2020 Barcelona Testng: Feb. 19th - 21st & Feb. 26th - 28th | Page 27 | FerrariChat

2020 Barcelona Testng: Feb. 19th - 21st & Feb. 26th - 28th

Discussion in 'F1' started by jgonzalesm6, Feb 6, 2020.

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  1. william

    william Two Time F1 World Champ
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    You are absolutely spot on there; it's not only about the offense, but the way you accept responsability.
     
  2. kraftwerk

    kraftwerk Two Time F1 World Champ

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    Yes I agree, I share the exact same sentiments.
     
  3. william

    william Two Time F1 World Champ
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    In the 50s, F1 was all about Alfa Romeo, Ferrari and Maserati, with a brief Mercedes episode.
    The early 60s brought the rear engine revolution and a proliferation of constructors in England: Cooper, Lotus, Lola, BRP, etc...
    Thanks to the availability of Coventry-Climax engines, Hewland gearboxes and other components, the "garagists" took over F1.
    Many engineers, technicians and mechanics of that era came from the aircraft industry.
    That's when the center of gravity moved from Italy to England
     
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  4. DeSoto

    DeSoto F1 Veteran

    Nov 26, 2003
    7,481
    Yes, well, it's complex story that even has to do with the existence of unused airfields converted into race tracks that favoured the apparition of makers of only race cars. In continental Europe, it has always been different: there are big car makers that also race them from time to time, but as always happens, big manufacturers come and go.

    Anyway, it has to be noted that the British "monopoly" of racing applies only to F1. In sports cars, touring cars and so on there is a lot more variety, and even in non F1 single seaters they've been wiped out from the market by Italian and French manufacturers. So I don't think that the pool of British engineering expertise and suppliers is so relevant. It's just than in the UK there are already existing teams available when someone out of the UK needs a F1 car.
     
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  5. william

    william Two Time F1 World Champ
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    Guy Ligier complained once that he was at a disadvantage because his F1 team was located in France.
    Before him, Gerard Ducarouge (once designer at Lotus) said that when he was chief engineer at Matra, he used to come often to UK.
    He couldn't find in France the cottage industry of small contractors that would make some parts at short notice.
     
  6. Igor Ound

    Igor Ound F1 Veteran

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    You talk like you were there with Dennis. How do you know that’s what happened and not just another bunch of lies orchestrated from Ron to keep his job? It caught up with him few years later when he had to resign for lying again anyway and we all saw how well it ended between him and Mclaren. The facts are the facts and they were lucky not to be thrown out of F1 altogether.
     
  7. william

    william Two Time F1 World Champ
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    I still don't think that Ron Dennis was the initiator of this. I think it may have started simply by 2 engineers exchanging data.
    Stepney acting out of spite against Ferrari because of a missed promotion, and Coughlan interested to get info from a rival team to poach some ideas and look more clever than he was.
    But obviously after a while, everyone at McLaren became aware, and that's where the scandal started.
    The design office must have shared it, the management (Dennis) knew about it, and the drivers gossiped about it.
    None of them blew the whistle. But who would have done it anyway, I ask?
    I think Coughlan was very careless in the way he handled the printing of the document. That's the way he was found out.
    Ron Dennis was very stupid denying anything about the incident: there were already too many skeletons in his cupboard.
    We have never heard if money changed hands; that's what I would have liked to know.
    I don't think we will ever get to the bottom of this, but it did cost at least 3 people their career.
     
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  8. DF1

    DF1 Two Time F1 World Champ

    https://www.planetf1.com/news/ferrari-engine-2/

    Ferrari’s rivals are said to be “shocked” and “angry” after the Scuderia reached an agreement with the FIA regarding last year’s engine controversy.

    Last season Ferrari’s power unit came to the fore, the best of the bunch, which led to speculation from rivals that not all was above board.

    Teams requesting clarification from the FIA, who issued two Technical Directives – relating to fuel flow rate.

    A third TD was later issued, informing teams that they will be running a second fuel flow sensor in the 2020 campaign.

    The matter of the legality of the Ferrari engine was by no means over with Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko saying Red Bull were ready to protest the Ferrari power unit come this year’s Australian GP.
     
  9. TonyL

    TonyL F1 Rookie

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    Marko protests at everything non Red bull! :)
     
  10. Igor Ound

    Igor Ound F1 Veteran

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    He’s always up for a scrap, should stop drinking that stuff
     
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  11. GordonC

    GordonC F1 Rookie
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    #661 GordonC, Mar 3, 2020
    Last edited: Mar 3, 2020
    How do I know? I read the FIA reports from the inquiries into the spygate scandal, for one thing, back in 2007. They contained an enormous amount of detail - too much, in fact, for the incompetent FIA redactors who tried to black out confidential team data used a simple PDF layer that could be turned off, revealing the data that was supposed to be kept hidden. It was the FIA themselves who revealed that Ferrari used CO2 in their tires then instead of nitrogen! That was also the subject of one of the email conversations between Alonso, De la Rosa, and Coughlan - according to Alonso's own testimony. For what it's worth, Alonso was fully involved in the cheating, knew of the existence of the Ferrari data AND of the 'back door' into Ferrari while Stepney still worked there. Hamilton was the only one of the three drivers who had not been involved or had knowledge of the use of Ferrari information; Alonso and de la Rosa kept him out of it, figuring they could use it to Alonso's advantage. Again, that was confirmed by the FIA after their second forensic investigation of McLaren that included searching all their email records.

    Very embarrassingly for Ron Dennis, the FIA agreed that Dennis had been kept out of the loop by the engineers and drivers until Alonso threatened to send incriminating emails to the FIA after the Hungary qualifying sessions. That was after the first FIA investigations that cleared McLaren of using the information. The FIA agreed that Dennis was not aware of the ongoing use of Ferrari information until that point in Hungary - it is stated clearly in the FIA hearing minutes and reports. It's embarrassing in that it highlighted how naive and unaware Dennis was of what was actually going on at McLaren under the covers - but it also confirmed that Dennis was not himself actually aware of the cheating use of Ferrari information, he stupidly believed it when his staff testified that it never went beyond Coughlan and he didn't dig deeper until after Alonso's blackmail attempt.

    Remember that it was Dennis himself who blew the whistle to the FIA after Alonso's Hungary qualifying blackmail threat, because Dennis at that point was confident that it was an empty threat and he wanted the FIA to confirm. Mosley confirmed this in several statements at the time. Prior to Dennis alerting Mosley after Alonso's Hungary threat, the FIA had actually investigated and cleared McLaren of use of the information, believing that only Coughlan had seen it. After Dennis blew the whistle, the FIA investigated more thoroughly and discovered the wider access to and use of the Ferrari information.

    Dennis didn't know about the sharing of the Ferrari documentation until after Hungary, as confirmed by the FIA. The design office never had it until well after the 2007 car was up and running, it was somewhere after the 2nd or 3rd race before Stepney delivered the full document set to Coughlan, and when the FIA examined the 2007 McLaren car they confirmed that no Ferrari designs were used on the 2007 car. Stepney was the disgruntled whistle-blower who told Coughlan about the illegal Ferrari hinged floor in Australia, and Coughlan engineered the query to the FIA about the hinged floor which resulted in a new test to prevent it's use subsequent to the Australia (both Williams and Toyota were using a similar illegal hinged floor, and all three had to change their floor design and construction for the next race).

    Somewhere the FIA must still provide access to those 2007 investigations and reports, go have a look. Also look up the investigations into the Renault case of possessing stolen McLaren information that same year - Renault actually had more McLaren data, and had used that data more widely and extensively throughout, than McLaren had and used of the Ferrari data... yet the FIA let Renault off with a slap on the hand, even though their crime was greater. Again, it's in the FIA reports - in the Renault case, Mosley had some excuse to justify not fining them despite the greater offense. Renault had McLaren data from September 2006 to October 2007 when it was discovered, and they had used the McLaren data when designing their 2007 car.

    Ron Dennis wasn't stupid in denying anything, he was naive and stupid for not knowing how much information was being shared and used behind his back - again, confirmed by the FIA in their report.

    Here you go, for your own reading and edification, courtesy the Wayback Machine: FEDERATION INTERNATIONALE DE L' AUTOMOBILE World Motor Sport Council Decision Re: Article 151(c) International Sporting Code – Vodafone McLaren Mercedes 13 September 2007 https://web.archive.org/web/20071022060508/http://www.fia.com/resources/documents/17844641__WMSC_Decision_130907.pdf
     
  12. SimCity3

    SimCity3 F1 Rookie

    Ron Dennis was obsessed with every single millimeter at McLaren.

    Whatever the FIA interpretations report, nothing missed his OCD laser.

    F1 is all about money.
     
  13. Igor Ound

    Igor Ound F1 Veteran

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    #663 Igor Ound, Mar 3, 2020
    Last edited: Mar 3, 2020
    Thanks for the lengthy clarification, well appreciated, but he was responsible for the crooked culture in his team and in my eyes still doesn’t fully prove Dennis didn’t know about it already. Probably just had his backside covered once Alonso was going to tell anyway. We’ll never know the complete truth especially now the main culprit is dead.
    Anyway what’s done is done and IMO Mclaren and Dennis ended up getting the fortune they deserved later on.
    Back to this year...
     
  14. DeSoto

    DeSoto F1 Veteran

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    Well, that was a long time ago, and Magny-Cours was in the middle of nowhere.

    Today many prototypes are made in France, and the Germans subcontract stuff in Italy. And of course, there is Dallara, that builds single seaters en masse.
     
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  15. Dilusha

    Dilusha Formula Junior

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    Apparently they all seem scared. :p
     
  16. DeSoto

    DeSoto F1 Veteran

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    What a cock up from FIA: "hey, we have an agreement, but we´re not gonna tell you because it´s a secret".

    If it´s secret shut the **** up!!
     
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  17. william

    william Two Time F1 World Champ
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    Todt and Brawn are both ex-Ferrari; that may explain why they want to keep things hush-hush.
     
  18. jgonzalesm6

    jgonzalesm6 Two Time F1 World Champ
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    Plus Nicolas Todt manages Leclerc.

    It's deeper and somewhat personal with Todt and Ferrari.
     
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  19. DeSoto

    DeSoto F1 Veteran

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    But that doesn't explain why they made a public announcement about that they have a secret.

    Unless the idea was to warn Helmut Marko that any complains about the 2020 engine will be dismissed based on the secret agreement.
     
  20. william

    william Two Time F1 World Champ
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    I think it's about "containment". They revealed there was an issue, but they already dealt with it.
    Now move on, there is nothing to see. They may have prevented the technical details to be fully exposed to protect Ferrari.
    It's difficult to understand their motive, that's for sure, hence the speculations.
     
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  21. furoni

    furoni F1 World Champ

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    More garbage from the leading toilet forum....sometimes i think if it's elton's dog who writes those articles...probably not, pretty sure the dog is smarter than that....
     
  22. kraftwerk

    kraftwerk Two Time F1 World Champ

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    Yes and rather ironic considering ,when Todt took over he stated that he was going to make the FIA more transparent, after taking over from Mosley's cloak and dagger management, if IIRC.
     
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  23. fer312t

    fer312t Formula Junior

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  24. furoni

    furoni F1 World Champ

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    What a load of crap, Todt and the FIA have completely lost the plot...how can they be so stupid to conceive this cock up!!!
    I mean, the way it was done, it damages everyone's reputation...
    1-Ferrari, now people can realy suspect there was something fishy and fia is covering it up...
    2-FIA, is trying to protect Ferrari and hiding facts!
    What a ****ing mess.
    I obviously don't know what was going on, although i suspect Ferrari found a loophole and exploited it...FIA couldn't punish them, or couldn't prove it, or obtained info ilegaly (there are talks of a new spycase), so they asked Ferrari to stop doing it, and explain how they did it, in order to prevent other from doing it. Probably there was an agreement, but maybe Ferrari didn't want to give info to the public and other teams, so the FIA can't really say what they found!
     
  25. freshmeat

    freshmeat F1 Veteran

    Aug 30, 2011
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