499 replies to this topic

[statman]

FIA confirms Mercedes can keep higher oil burn limit

[xtremeclock]

21/03/2017 -> Mercedes: Red Bull "seeing ghosts" over engine oil burn:  https://www.motorspo...il-burn-884321/

 

It wasn't a ghost after all...

 

So one team will be allowed to burn more oil while the rest will have to follow the new rules?...

 

I expect a protest from either RBR or Ferrari, this is not right or good for the competition. 

[7MGTEsup]

Looks like Merc really want that extra 0.3L per 100km for the rest of the season.

[RA2]

What a dumb rule.

 

How does the FIA allow 2 separate regulations for the same event? 0.9L/100km for some while 1.2L/100km for others

[GrumpyYoungMan]

What a dumb rule.

 

How does the FIA allow 2 separate regulations for the same event? 0.9L/100km for some while 1.2L/100km for others

Easy - there is a start date of the new ruling. Can't retrospective impose a limit...

[Jvr]

Merc seem to be clever about this rule change. They introduced new ICE's out of the 4 yearly allotment and claim they cannot retrospectively change their specs to meet Monza requirement. However, the Monza requirement was known well in advance so it is rather weak explanation. 

 

Slowly but surely the oil burning truth is coming out.

 

EDIT: actually it seems that Merc introduced fourth unit of the season for ICE, TC and MGU-H at Spa for both of their drivers. E.g. Ferrari still has only third going on for all of these accounts for both of their drivers, with the exception of TC.

 

One that would be speculative would assume that these components are the key to burning oil...

Edited by Jvr, 29 August 2017 - 11:36.

[Jerem]

It also seems there was a "gentleman agreement" between teams not to bring a new spec at Spa to avoid that kind of trouble.

[OvDrone]

The FIA are a joke.

[xtremeclock]

Easy - there is a start date of the new ruling. Can't retrospective impose a limit...

 

Yes they can and they should.

 

When Ferrari was ordered to seal their flapping floor the order became effective and immediate, they were't told  "you can keep using this 'illegal' floor until you introduce a new version that will have to comply with the regulations".

[Clatter]

Easy - there is a start date of the new ruling. Can't retrospective impose a limit...

It's just as retrospective for the other teams. Looks very much like the FIA have just handed Merc an unfair advantage.

[MastaKink]

Hysterical we suddenly care about oil burning again when it's Mercedes pulling the stunts with it.

 

RB won't care, they've been watching Merc and Ferrari burn at will for 2yrs without protest so why would they care now?.

[MastaKink]

It's just as retrospective for the other teams. Looks very much like the FIA have just handed Merc an unfair advantage.

 

The other teams were free to introduce theirs at Spa too.

[Quickshifter]

How can you blame Mercedes when they just timed their engine introduction with a fia directive. The people who should be blamed are fia who have not done anything worthwhile about this issue till this season. As usual they are laggards, too slow and too lethargic, not to forget lack the spine.

Edited by Quickshifter, 29 August 2017 - 12:00.

[Jvr]

Hysterical we suddenly care about oil burning again when it's Mercedes pulling the stunts with it.

 

RB won't care, they've been watching Merc and Ferrari burn at will for 2yrs without protest so why would they care now?.

See the title of the thread and related posts.

 

I think it was RB at the beginning of the season who let the cat out of the bag...

[MastaKink]

How can you blame Mercedes when they just timed their engine introduction with a fia directive. The people who should be blamed are fia who have not done anything worthwhile about it till this season.

 

Bingo.

 

And even this new step is embarrassing, the real anti-oil burn rules don't come in until next year because they couldn't get them past the teams vote to introduce it for this year.

 

Next year watch as Mercedes and Ferrari suddenly don't even need to go through 0.9 anymore.

Edited by MastaKink, 29 August 2017 - 12:22.

[andrewf1]

It's just as retrospective for the other teams. Looks very much like the FIA have just handed Merc an unfair advantage.

It actually looks like Mercedes handed themselves an advantage. The engine upgrade was supposed to be introduced in Suzuka, yet they managed to pull through and bring it in Spa. The other manufacturers were free to do the same.

[P123]

It's just as retrospective for the other teams. Looks very much like the FIA have just handed Merc an unfair advantage.

How so? ALL of them can burn away to the 1.2ltr limit on engines introduced before Monza. This has been known for a while. So they all have a pool of engines available that can burn to the higher limit. Merc seem to have taken the risk (and it is a risk) of running more mileage and having to stretch their engines out for the remainder of the season. Whether the latest spec Merc engine is run at 1.2 or the 0.9ltr limit is open to conjecture, but it will have to be able to run at the 0.9 limit if introduced for any customer teams, or if they have to use additional components themselves from Monza onwards.

Is the rule crap? Well yes! They should all be made to run at the lower limit regardless. The FIA deem it an issue, so no reason why those already in the poll should not have to adhere to the same limitations. It's bit like the FIA giving the likes of Red Bull in previous years or Ferrari this year a little nudge to change parts of the car that were dodgy, without them incurring any sporting penalty whatsoever.

Allowing teams to keep running engines introduced before Monza at the higher rate is more unfair to those like Honda and Renault who won't have a similar pool of functioning components as the Merc or Ferrari teams. But then again, this is a competition.

[Clatter]

How can you blame Mercedes when they just timed their engine introduction with a fia directive. The people who should be blamed are fia who have not done anything worthwhile about this issue till this season. As usual they are laggards, too slow and too lethargic, not to forget lack the spine.

Your correct that the FIA are, once again, spineless. They should have implemented the limits as soon as they realised there was an issue. I seriously doubt there would of been any engine failures, but certain teams would have lost some power.

[MastaKink]

See the title of the thread and related posts.

 

I think it was RB at the beginning of the season who let the cat out of the bag...

 

They still didn't officially protest though.

 

It's been talked about since early 2015 and the FIA suspected both Mercedes and Ferrari in Spain 2015 but didn't know what exactly they were doing or how they were doing it. They initially thought they were changing the chemical make up of the oil within the system IIRC rather than just adding it to the combustion process back then.

[Jvr]

They still didn't officially protest though.

 

It's been talked about since early 2015 and the FIA suspected both Mercedes and Ferrari in Spain 2015 but didn't know what exactly they were doing or how they were doing it. They initially thought they were changing the chemical make up of the oil within the system IIRC rather than just adding it to the combustion process back then.

Not sure if making an official protest makes any difference to the procedure that Todt introduced at Ferrari where the protest was formulated into a polite question addressed to FIA seeking clarification if this is allowed or not.

 

Perhaps in that way that official protest seeks disqualification or other punishment to past events but the clarification seeks to find measures to close the door in the future alone.

 

My point was more addressing your expression that "RB won't care" (Sic) and contrary to that it seems to me that they do care and have cared already at the beginning of the year in a way that it leaked into the media.

Edited by Jvr, 29 August 2017 - 12:19.

[MastaKink]

Not sure if making an official protest makes any difference to the procedure that Todt introduced at Ferrari where the protest was formulated into a polite question addressed to FIA seeking clarification if this is allowed or not.

 

My point was more addressing your expression that "RB won't care" (Sic) and contrary to that it seems to me that they do care and have cared already at the beginning of the year in a way that it leaked into the media.

 

I should've quoted him to be fair but I only mentioned RB because of another poster saying he expected a protest from them, that's why I talked about them not caring.

Edited by MastaKink, 29 August 2017 - 12:23.

[Jvr]

I should've quoted him to be fair but I only mentioned RB because of another poster saying he expected a protest from them, that's why I talked about them not caring.

Ah, I see. No worries.

[SophieB]

It also seems there was a "gentleman agreement" between teams not to bring a new spec at Spa to avoid that kind of trouble.

 

This seems disputed:

 

Mercedes brought its fourth and final power unit of the campaign to last weekend's Belgian Grand Prix, with Lewis Hamilton claiming pole position and fending off Sebastian Vettel on Sunday to win the race.

That decision is understood to have caught Ferrari by surprise, although suggestions a gentleman's agreement had been in place between the two outfits not to introduce an engine in Belgium are understood to be wide of the mark.

 

 

Who knows, though.

[MikeV1987]

Advantage to Merc I guess, I can only imagine the fallout if it was Ferrari being allowed to do this. 

[P123]

Ferrari are allowed to do this. As are Honda and Renault.

Nobody is allowed to do so with engines introduced from Monza onwards.

They are all in the same boat. Unless you seek a special retrospective stipulation that would hold Mercedes to a different set of rules.

[balmybaldwin]

So let me get this right. For no reason other than the FIA being singularly incompetent at writing rules, we will now have one team allowed to burn 33% more oil than all the others.... and this is supposed to be a sport?

[Jvr]

So let me get this right. For no reason other than the FIA being singularly incompetent at writing rules, we will now have one team allowed to burn 33% more oil than all the others.... and this is supposed to be a sport?

P123 in that way has it right that all teams are allowed to do so with their own already introduced stocked PU's. So in that way it is fair.

 

The potential question of being fair or not is that some teams (e.g. McLaren) does not really have a stockpile of used usable PU components.

 

Also that if those other PU manufacturers have not designed their PU's to burn oil to gain an advantage but Merc has, then you have a point.

[P123]

So let me get this right. For no reason other than the FIA being singularly incompetent at writing rules, we will now have one team allowed to burn 33% more oil than all the others.... and this is supposed to be a sport?

No. One team potentially has a larger stockpile that can be run at the higher rate. Or in other words, if you have a Honda engine rather than a Merc or Ferrari it's the lower limit for you.

[andrewf1]

So let me get this right. For no reason other than the FIA being singularly incompetent at writing rules, we will now have one team allowed to burn 33% more oil than all the others...

 

Yes and no. That only applies if any of the other manufacturers introduce/use a new engine after Monza. If not, they're all burning the same amount of oil. Vettel for instance is on his 3rd power unit out of 4 for the season. This 4th one he'll use will have to adhere to the new oil rule. The other 3 don't have to.

Here's what the situation looked like at Spa. 

 

Edited by andrewf1, 29 August 2017 - 12:59.

[monolulu]

https://twitter.com/...444743128481792

Ted Kravitz - Doesn't mean they will though. Merc say they'll meet the new limit and new engine met it in Spa already.

Edited by monolulu, 29 August 2017 - 13:25.

[andrewf1]

https://twitter.com/...444743128481792

Ted Kravitz - Doesn't mean they will though. Merc say they'll meet the new limit and new engine met it in Spa already.

 

Most likely they mean the new engine *can* meet the new limit. But actually in their case, it doesn't have to. For their customers, it has to.

[Jvr]

Stepping back a bit of these latest developments, I find it very ironic that all the PU manufacturers and FIA are preaching how great the hybrid technology is and cannot be excluded from the 2020 onwards PU regulations.

 

Meanwhile they burn lubricants through loopholes in order to seek more power from the PU, potentially combined with additives that are not regulated under any hazardous substance burning regulations related to fuel composition...

[KrlBrmmn]

21/03/2017 -> Mercedes: Red Bull "seeing ghosts" over engine oil burn:  https://www.motorspo...il-burn-884321/

 

It wasn't a ghost after all...

 

So one team will be allowed to burn more oil while the rest will have to follow the new rules?...

 

I expect a protest from either RBR or Ferrari, this is not right or good for the competition. 

 

This pretty much confirms how important the oil burning loophole (some call it cheating) has been to the Merc engine over the past 4 years. To bring in new engines before the the new rules are introduced even if it compromises a later ICE update. It clearly is more important in performance than waiting and using an  updated ICE  in a few races time but with the oil limits in place. If it wasn't they wouldn't have done it.

Another huge asterisk on their results in terms of car technical compliance.

One team  is now given an advantage under a different  set of rules than every other team. 

[Jvr]

This pretty much confirms how important the oil burning loophole (some call it cheating) has been to the Merc engine over the past 4 years. To bring in new engines before the the new rules are introduced even if it compromises a later ICE update. It clearly is more important in performance than waiting and using an  updated ICE  in a few races time but with the oil limits in place. If it wasn't they wouldn't have done it.

Another huge asterisk on their results in terms of car technical compliance.

One team  is now given an advantage under a different  set of rules than every other team. 

Maybe this also explains why Hamilton and Rosberg were denied of using certain "Strat modes" too much during a race: otherwise they would have run out of oil...

 

[7MGTEsup]

Another huge asterisk on their results in terms of car technical compliance.

One team  is now given an advantage under a different  set of rules than every other team. 

 

Same rules for everyone, they just decided to bring in their last unit early to take advantage of the rule.

[Jvr]

Still continuing on that potential Merc "Strat mode" issue: the oncoming Monza ruling and even the next year's one is pretty relaxed.

 

You may use 0.6 litres per 100 km in 2018. There is no limit how much you can use e.g. during a safety car restart if the average remains within the nominated limit during the race.

Edited by Jvr, 29 August 2017 - 15:52.

[Clatter]

Same rules for everyone, they just decided to bring in their last unit early to take advantage of the rule.

And if Merc are the only ones who have been using this trick, or have been the most aggressive with it? As pointed out already, they obviously deem it important enough to bring the new engines in now so as to be able to continue using it. Must fit in really well with the road relevant crap we are fed.

[P123]

If Merc are the only one's using it (dream on!) then the change in regulation is of a hindrance to no other team, and is of no impact to them as a consequence. It's already been tightened up, twice. Still waiting to see it impact on the Merc.

[Clatter]

If Merc are the only one's using it (dream on!) then the change in regulation is of a hindrance to no other team, and is of no impact to them as a consequence. It's already been tightened up, twice. Still waiting to see it impact on the Merc.

And we won't see it impact them yet as they have been allowed to side step the rule.

[P123]

And we won't see it impact them yet as they have been allowed to side step the rule.

No they haven't. They are allowed to run at the higher limit on any engine used pre-Monza. The exact same as any other team. They have to run at the reduced limit on any engine introduced from Monza onwards. The exact same as every other team. There are no stipulations on when a team may introduce one of it's four PU elements through the year. There is no guarantee that Mercedes can make those four last until the end of the year. I'd be surprised if they could... perhaps they have another upgrade in the works which requires more time. Because there are different rules for pre and post Monza PUs there will be many races where teams will be on track together but adhering to different oil burning rules.

[Diablobb81]

FIA are incompetent. Either force the rule immediately or from next year.

Now, in the middle of the season we have two regulations for engines.

And spare me the BS about all teams have equal opportunity. The Merc customers surely don't. And other teams have different upgrade moments.

That people defend this idiocy is beyond understanding.

[ArrowsLivery]

It's just as retrospective for the other teams. Looks very much like the FIA have just handed Merc an unfair advantage.

No. Mercedes took advantage of the rules as they were written.

[BuddyHolly]

Crazy decision tbh, making a mockery of the sport.

[MastaKink]

Stepping back a bit of these latest developments, I find it very ironic that all the PU manufacturers and FIA are preaching how great the hybrid technology is and cannot be excluded from the 2020 onwards PU regulations.

 

Meanwhile they burn lubricants through loopholes in order to seek more power from the PU, potentially combined with additives that are not regulated under any hazardous substance burning regulations related to fuel composition...

 

To be fair to Renault and Honda I don't think they actually do it at all as far as I'm aware, at least I've never seen/heard a rumour about them doing it.

 

Not the wisest choice I guess considering the FIA's leniency on it the past 3 years.

[RECKLESS]

No rule should favor anyone in a sport. Especially the leading team. Yet this is exctly what's going down. Bravo!

[Jvr]

No. Mercedes took advantage of the rules as they were written.

Actually that is not so clear cut.

 

Rules stipulate that only fuel according to certain chemical composition may be used. It is very exact about this. 

 

A bit in a same way as some suspension systems were immediately banned by FIA as dynamic aerodynamic aid.

 

So in that way they have the same strong interpretation of the rules because all the car is moving according to the wind load.

 

That floors, wings and suspensions react to the wind load is very similar to that that you may not burn oil on purpose but some of that gets consumed during the race.

[MastaKink]

This pretty much confirms how important the oil burning loophole (some call it cheating) has been to the Merc engine over the past 4 years. To bring in new engines before the the new rules are introduced even if it compromises a later ICE update. It clearly is more important in performance than waiting and using an  updated ICE  in a few races time but with the oil limits in place. If it wasn't they wouldn't have done it.

Another huge asterisk on their results in terms of car technical compliance.

One team  is now given an advantage under a different  set of rules than every other team. 

 

Not just Mercedes, Ferrari are ball deep in it too. They had to get rid of a hidden tank earlier in the year didn't they?.(Or was that never confirmed?). If Mercedes have an asterisk next to their results in the Turbo era then so do Ferrari. Since Ferrari signed Cedric Cornebois (Mercedes combustion expert) in 2014 there's been rumours of Ferrari doing it too since 2015. 

 

It just took the FIA 3 years to figure out exactly what they were doing with the oil and how they did it. Next year there's new rules outlawing active control valves between any part of the PU and air intake, No more different oil for qualifying and the race and the monitoring techniques of the main oil tank have been changed.  

 

That should stop it but not until next year.(Unless another clever system can replicate it, and lets be honest the FIA have given them enough time to come up with one).

[keksche]

http://www.motorspor...ning-rule-tweak

According to this article the FIA mislead/lied to Ferrari in Hungary that nobody would bring an upgrade at Spa in order to avoid the tweak 

"Ferrari, planning to introduce an upgraded specification engine in Monza and clearly concerned in case its rival should introduce a new spec in Spa (ie exactly what happened), responded in Hungary by asking the FIA why it didn’t introduce the new restriction immediately. Ferrari received the response that no one was planning a Spa upgrade and was thus becalmed. But then, upset – Mercedes did indeed turn up with a new engine at Spa."

Well done FIA                  

Edited by keksche, 29 August 2017 - 17:12.

[RaikkonenFan96]

Wouldn't be surprised if 0,9 litre limit will be postponed till the start of the next season.

Edited by RaikkonenFan96, 29 August 2017 - 17:15.

[GrumpyYoungMan]

Mid season rule changes are ridiculous!