F1 after race car weight

Thrasher

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I was reading an article about Robert kubica being disqualified in Hungary after the race when his car was 2lbs under-weight. It says this was because of excessive tire wear. I think this is incredibly stupid because although the car might be 2lbs lighter, you would have to think that the tires would have horrible grip at that point meaning that there really wouldn't be any advantage because of the lower weight.

So anyway, I can understand disqualification for being underwieght deliberately (like in the 80's when one ofthe teams had water cooled brakes, the car was weighed with the water, then it was drained before the race to make the car lighter) But I am wondering what does the FIA do if a car is underweight for other reasons that does not give an advatage or actually makes the car at a disadvantage? Some situations I can think of might be finishing a race with a missing wheel or tire, or with a missing wing. Also, I would figure that the driver loses some amount of weight during the race (theres nothing the driver can really do control about that) which might be a problem if the car is weighed with the driver.
 
But then everybody has the very same conditions and everybody gets weighed... Doesn't get any fairer, IMO...
 
Hmmm, I wonder if you could store some helium in an F1 car somewhere. :think: :lol:
 
The 'excessive tyre wear' was actually just the (weak) excuse used by BMW, it's not an official reason.
 
Yeah, but if you look at all the drivers on the "cool down" lap after the race is over, they all drive off the racing line to make sure that their (very hot) tires pick up as much rubber as posible to add a kilo or two to the weight of the car...
 
^ I can't imagine the teams actually rely on that build-up to get the cars to the legal weight though.
 
well, they'd be stupid to do so. But it does make you wonder why they do it...
 
fbc said:
The 'excessive tyre wear' was actually just the (weak) excuse used by BMW, it's not an official reason.
Wrong. The FIA officially told the press that it was due to excessive tyre wear, and that it was unintentional. BMW didn't come up with any excuse, because it was the FIA that deemed the car underweight.

fbc said:
^ I can't imagine the teams actually rely on that build-up to get the cars to the legal weight though.
They don't rely on it. It's a safety precaution. Since their grip-level is unimportant on the cool-down lap, it's an easy thing for them to do to ensure that their car will match the needed 600 kg's when they get back to Parc Ferme.
It's not just a gamble like "oh well, let's set the car up so it's underweight through the race and then we just hope to pick up some marbles at the end so we can pass the weighttest."
 
evans said:
fbc said:
The 'excessive tyre wear' was actually just the (weak) excuse used by BMW, it's not an official reason.
Wrong. The FIA officially told the press that it was due to excessive tyre wear, and that it was unintentional. BMW didn't come up with any excuse, because it was the FIA that deemed the car underweight.

Wrong. The excuse was provided by BMW and accepted by the FIA. The FIA would never give a reason why a car was underweight (after all, how would they know *why* it was underweight?) other than that provided by the team.

http://www.f1racing.net/en/news.php?newsID=126798
 
okay, but what about finishing on only 3 wheels or with a missing front or back wing? I think these are highly plausible situations that might happen becasue of a last lap crash or collision but the drivers might still be able to complete the lap
 
Thrasher said:
okay, but what about finishing on only 3 wheels or with a missing front or back wing? I think these are highly plausible situations that might happen becasue of a last lap crash or collision but the drivers might still be able to complete the lap
Obviously, the cars weight will be no point of interest then.
 
I can't tell you for certain, but I want to see the FIA disqualify a car for not having four wheels and therefor being too light. I think that there are exact rules about what state a car has to be in for being weighed, which includes being "complete".
 
Thats the same as going off the track and taking a shortcut because you were cut out by an opponent. You don't get a penalty because it wasn't your fault and going off the track could have damaged something...
If you loose a wheel you already have a disadvantage... Plus you could imagine they collect the wheel (spoiler is probably 1kg only anyway...) and throw it on the scale with the car...
 
Thrasher said:
Well do the FIA still stick tto the rules and disqualify them for being "underweight"

I'm sure FIA would accept the car if it had damage from, say, being hit by someone during the closing laps. That's clearly something that the team could not have foreseen.

IIRC Mark Blundell scored points in Silverstone 1995 despite finishing without rear wheel after being hit by Rubens Barrichello on the closing stages of the race.
 
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