With the rules as they are one can find clauses that pretty much allow anything and everything. Some websites are reporting that Red Bull might lose the wins in Bahrain and Monaco. I think this is tosh. If you start applying things like that perhaps we can also have a look back at 1994 and decide that some of the things that happened then were no fair, nor right. And if you think there is not rule to allow that, look again… And I can think of several other World Championships that could be changed if results were overturned.
The point in all this is that it is best for the sport that results stay as they are. If at a later point someone decides that the rules were not right then it is from that moment on that the decision applies, not before.
End of story.
joeblogsf1 
On the other hand, there’s a very recent precedent for breaches of technical regulations being dealt with by disqualification from the session…
You will have to remind me…
Lewis…Barcelona…quali…fuel… 😉
Hamilton’s Spain Qualifying.
Then there’s the Sauber DQs in Oz 2011 (rear wing). Apparently a very minor discrepency, but they still got thrown out.
You mean Lewis’ Quali DSQ for fuel shortage? Seems sometimes the rules are applied to their fullest extent.
Sporting regulations.
If you’re talking about Spanish qualifying that was within a race meeting so doesn’t apply.
That was pretty clear cut though. McLaren fell foul of a rule that had been put in place specifically after they’d under fueled in the past.
The Red Bull issue was around interpretation of rules and it wasn’t actually deemed illegal yet, just advised not to try it again..
I believe the term is “statute of limitations”.
I was once penalized two positions for my involvement in a last-lap collision. The stewards posted their decision 70 minutes after the results were posted. I reminded them that the rules stated that after 60 minutes of posting the results, they were considered final. After a decidedly disappointed look from the chief steward, they rescinded the penalty, and I kept my second place. 😉
Something tells me that the Monaco GP results were considered final long before today!
There is also a rule that says that anything can be looked at again.
I’m always looking for the rule which says I can change my earlier life!
But maybe that’s just me 🙂
— of course, this is human nature, we learn more about ourselves as we go along, and revise, so retroactive rule changes are fine, just be careful with them, else fantasy creeps in – –
I do think, however, that JT’s regime is just a little more forward looking, less retrospective. I know how barristers love to argue everything, and Max has more than a little Showman Manqué about him. The question is, is the new silent FIA a better thing (and what else is going on unseen?) or is it a little bit of cultural arrogance? Or is it simply JT adjusting to his new role, and keeping his head down?
In law, you have the concept of not being able to “go behind” a decision, and many rules as to what is timely discovery. All sorts of very useful evidence can be thrown out. This is why in E&W they argued – a little too successfully – to strip out limitations (in terms of convictions spent and the similar) from criminal law. (another logical problem being that they did not balance matters of appeal). By several friendly accounts from practitioners, this has helped bog down the courts.
Malcolm, for technical sanctity, Limitations ’80 actually runs from the time of discovery of tort, up to 12 years for certain exceptions, after the discovery of tort (injury) and therefore is not really such a limitation. Your limitation will be getting a LJ to believe you you had no idea you were wronged at the time.
(had a fun week with some cool stuff coming in from the Treasury Solicitor – he who acts for the Crown – over vestigial rights possibly embedded in a dissolved company that became Bona Vacantia. Gotta hand it to those boys, they are superb. Yeah, suited my commercial purpose too. Sweet. You’d giggle at the highly targeted nose thumbing I am now able to do!)
To this I say mass dampers. 🙂
Craig Scarborough did an excellent analysis on the Red Bull floor http://scarbsf1.wordpress.com/
The Red Bull team will simply cut a tiny slot (if it’s as small as the one on the Ferrari you’ll need a magnifying glass to see it) linking the side of the offending hole to the edge of the floor and at once the hole will become entirely legal without any impact at all on performance. Quite how in light of this anyone could suggest that Red Bull should be disqualified is beyond me. The other teams didn’t even feel the need for a protest.
While there was no protest, I wouldn’t go as far as to say there was no threat of protest.
There have been suggestions of a post-race agreement at Monaco wherein Red Bull agreed not to run the parts going forward and their opposition agreed not protest the win.
For whatever reason, the teams get along much better these days. Far fewer post-race protests are filed, but the threat of protest is always hanging above.
Surely the highest precedent is that Alonso’s win at Singapore 2008 was allowed to stand. Whatever transgression Red Bull may have committed, it’s small potatoes compared to the Crashgate scandal!
The problem is it all looks a bit biased. Lewis breaks a technical rule and gets dumped to the back of the grid. Red Bull break a technical rule and its deemed to be down to ‘interpretation’.
I think Lewis broke a sporting rule.
The thing is Luke, first of all McLaren/Hamilton cleary broke a sporting rule, not a technical rule. And then there is this thing with interpretation. The FIA accepted one interpretation as correct after the technical work group meeting. From that point on, those floors are illegal if raced. Before it was a matter of opinion!
Joe, I think you’re wrong in this one. Lewis was DSQ from Qualy because of a Technical rule, not a sporting rule. That was the argument for the DSQ and not erasing his Q3 times and starting P10.
Joe, don’t the results stand after the championship is completed at the end of the year, which is why IIRC Singapore 2008 could not be altered? Not that it would be right to take away Bahrain and Monaco from Red Bull..
your example is bad, because it is not just in one year….this role have been apply, in 2012, from marc 18, from the first race…
It seems red bull are the current world champions, if they were not there would have been hell to play. The rules are there to be implimented but they are not fair in the way they dish out the penalties, lower down the order the harsher the penalties, thats the way it seems….Look at merc with the blown drs fiasco it should have been blown out of the water but it is not….Some are allowed to cheat and others are not…
Sorry but your argument is not acceptable. The Mercedes rear wing is simply clever. The fuss was because others were annoyed that the Merc boys had been smarter. As for the rest of the comment, I disagree as well.
Flex-wings is an example that come into mind where teams were told to alter their car without altering previous results.
Imho because no team filed a protest, but just asked for clarification, the FIA responded by asking Red Bull to alter the car before the next race without imposing a penalty for previous races.
F1’s ‘marketing department’ appears to operate on the “no such thing as bad publicity” dictum. The rule controversy has nothing to do with what’s right or wrong – it’s simply a device for keeping the sport in constant public focus.
Media churn for the purposes of entertainment.
To my amazement it was in fact a tech reg that Lewis (or rather McLaren) broke not a sporting reg as I had assumed. viz.
6.6.2 Competitors must ensure that a one litre sample of fuel may be taken from the car at any time during the Event.
Except in cases of force majeure (accepted as such by the stewards of the meeting), if a sample of fuel is required after a practice session the car concerned must have first been driven back to the pits under its own power.
There are times when I feel the rules changes are simply to make sure one team doesn’t become so dominat as to steal the show. I am probably wrong but it always look to me like the teams that are targeted are the teams that start winning because they benefit from clever innovations. If HRT developped something like that and instead of finishing dead last they finished 18th and 19th I am not sure anything would be done about it. But since Redbull has been winning, it is no longer an underdog the Cinderella storyis over, people like having underdogs win…Maybe it is just my perception.
Agree…
If this were a gross technical breach that had been done “in the dark” and then discovered, then a retrospective DQ or worse may well make sense.
However according to reports, Red Bull had been in communication with the FIA over this design detail and had implemented it in good faith with the FIA’s knowledge and tacit (if not explicit) approval. This being so, the tendency to do something as drastic as changing race results after a re-examination/revised interpretation would and should be very much attenuated.