@byronf1: Word here is that exhaust gases and diffusers won't be a thing of the past. Prepare for controversy at Melbourne time.

@Jamesallenonf1: #f1 There are so many legality question marks around 2012 F1 cars apparently, that FIA's Charlie Whiting is going to attend Jerez test...

We also had the pulled article that referred to the McLaren drawing questions about its legality.

I haven't seen anything else by any of the scribes questioning anything on the cars so what are we missing that Charlie needs to go to Jerez for?

that ferrari's pods over the exhausts appear to be pointing down, i think it could be a hot gas chamber which feeds somewhere?

The FIA and their now you see ehm, now you dont-rule changes.

If there are any protests / disagreements, please sort this mess before Australia. It does not look nice when you start a new season under the cloud. FIA should change their procedures, I don't care what they decide on and whom they 'favor', just be done with this nonsense before season starts and let them compete throughout without further intervention.

Some rumor spread - Any legal issues on 2012 McLaren F1 car?

So that pulled article not only was spot on, it was an outright scoop.

Amazing.

I told you. That's why they changed their minds about Lotus suspension thing. To save themselves additional work, they learned they would have enough problems without it.

I can't wait for "but it's CLEARLY illegal" crowd to change their opinions dependent on which car will be questioned.

Yes, its beautiful.

Any screen shots of the pulled article? Or is the wrong place to ask...

Same article is here still.
It seems to have been pulled from the ESPN and Sky sites.

I quite like the uncertainty of a possible protest at the races.

There were screenshots of the autosport article as well posted on the forums somewhere, though I can't find them now.

Though McGrath did mention 'obvious' innovations which would be visible on the car.

I bet it's the exhausts, though.

Not necessarily.

I doubt Charlie Whiting at the Jerez test is going to be of much use, considering he's not of much use thoughout a season anyway.

Expect Charlie to 'clarify' things and only make things worse...

That article was full of stupidity, so it's no surprise you liked it.

For example it said McLaren were too conservative in past years and now it'll be aggressively innovative and controversial ideas will be obvious on the launch already. The opposite of these things happened.

Another one 'no trickery on the cars' and look what topic you are. If you know about the history of F1, you can know teams think the opposite of 'no trickery on the cars' about other teams and even themselves are doing everything to gain advantage and interpret the rules selfishly and questionably.

It was full of bullshit. Was a fake article or that 'MAT's McGuy' duped a naive no-name journo telling the opposite of things sarcastically. Doing so he couldn't breach his NDA, which is important to keep his position.

Whatever it is youre smoking: I want it.

True.

Anyway, wil be interesting to see how the FIA will handle the latest in a series of laughable rule enforcing blundering.

Let's look at the quotes

"He must be a brilliant driver, because by the end of last season we definitely had the best car and he was still whupping us," - Redbull did not 'definitely have the best car' at the end of the season

"There are technical innovations on the car which will be immediately obvious when you see them," - Still waiting for these obvious innovations

The article was clearly nonsense

Finally you see the light.

Scarbs: "McLaren had one of the fastest cars in 2011, on its day the MP4-26 was faster than the Red Bull."



Yup, so does the fia, apparently. And a big focus on what is happening with the exhausts.

Ban exhausts and diffusers! Ban the suspension, bodywork and to avoid the whole penalty and reprimand malarkey, ban the drivers too.

By that criteria, 9 out of 10 articles are nonsense, you find controversial statemets everywhere if you look for them, not least in official teams PR blubber rants.

The state of affairs as long as there is no explanation given by either Autosport or McLaren (or Mr. McGrath, for that matter), it's still everyones guess how the article came about and how much value to give it.

Normally, if an article is blatant fake or contains undoubtable lies, a team wouldn't hesitate to put things right on the spot. Hasn't happened yet.

Anyway, I reckon it's better to discuss that here.

Before we all get carried away its probably important to remember the cars that run in Melbourne and indeed pre-season testing will be very different from the pr machines up on the stands at the launch events. For instacne most commentators have already suggested that th bodywork around the exhausts on the McLaren present at launch were not the real thing. From the launches so far the McLaren is, if anything, the most conservative design - particularly around the nose.

+1 Charlie Whiting is nothing more than a puppet. How many of his opinions have been overturned? The guy should buy an allotment and start growing some vegetables, because at his current job he's f**king usless, barring pressing the start lights at the beginning of each race.

This is not so apparent to people like rhukkas. But nice of you to explain this to him.

I doubt that too. Teams might not demonstrate race configuration until very last test, and I am really in odds with FiA, that we have to go through these conflicts every year...

As MinT says, I don't think we have seen the final designs of any of the cars, Melbourne, pre-season testing etc.

Not sure what 'conservative' means in 2012 unless you're saying 'conventional' or 'looks like last year' but we have seen three other cars now and they all adopt the high bulkhead platypus nose which makes that the convention and 'conservative'. McLaren has done something different by going low and generating their diffuser airflow another way.

Something they are doing is different from everyone else and they will not have done it for purely aethetic reasons and for that reason I reckon that they are the ones on the edge of legality. It wasn't obvious to us because the car looked right to our eyes but isn't it obvious now that they seem to be out on their own with their design?

I think it's brilliant. If the teams are not riding on the edge of legality then they're not trying hard enough. These are some of the most brilliant minds in the engineering and design worlds and I love to see their creativity.

Perhaps for the front its different, but the pushing of legality, according to the OT, is from the exhaust and difusers. If thats true then its weird that the FIA cannot close their regulations enough, and for the 3rd year see a major controversy arise. I dont think thats good for the image of F1 at all.

Absolutely, and I do not mind boundries being pushed as much as traffic allows them, but in past a few years we had cases when technical regulations resulted in lost seasons. One needs to wonder why regulations cannot be slightly more concrete, and/or why it takes x-amount or races to have pre-race infighting over legality. Diffusers, DDD, height adjustments...

Most of engineers aren't idiots, and they are trained to read, interpret and understand technical specifications, and I doubt any of them really wants to do anything illegal. We have history of disputes how to measure tire, we had deviations in linear measurements, and list is long. Occassionally it is team's oversight, sometimes I think FiA is struggling to come in grips with their own normative control.

Latest example was with sporting regulations regarding defensive driving. I am not expert, but it took me less than a minute to realize how badly it was written. (Truth to be said, FiA came forward a day or two later with yet another "clarification" of that rule). Point I am making is that I have difficulty to accept notion, that teams always trying to go "illegal". On the contrary, but this system of subsequent "clarifications" is rather annoying, suspicious, and one can ask, why FiA cannot write something so it doesn't has to be "clarified". A substantive change in regulations is one thing, but series of clarifications and their timing should and could be avoided.

Sporting regulations are not the same.

I'm not saying that teams should be 'illegal' but they should all be trying to push the boundaries. This will require clarifications, protests and tribunals or courts.

If you want a sport without controversy on technical matters, F1 is not for you. Find a spec series. Prototype racing is expensive and hard for all involved because these incredibly clever people are far better at their job than the FIA could ever be. Even if the FIA ermployed one of todays top designers, he would never be able to second guess all of the others because poachers don't always make good gamekeepers.

This! Charlie has shown his incompetence regarding technical legalities,the only thing that worries me is lobbying and who has Charlie in their pocket.
We'll find out soon.

I am watching F1 since 1974 and perhaps it’s too late to tell me now that F1 is not for me. In fact, I will be a last fan on the block to vote for specifications series.

I think that if there is a regulatory measure instituted, and it is well written, it should not require any subsequent "clarifications"; that's a reasonable prerequisite before anything gets published. Clear and proportional language does not have to impede innovation. Clarifications are vague by their nature, invariably decisions take sides, and at the end hardly anyone is happy.

The Exhausts are apparently designed to feed the fins on the brake ducts to try and generate down force directly from them, risky idea though as if they get it even slightly out their rear brakes will be toast in no time at all!

Credit to Craig Scarborough.

https://twitter.com/#!/ScarbsF1/status/...418634859130880

I'm sure such ugly looking cars HAVE to be illegal. I'm definitely protesting.

What's the point of a car that's quick in quali if it can be eaten in the DRS zone? Red Bull is quick EVERYWHERE.

If it is drawn narrowly then of course not. You define measurements and materials to an exact specification then it becomes a spec part. If you allow any measure of freedom then someone will be looking to exploit it whether by making it smaller or of a different material, or by omitting it altogether. We're talking about a machine made from thousands of parts.

This will always result in creative solutions and conflict.

That is naivety bordering on the delusional, in an ideal world yes but lawmakers everywhere/when have never been able to achieve this because you can never envisage all the possible permutations.

Even though they appear to be sloping down, the exhaust inside is not allowed to be lower than 10 degrees from horizontal. As long as they're 10 degrees from horizontal or higher they're fine and within the Regs.

Edit: They're not an exhaust chamber, it's exhaust which also acts as cooling outlets.

I am actually working in automotive business, and we do live with specifications and regulations every day, yet all of this does not impedes innovation at all; that is my observation. Perhaps we are sensitive to semantics, as some concepts could be audited qualitatively, and those which do not, will be invariably disputed. FiA is involved, as I think, quite often less of "clarification", and more of imposing running changes to the original regulation during active season, and that is cause for my concern. Clarification should be done in some reasonable period after draft of normative references gets relased, and than locked for the season. No more changes to it. Anyway, it really doesn't matter at the end what I think, because they will continue to do what they always do, and we can only sit back, place bets who gets shafted and when during a season, and just watch how it ends up.

I think pushing the boundaries is one thing, but trying to exploit a form of blown diffuser again while they all agreed to ban them for this season, wich in turn creates lots of friction between the teams is not what the sport needs. Weve had our fair share of tribunals and mid season change of rules, and back again, wich gets hard to follow for average Joe.

Another thing is the FIA has plenty of resources to employ the very best people, and in general they are not understaffed and have some capable people working for them. Add to that that also the smaller teams with lesser God designers usually work out very quickly what one or another team is doing and I conclude its not really secretive. Its just translating that into rules wich seems to be the problem.

Personally Im all for freeying up rules a lot more, and just let teams come up with whatever their design teams invent. Put some kind of cap on budget and/or staffing and youll see teams having to weigh up wich route to go and stick wiuth it, rather than put endless investigative commitees researching everything.

It's a never ending circle. Technology = rules = interpretation = confusment = clarification = technology.

And the FIA certainly do not have plenty of resources. They're not a very big organisation at all, and they have numerous other motorsports as well as the entire mobility side (which is arguably more important) to deal with. Most F1 teams would dwarf the FIA's money and personal.

Why then are they spreading themselves so thinnly with those (allegedly) limited resources?
Is it better to have less, yet well defined regulations than more of half-baked ideas?

I dOnt know why the FIA put this 10 degree rule in

If you want to put a stop to it just say all exhaust exits must be 100% vertical facing upwards

DaDaaaaaaa!

Problemo solved.

This. I think the FIA really over-complicate many of their rules and end up inadvertently creating loop-holes to them.

I'm shocked that apparently the technical delegate did not attend the tests in previous years.

You must admit their rules (for bodywork) are rubbish though.

Engine: 8 cylinders, bore between X1 and X2 mm, stroke between Y1 and Y2, COG located at height of ... mm +- 0.1mm, constructed of these materials for these components. It is spec to all intents and purposes. They want it. They got it. Rules just like NASCAR. They work.

Bodywork: reference plane, blah blah, bodywork permissable in the rectangule formed by the lines given by ... and ... when viewed from below. Oh dear.


They could have said "Exhausts must be here and here, exiting at the far rear end of the car behind all other bodywork" (like on a road car) BUT they chose not to?? Why??

Actually TBF I thought after Silverstone, the FIA was going to (along with banning EBD) simplify the exhaust regs and mandate that only 2 outlets of a circular diameter and placed a certain distance behind the rear axle line would be allowed. What happened to that? Was it changed by the TWG?

I think Mclaren will be behind most of these protests after going conservative.

He was there, couple of times.
I don't see anything wrong with anyone's car, assuming however, that we've seen demo cars and just philosophy. Rear and front wings, diffusers, exhaust positions, floors, etc we will see in the testing, so hold your horses.