25 replies to this topic

[J-Raid]

Also due to the heated discussion with my friend that I mentioned I had to ask a different topic. Which would you consider the 3 most important cheating cases in F1 history?

Surely the 2007 Spygate is in the top league, and Singapore crashgate can be up there too, but what about other previous cases?

Would love to hear your opinions!

PS: Mods, please don't merge it with the other one, they are different type of topics really, believe me. Thanks

Edited by J-Raid, 01 March 2010 - 22:32.

[scheivlak]

Surely the 2007 Spygate is in the top league, and Singapore crashgate can be up there too, but what about other previous cases?

"Can be up there too" - nice understatement

These two are clearly in a league of their own with Crashgate on top of it all IMHO.

It gets pretty crowded in the struggle for 3rd spot.
One candidate must be the Brabham BT49C with its rather innovative 'hydropneumatic' suspension, see e.g. http://8w.forix.com/fiasco-81.html

[Rob]

Spygate doesn't even come close.

Arrows copied Shadow's entire car!

[One]

On which Qualify session of what year did Max Mosley waive his pit sign board in front of the laser stop watch?

[Hole]

I think when drivers go and crash into other driver pourposely is when I get really sad. Industrial spying or a driver being a kamikaze against a wall are not worse at all than that.

[JonathanProc]

I think australia 2009 or 'liegate' was bad but i dont think it realy counts as cheat. I could be wrong though.

[undersquare]

Stepneygate was pretty normal by the standards of the time, just someone passing inside info. You could call it a massive cheat by Max and Ferrari.

[Seanspeed]

This thread can only work in an 'ideal' universe.

[Mandzipop]

Depends on what you call a cheat.

Driver or team?

Also depends on who was caught with what they were up to and what they did with it.

[MegaManson]

1) Senna's attempted murder of Prost by trying to drive him into the pit wall
2) Senna at Japan v Prost
3) Hamilton/Ryan Melbourne 2009

[Arska]

I think when drivers go and crash into other driver pourposely is when I get really sad. Industrial spying or a driver being a kamikaze against a wall are not worse at all than that.

So I gather one of the first times you got really sad was in Suzuka -89 when Prost did his thing?

[Hollow]

The worsts cheats are the ones we don't know about.

[Raincoat]

1 - Ferrari thieves breaking into Williams garage and getting as much info on the Williams car.
2 - Honda aerodynamist caught in McLaren truck measuring car
3 - Flav/NP and Alonso crashgate

[scheivlak]

1) Senna's attempted murder of Prost by trying to drive him into the pit wall
2) Senna at Japan v Prost

Pretty scandalous yes, but that's not what I call "cheating".

[Nustang70]

The worsts cheats are the ones we don't know about.

Wouldn't that make them the best cheats?

[scheivlak]

So I gather one of the first times you got really sad was in Suzuka -89 when Prost did his thing?

Not related to my definition of "cheating" either.

[pacwest]

3) Hamilton/Ryan Melbourne 2009

You are such a petty man. Get over THAT. Not even close to being cheating on a grand scale.

It's hard to take people seriously with objective opinions when they have avatars like that.

Where is Schumacher parking in Monaco then? Ramming Jack? Winning in the pits?
Where is all the traction control crap?
Where is the missing fuel valves?
Grande fuel tanks?
etc
etc

[MegaManson]

Pretty scandalous yes, but that's not what I call "cheating".

The worst forms of cheating to me are ones that endanger lives, technical cheating is not a big deal to me really, its geeks pushing the envelope to the limit, no one's life is at risk but dangerous driving on track endangers lives, had Senna succeeded in driving Prost into the pitwall the danger that would have caused not just to Prost but people working in the pitlane and other drivers doesn't bear thinking about

Geeks bending the rules doesn't bother me, even Spygate didn't bother me, they are all at it, dangerous driving is the bad cheating to me

[scheivlak]

On which Qualify session of what year did Max Mosley waive his pit sign board in front of the laser stop watch?

1975 Swedish GP I thought.....

Pole: Vittorio Brambilla / March

[David M. Kane]

One:

Max is guilty of much; but Robin Herd was the party who waved the clipboard in front of the timing light during qualifying.

[scheivlak]

The worst forms of cheating to me are ones that endanger lives, technical cheating is not a big deal to me really, its geeks pushing the envelope to the limit, no one's life is at risk but dangerous driving on track endangers lives, had Senna succeeded in driving Prost into the pitwall the danger that would have caused not just to Prost but people working in the pitlane and other drivers doesn't bear thinking about

Geeks bending the rules doesn't bother me, even Spygate didn't bother me, they are all at it, dangerous driving is the bad cheating to me

Just to clarify: to me, they might well have been criminal acts, that could have been severely punished (certainly Senna's action @ Suzuka 1990)
But not "cheating", just something else....

[FLB]

On which Qualify session of what year did Max Mosley waive his pit sign board in front of the laser stop watch?

It may have been Max's team (March), but it wasn't Max who did it.

The culprit was Robin Herd, the team's chief engineer (Sweden, 1975). Brambilla was the beneficiary.



EDIT: I hadn't seen David Kane's and Scheivlak's posts!

Edited by FLB, 01 March 2010 - 23:52.

[bonjon1979]

1)Singapore 2008
2)Honda false fuel tank
EDIT: I forgot about the time laser cheat:
that's my number 3) 1975 Swedish GP Pole: Vittorio Brambilla / March

=4)Schumacher monaco 2006, liegate, schumacher 1997 on jacgues, benetton 1994 launch control/ fuel hose filter, Alonso blocking Hamilton in hungary 2007 pit lane (for me the these are all equal 3rd place!)

Before all the arguing starts, yes I know hamilton was supposed to let alonso past in the previous lap during qualifying but technically it wasn't cheating. Denying hamilton the chance to do a lap was as bad as what schumacher did at monaco. I think my 1-3 are worst examples of cheating because they weren't done in the heat of the moment. They were pre-meditated long before to fix the race.

Anyone who criticises Hamilton for liegate must surely be more damning of the honda drivers who knew they were cheating with extra ballast in a number of races. The reason I've not included spygate is that what Mclaren did wasn't unique. Information seems to flow quite freely between teams as personnel change - the bad thing about the Mclaren case is they got caught. That same year what renault did was just as bad, if not worse. They just owned up to it when they realised they could get shafted. As for schumacher, I just think he's ultra competitive and he didn't set out to do what he did, just in the heat of battle he did the wrong thing.

Edited by bonjon1979, 01 March 2010 - 23:56.

[alexbiker]

1. Ferrari negotiating a rules veto for ten years of the championship, secretly, only revealed in an attempt to break up FOTA.

2. Crashgate: Endangering the driver, other drivers, the track safety team, unpaid marshals, fixing a race, ruining the spectacle of the first night race, then trying to pretend it was all the driver's idea.

3. Tyrrell's lead shot injector weight-limit scam.

[raiseyourfistfor]

There has probably been tons of cheating in F1 in the 70s and 80s that we never learned about that is much worse than anything that was happened lately.

[ForeverF1]

Guys, this thread is nothing but flame baiting. I, and other Mods, hate to close threads, but, this one needs to be closed.