If you or your car can’t undergo the required testing (weighing,fuel samples) etc, you will be disqualified
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