Huge penalty for BAR Honda

Z Draci

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What do you guys think about FIA's penalty for BAR Honda?

For those who don't know, BAR was disqualified for San Marino and barred from racing in Spain. When they drained the car at the end of San Marino, they found a secondary fuel tank that was still full of fuel. When they emptied this secondary tank, the car was under 500kg.

The FIA knew about this secondary tank. However, they found that it gave the car an unfair advantage on the track. They were considering to ban BAR from the whole season!

I personally think that it was a design infrindgement. The rule book should have specified what was acceptable. BAR got what they asked for.
 
they knew what they were doing and didnt ask if it was right or wrong theygot what they desered
 
As long as FIA won't give any sanctions for Ferrari about their constant testing, they shouldn't give this kind of penalties either. Being the only top team to use Bridgestone tires isn't a real reason to be testing more than the others. If the tires require more testing than is restricted by the rules, they should be using Michelins.

But the penalty itself was just about right in my mind. BAR knew they should have consulted FIA about that fuel collector (which they call it - not a secondary fuel tank) and they didn't. That could only be because they knew they were doing something wrong. Kind of embarrasing for the whole thing to come out like it did.

And to add to the facts, FIA barred BAR from the Monaco GP as well.
 
Weren't they also banned from Monaco?

Besides they got what they deserved, they were asked to drain the car but still left fuel in the secondary tank and thanks to this the car was heavier than it really is .. so if you cheat you get penalties, nothing wrong with that.
 
yea, it's outright cheating...

think the final verdict is that they only miss a couple of races.
Basically, they are banned from the next two races, striped their points from San Marino (fair) and have 6 more suspended bans.

And it's 5.4kg off 600kg ....
 
There was nothing wrong with design of fuel tank, it doesn't conflict with any rules. Penalty was given for cheating, they didn't tell there was still fuel left in secondary tank after they drained main tank to weight the car on finish. And after it has been noticed, and fuel removed, car was lighter then 600kg. In other words they COULD have been driving whole race on lighter car, and only filled that secondary tank on last pitstop for after-race weight check. It was obviosly cheating.

But... Wasn't it so, that there must be 20 cars on grid? Now that 2 of them is out, 2 teams must use 3rd non-scoring car?
 
Yea, BAR was lucky that the FIA was nice enough to let them come back this year!

5.4kg is a lot of weigh for a car as light as those in F1. It is close to 1% of the entire weight of the car!

For reference, there are 10-15kg handicaps placed on JGTC cars. Those cars weigh roughly 1000kg! This handi is enough to slip a first placed car down several places in the following race. Imagine the difference in an F1 car!

I thought that BAR got their act together in San Marino by placing third and fifth. Now it makes sense that they were cheating the rules. :thumbsdown:
 
Well, they certainly weren't cheating in my eyes, simply pushing the boundaries of the rules, which has been done by just about every team EVER through F1. I feel sorry for BAR, and especially for Jensen Button.
 
OK, seems as if some people are to quick to accuse BAR of cheating. It was more a misintepratation of a set of rules that are quite unclear. BAR had even provided evidence that at no point during the race were they running under 600kg. Taken from pitpass.com:
"The FIA International Court of Appeal in its own judgement was unable to prove that the team acted in bad faith."
 
Bar deserved it... they should be well aware that they were cheating, but if they banned them from the whole season, it would be quite harsh
 
Even if BAR wasn't at any point under 600kg during the race, they were 5-10kg lighter then others with same amount of fuel! How is that a misinterpretation of rules? It clearly says that car must be over 600kg without fuel, and they choosed to disobey it. And even tried to hide the fact...
 
The problem is that if you read up on all the information, there are conflicting rules for this, one says that the car must weigh 600kg throughout the whole race and makes no stipulations as to what the weight is made up of. The second (added later) is that when the fuel tank is emptied the car should weigh600kg, the problem with this is that BAR did in fact empty their fuel tank, the fact that they had a second smaller tank that feld fuel was (at least in their mind) legal, especially as this tank is effectively used to make sure the car always has enough fuel to run (the car always needs at least 5.4kg of fuel to run). They were, however, pushing the boundarys quite close here and I think that they deserved to be punished for not getting the rules clarrified, however I think removing them from the San Marino Grand Prix is enough, not only because there is no proof that the mistake, was in fact, intentional, and because it is suspected that at least "3 other unnamed teams" have been doing the same thing.
 
MXM said:
Even if BAR wasn't at any point under 600kg during the race, they were 5-10kg lighter then others with same amount of fuel! How is that a misinterpretation of rules? It clearly says that car must be over 600kg without fuel, and they choosed to disobey it. And even tried to hide the fact...

Exactly. They didn't stick to the rules and they got penalised for it. They deserved it.
 
Skett said:
because it is suspected that at least "3 other unnamed teams" have been doing the same thing.

just wanna ask... did they only check BAR's cars in the race or all the teams, because if they suspected 3other unnamed teams are doing that, why didn't they get caught as well?
 
F1 teams are always pushing the boundaries, but they pushed a little too far and deserve the ban.
 
yeah i read wit hthat take they can be possible .something something seconds faster a lap, although it seems very little per lap. in the end they can be over 12laps ahead or was it 20?
 
The one who said Ferrari is cheating dont know jackshit about F1.


There is NO RULE about testing in F1.
There is a agreement bettwen teams.

Ferrari didn't sign the agreement cause there is no logic what so ever in that agreement.

They can test how much they want and whenever they want.

Mclaren however signed that agreement and they now been caught doing secret testing outside the agreement.

That's cheating towards the other 8 teams that's in the agreement.

Not what Ferrari does.
 
jasonchiu said:
yeah i read wit hthat take they can be possible .something something seconds faster a lap, although it seems very little per lap. in the end they can be over 12laps ahead or was it 20?

A second isn't much, but it does make a huge difference in racing. Just yesterday I was driving a 45 minute race in GTR at the Barcelona GP circuit. I drove a Lamborghini Murcielago which is considered to be a GT car just like a Lister Storm, which was driven by another driver.

I qualified second and was quite satisfied with that, because I knew that the guy who took the pole was a lot faster than me, although he drove a Murcielago also. He quickly pulled away in the race, but the guy in the Lister Storm qualified third and kept just behind me until the pit stops.

After the race I noticed that his fastest lap was about half a second faster than mine, but he just couldn't get past, because the Storm hasn't got so much horsepower than the Murcielago. I got a decent lead on the straigths, and he couldn't get close enough to go past. In a series where the cars aren't from the same mold this is normal, but if a Formula 1 team cheats and gets a same kind of advantage from driving underweight or something like that... Well, you get the picture.

Scud said:
The one who said Ferrari is cheating dont know jackshit about F1.

I didn't say they are cheating. I just don't understand why they get to be so special that the agreement became valid without them being a part of it.

And Michael Schumacher has sometimes been able to slide off some minor penalties. Like getting the race officials to push his car back to the circuit because he got stuck in the gravel after a small collision. That and many other incidents have been explained by some section of some rule later on, but the race officials didn't have the rule book at their disposal when they went to push the car. The general rule is that NO outside help can be used to get back on the track. So they didn't have any reason to push the car.
 
MXM said:
Even if BAR wasn't at any point under 600kg during the race, they were 5-10kg lighter then others with same amount of fuel! How is that a misinterpretation of rules? It clearly says that car must be over 600kg without fuel, and they choosed to disobey it. And even tried to hide the fact...

the thing with this is that the rules state that the car has to be 600kg, not 605, it makes no difference that the other cars are alightly heavier, that is not the fault of BAR. Hence BAR didn't break this rule.

To be honest this is more of a political issue than anything else. Proven by the fact that the FIA are now saying that they are going to increase the punishment because of the statements made by BAR that they feel that the punishment is too severe and that the court of appeal should be run by an independent adjudicator rather than the FIA.

The bottom line, BAR were actually in trouble for "not being transparent" but the FIA had known of the design for a few races. It was up to the marshals as to whether the car was termed legal and they did.
 
Surge Tank

Surge Tank

The second so-called "Fuel Tank" was actually a Surge Tank. When I first heard the words "second fuel tank", I thought it was a major thing aswell, but it's not.
The G-forces produced make the fuel delivery uneven (eventhough they have a foam filled tank to prevent fuel sloshing around). So all teams have a canister before the engine, so it can increase/decrease the level without emptying it completely. BAR has a tank that's 2 or 3 times larger than most other teams. That's what the discussion is all about.
 
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