The 2021 F1 Season.
- Thread starter Tony Lockhart
- Start date
Full copy of stewards statement
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/full-stewards-verdict-brazilian-gp-hamilton-drs/6777946/
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/full-stewards-verdict-brazilian-gp-hamilton-drs/6777946/
Have you seen the FIA statement?
So far I can only find reference to the gauge that is used to assess whether it passes or not, not passing through the gap near the centre of the wing, but did further out and hence failed the test.
So at this point it might be due to design, to get round the rules, might be a manufacturing error, or somehow it might have got damaged.
The fact that BOT has not had his wing changed, as questioned by peterm above, is a bit odd to say the least.
In qualifying Lewis was extremely fast through all the speed traps compared to everyone else (including BOT) without a tow. Whereas in FP2 his speed trap speeds were much closer to everyone else (including BOT). Certainly not conclusive but does suggest that the current wing on Lewis' car is operating normally.
From the FIA statement it seems that if Mercedes asks permission to alter the replacement wing they would get that permission, meaning they can change the gap the original wing had on the replacement, meaning they could then use DRS legally. Lewis did not use DRS during FP2, dutch tv was following Lewis and explaining why he would need to be disqualified if the wing dimensions were different than those from the wing FIA has taken, parc ferme rules, and how he would be disqualified if he used DRS with the illegal gaps.
That makes much more sense as the rear wing is operating as expected and presumably has been through further scrutineering and so is known to work within the regulations.
I suspect (because this is how similar situations were handled at Merc when I was there and some of those people now work at RBR) that it would have been a placement student back at the factory, working in the race support room, cutting on car videos of wings and doing some photogrammetric analysis to determine predicted deflection at points across the rear wing. This would then have been supplied to Adrian Newey, who then notified the FIA with videos and measurement data.
Time differences could just be due to RBR wanting to have the analysis conducted correctly. When I was in charge of such things at Honda F1 in the mid 2000s, we would have made sure that we were correct, but let the TD and Chief Race Engineer know that we had suspicions and were investigating them as top priority.
On twitter the dutch reporter also stated that the FIA has not punished Lewis or Mercedes yet, he just didn't set a time in a legal car, so set no laptime. They can punish later after comparing new wing to the one they have confiscated, if they feel the wing was deliberately illegal, they are still gathering evidence he suggested.
Tony Lockhart
Avoiding Stress, at Every Opportunity
What a drive by Lewis Hamilton. In fact, without it this would’ve been another pointless sprint race.
Well done to Bottas for doing his job, and well done to Mercedes on tyre choices.
Well done to Bottas for doing his job, and well done to Mercedes on tyre choices.
It certainly was, amazing driving.
To some extent having the sprint race was lucky for Lewis as it gave him the opportunity to recover somewhat from the disqualification from qualifying.
Bottas did well to get and keep the lead.
cutting42
Arrived at B4 Hacker Ergo
Well well well, an exciting sprint race as long as you are HAM fan which fortunately I am. That Merc is pretty damn fast but what impressed me was the braking into turn 1, just nailed it every time especially the NOR pass. Lovely seeing Little Jack Horner blustering his way through interviews about immense speed and different formula speed differences trying his damndest to point fingers.
Toto was PISSED at the FIA wasn't he; really thought he would get a RB type pass for a broken bit of Merc, he should have known better really.
Should be a fun race tomorrow.
Toto was PISSED at the FIA wasn't he; really thought he would get a RB type pass for a broken bit of Merc, he should have known better really.
Should be a fun race tomorrow.
I can see why you would say that as 0.2mm is so small, that it suggests some insider knowledge, but I would be amazed if that was how RBR found out for the following reasons:
1. There are very few people who could have modified Lewis' rear wing (3 mechanics would have had access) and they work as a very strong team so I just cannot see them damaging the wing and then telling someone at RBR.
2. RBR and Merc have been following what the competitor's wings were doing very closely, and as such they were looking for differences in behaviour. Lewis' car had a massive speed differential with DRS over other cars (including BOT) and so probably resulted in an even more detailed analysis.
3. I haven't seen any of the on car video, but in 2004 we thought that we were making accurate enough photogrammetry measurements down to +/- 0.5 mm of rear wing displacements. Since then on car camera resolution has improved dramatically, there are more cameras on the car and off car camera have much greater resolution and so the accuracy will have improved.
But I do agree that this looks very odd.
The 0.2mm difference in gap cannot account for the large difference in DRS speed (incorrect for Wolf to say that it made its performance worse) with BOT, so that suggests to me that they have chosen a rear suspension setup that has weaknesses in some areas, but allows the rear wing to stall early on down the straight, and results in the large speed differences. There are tricks that you can use to do this, but it looks like they must refined this over the years and have minimised the downsides.
He is right that teams and the FIA have managed faults like this sensibly in the past. The technical delegate would have had a chat with the team manager or chief race engineer and it would all have been resolved without the press knowing about it. That works until the FIA feel that you are taking the mickey and then they will give you one final warning and then you will get a penalty. As Merc have been under a microscope in this area it could be that the FIA have found additional items and reached their limit, but I suspect that it is something else.
For years now Ferrari, RBR and the FIA have discussed how to stop Merc winning so easily and make it a close championship, by changing the rules. James Allison (current Merc TD, but was Ferrari TD) was heavily involved in this in the past. So after finally being successful with making a rule change that affected low rake aero more than high rake aero, I suspect that they are trying to find anything else that they can to slow Merc down just a little bit more.
It certainly should be.
The softs started to degrade about half way through the sprint race, but even with that degradation, BOT was able to hold VER as they had similar performance. As the field was so close together I could not see any degradation on the medium tyres and in fact it is difficult to tell with Lewis, as he passed the other cars so quickly.
clivem2
pfm Member
Interesting as always Ian! I was commenting somewhat tongue-in-cheek re RB but as you say..there are some odd aspects, ie that Newey is said to have made quite a detailed representation to the FIA.
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If you look at this piece of analysis from Sky, they have shown what Merc are doing. And correctly identified that it is much more effective on a low rake car.
This is what I was alluding to in earlier comments and has nothing to do with DRS as it is about the whole rear and diffuser stalling much earlier down the straight (so you have less drag for 80% of the straight and carry greater acceleration all the way down the straight) and as such, is a setup choice. The downsides are considerable and from what I remember from the F1 suspension working group minutes in 2019, there was a move to stop teams doing this.
This is what I was alluding to in earlier comments and has nothing to do with DRS as it is about the whole rear and diffuser stalling much earlier down the straight (so you have less drag for 80% of the straight and carry greater acceleration all the way down the straight) and as such, is a setup choice. The downsides are considerable and from what I remember from the F1 suspension working group minutes in 2019, there was a move to stop teams doing this.