5008 replies to this topic

[Scudetto]

Originally posted by f1rules
touche

Glad we can maintain a sense of humor.

[Dragonfly]

5K hit

[jimm]

So, lets take it another way and use Honda a couple of years ago.

If someone from Honda were the ones that called and alerted a rival team about having fake tanks etc so that the cars were esentially underweight in the middle of the races despite being in the regulation AS CHECKED/DEFINED BY THE FIA , what should the team that finds out do?

Nothing because it "gives them an atvantage" from what is esentially a spy and continue to let the team carry on with the tanks?

Same here IMO. They found out that another team was skirting the rules and asked for a ruling without ID'ing the team. If "legal" then it puts the Mclaren in another odd spot because if they use the same approach then they would be using design ideas from a rival team but since it was viewed as outside the rules, I think it is hard to penalize Mclaren for pointing out a rival's liberal interpretion of the standing rules

[prty]

Autosport, March 20th

Analysis: movable floor the new buzzword

By Craig Scarborough and Biranit Goren Tuesday, March 20th 2007, 13:56 GMT

It seems no new season can take off in Formula One without new allegations of technical infringements or illegal devices - especially when the winning car is a Ferrari.

Autosport, July 19th

In particular, the source says it relates to a specific email that Stepney sent to Coughlan, revealing Ferrari's floor design and tipping the McLaren designer off about taking possible action about it.

So, independently of how McLaren knew about it (not in a fair way), the "Ferrari PR-like" Autosport line wasn't justified at all, since it even was a Ferrari worker the one who told McLaren the floor was not too legal.

[Dragonfly]

In BAR-Honda case there was no request for clarification, IIRC. If someone in the knowledge made a tip, it might have been directly to a FIA technical representative.
In the moving floor case McLaren might have used obtained secret info to discover the actual way of functioning. And although I may agree that it was for good reasons, if they used such info once, the logical question is was it really once.

[SphereTL1000S]

Now, do you think Ron Dennis was kept in the dark in all this? I mean, would Mclaren ask FIA about the floor without talking to Dennis all the details about it?

Coughlan and Lowe of course, might claim, when asked, that did everything by themselves. I am questioning is if that makes sense at all. Could the Chief Designer step up and go to the administrative levels and file a complaint to the governing body all the time just saying: "trust me, we will win this thing. My hunch is good, 2000 pounds will be enough", etc. and keeping all the management in the dark?

Dennis always had this image of Mclaren's face to the world, of being meticular and attentive to detail, micromanagement style. Maybe I was wrong, or is this just another case of "plausible deniability"?

If this is plausible, then I wonder what Dennis is doing, if anything, recently at Mclaren. Apparently, just looking after Hamilton.

[giacomo]

Originally posted by SphereTL1000S
Now, do you think Ron Dennis was kept in the dark in all this? I mean, would Mclaren ask FIA about the floor without talking to Dennis all the details about it?

Coughlan and Lowe of course, might claim, when asked, that did everything by themselves. I am questioning is if that makes sense at all. Could the Chief Designer step up and go to the administrative levels and file a complaint to the governing body all the time just saying: "trust me, we will win this thing. My hunch is good, 2000 pounds will be enough", etc. and keeping all the management in the dark?

Sounds very very unlikely.

This affair has the potential to develop into the biggest desaster Ron Dennis ever faced since he entered F1 in 1981.

[andysaint]

This is quite a good thread. I'm now just sitting back and watching and laughing at you lot trying to find the Maccas guilty or coming up with your own theorys when all you've got to go on is journalist spin!

All we know for sure is a) Coughlan had something he wasn't supposed to and b) Stephney is involved somewhere. The rest is pure speculation and rumour!

[bira]

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