The Sauber team has decided not to appeal against the verdict of the stewards following the Australian Grand Prix which deprived Sergio Pérez and Kamui Kobayashi of seventh and eighth places. The post-race scrutineering check by the race stewards revealed that a radius on the upper rear wing element on Pérez’s and Kobayashi’s cars contravened the regulations by a few millimetres.
“It did not bring us any performance advantage, but the fact is that it was a deviation from the regulations. We take note of the stewards’ decision,” said James Key, the team’s Technical Director. “We have since found that there was an error in the checking process for the relevant dimension on this component. We have already put measures in place to ensure that nothing of this kind occurs again in the future.”
joeblogsf1 
Hi Joe, off topic straight away but any updates on Lotus Vs Lotus yet?
Given the degree to which the Red Bull front wings flex at speed (check out Vettel’s quali lap onboard footage for example) whilst still passing scrutineering, it seems a great shame to exclude Sauber for a technical infringement that didn’t even offer a performance advantage.
Still, that’s F1 I guess. No doubt everyone will have bendy front wings just as soon as they can work out how RB do it.
Bah! Very disappointing, especially when we’re talking about ‘a few millimetres’ difference that gave no advantage but rules are rules and I’m sure Sauber have learnt from this mistake. I just hope that the stewards maintain their consistency across all teams.
I’m very optimistic about Sauber’s continuing high performance. They’ve already shocked Pirelli and, as long as their new blown diffuser works as expected, they can only increase their pace. Exciting times and I’m happy that Peter Sauber has shown that he’s a shrewd dude when it comes to managing a new F1 team. Force India take note ;o)
Virgopunk,
It is really very simple. Rules are rules. If the FIA says: ‘OK, no problem, it was just a few millimetres’, what do you think would happen next?
If there is a rule, then they have to police it… even if it ruins a great story.
If it wasn’t a performance advantage, why didn’t they just request that drivers be allowed to keep their points, but the team loses the constructor points?
It just doesn’t make sense to me, Joe, so hopefully you can shed some light on it.
Assuming it really didn’t give a performance advantage and I were Pérez or Kobayashi, I’d be wondering why the team isn’t fighting hard to let me keep the points that I rightly earned.
Why isn’t this sort of thing checked (by the race stewards) when the cars first arrive at a circuit? Obviously certain checks (e.g. being underweight) should only be done immediately post-race, but it seems like a lot more could be done to ensure only legal cars get to start the race (which would give teams opportunity to correct minor indiscretions, accidental or otherwise).
Gentlemanly behaviour.
Pity about the tobacco advert ban, Peter S. could have a very cool cameo in a Hamlet spot.
(Pretty please, some wag in PR mock that up!)
Mental scorecard against certain other teams who whine all the way to Chemin de Blandonnet,
Sauber: plenty
Whiners: nil
Grace under pressure underscores a good race for them, rather than detracts. Hope that’s the mood in Hinwil anyhow.
Fingers crossed Sauber manage to pick up points in the next few races, for both cars to finish in the top 10 and then lose out like this is just really harsh.
Doh, wrong address for usual disputes, though think language was clear. I blame Max’s jurisdiction hopping for my mistake 🙂
One wonders how this happens at the design stage, because the flap must have been modelled in CAD before its moulds were made. One of the requirements in any design project is “are there any legal requirements?” (then is it a safety related item? which in turn affects the FMEA results) It is expected that the person responsible for designing a part of the car has thoroughly ingrained the regs pertaining to that part and all other parts in is attached to, adjacent to, or influences in any way. So unless the flap actually used was a one off quick manufacturing process trial, there is very little excuse.
To be fair the reg is badly written, technically wrong, as it stands at present and is impossible to comply with. (This is a pedantic interpretation of the reg because of an assumption it makes and a consequent omission regarding part of the surfaces in the airflow)
To my surprise we did not see any flap failures where the flap parted company with the wing, I have not changed my view that the F duct was far safer than the flap, it was also an elegant feature. The supposed reason given for its removal was safety to allow the driver to keep his hands on the wheel. A simple “During the race the driver may not operate any device which involves removing a hand from the steering wheel assembly” or similar would do. Perish the thought of changing gear using a separate gear lever, as used to be the case, in the days of racing splendour.
Just read on some other webiste James Key has been fired for this error! Surely this can’t be true!
Joe, can you shed any light here?
Hi Joe, what do you think was wrong with Mark Webber’s car?
cobbs,
If I knew that I would be an F1 engineer. Mark and his guys need to figure it out. But we all know that Vettel and Webber are pretty well-matched and so something was obviously wrong. Almost certainly it is to do with tyres.
Ah but Joe, “Ok no problem it was just afew millimetres” does apply in F1…..
IF your team is Ferarri and you can hire the best lawyers
and
IF it means a title race going down to the wire.
talking 1999 of course when a clear breach in dimensions on Ferrari bodywork was overturned- if you looked at it from a certain angle !
Silverstone1979,
1999 was 12 years ago…
Back in 1976 Spain GP. There were also new rules. James Hunt wins the GP and was disqualified after the race because his Mc Laren M-23 was too wide (2 cm !). Many months later, the FiA give him the victory back.
So rules are rules ?
Sombrero
We are in 2011. By my reckoning 1976 was 35 years ago.
Things have changed a little since then…
following rpaco’s thoughts, and i understand only the simplest writing in occasional engineering magazines, I understand 3D laser measurement, accurate to silly significant digits (assuming they’re meaningful) is inexpensive now, can be handheld even.
Moreover, is this sort of check rather in the mode you use say a precision torque driver i.e. to assemble correctly, you measure everything as you go? Before, during, and after.
If some laser measure claims a thousandth of a millimeter accuracy, surely a few millimeters would scream out loud?
I could imagine, if that was on the shakedown checklist, and it was someone’s job, they might be in some trouble.
I read an article (advertorial maybe) how RBR were using this laser kit to supposedly great advantage in their manufacturing. Pity they can’t hang a miniature one on their front wing endplate during the race . .
But rpaco is of course right, as a solid part, it should have come good from the factory.
If I understand Craig Scarborough’s explanation correctly, the infraction is supposedly that the flap will loose drag faster as it is turned / listed / pivoted but once it’s out of the way, as it were, not create a situation where more drag is lost once activated. In other words – and please put me straight as it’s end of a very long day – this is equivalent to arguing that it’s improper to have a shorter throw switch on the steering wheel, because that might effect an action more quickly.
If i’m even close to the mark i think i’d choose not to appeal rather than argue absurdities.
Shall test my limits of comprehension no futher today 🙂
– j
rpaco,
a possibly analogous thought popped into my head, which is how spreadsheets, least the usual kind where every cell can reference anything else and be a equation or logic as of and in itself, and before long you get to where (think this was late 90s) Inland Revenue reckoned the average quoted company might be off by some 10 million or so quid by dint of the sheer complexity / inanity / audit difficulty of this kind of “document”.
My thought is along the lines of how radii and other surfaces could be described. So many components. Also i imagine, “high level” feedback from aero, kinda overall design data feeding back into components.
Could it be, that there is some kind of automation going on between parts like if you tug at a spline you change the whole curve?
Kinda the tail wagging the dog, or is that the other way around . .
Basically what i’m saying, is could there have been an unobserved or unaudited dependency, rather than plain oversight?
I’ve stretched the absolute limits of my amateur thought, but compared to some of the modern engineering applications, i feel suddenly much safer firing up a programming editor.
At least my scrappy thought excercise just upped my respect for these designers a whole notch and a hundred!
– j
One thing that has struck me about this is that Sauber say ‘it offers no advantage’ and everyone takes this as gospel. It may not offer an advantage but I’d prefer to hear that from an independent source! I also wonder why it is in the technical regs if does not potentially confer an advantage.
Still, I agree with the general consensus, a real shame two great drives haven’t had their just reward but good on the Sauber team for admitting the error and moving on rather than deciding someone has to be the fall-guy.
Stephen Hughes
The FIA engineers seem to think it offered no advantage so I was not taking it as gospel…
My one thought on the subject…
If the FIA engineers think it offers no advantage, I’ll take their word…
My “issue” is with the “only a few millimetres” wording… its trying to minimize the amount of error…
“a few” usually means three or four… a little more than “a couple” which is two….
The specification is ten millimetres…. so “a few” is an error in the region of ~25% to 40%.
This is not a small error. This is not an issue of an extra layer of paint, or a miss-machined part. Assuming it wasnt deliberate, it is a gross oversight… they did not attempt to comply with the rule but miss the target… they simply ignored or forgot it and designed to some other purpose.
It’s a shame for the drivers, but I think Sauber’s decision not to appeal is the right one…
Sorry Joe, bit late replying but in my original post I already said that ‘rules are rules’ I wasn’t questioning the decision just pointing out that it was disappointing. I totally agree that you can’t turn a blind eye to these things if we’re not to appear as hypocrites. I’m sure Sauber saw it like that too.
@rpaco:
“One wonders how this happens at the design stage, because the flap must have been modelled in CAD before its moulds were made.”
I’ll use a monocoque for this example. The 3D drawings are used to carve out a pattern from a block of plastic or epoxy resin. This stage is where “fractions of a millimetre” actually apply; the pattern is made to such tiny tolerances.
The pattern is used to create moulds from GRP or similar. The mould is laid up by hand and the materials change shape a bit during the curing process. Thus fractions of a millimetre become a millimetre or so. I understand that there are two moulds (upper and lower) for a monocoque.
The moulds are used to create the monocoque. The carbon fibre sheet is precision cut but is assembled by hand. Again, we can assume that the dimensions of the monocoque will vary during the curing process.
We can see that monocoques are constructed to millimetre rather than sub-millimetre tolerances. Cars have adjustable suspension mounts, just like the space frame days. Even when built from the same moulds and plans, no two cars are identical. Drivers still have preferred cars, the ones that are quicker or more predictable.