Max Mosley threatens to ban B.A.R.

[|Nuno|]

The 2005 season for BAR could come to an abrupt end on May 4th.
Aparently Geoff Willis has lied to the FIA stewards and if true, Max will ban the team.

The stats: Button weighed in at 73.6 Kg and the car at 532.5 Kg.
After Charlie Whiting ordered the fuel drain, the fuel weighed 11.5Kg.
After this, the car only weighed 521.0 Kg. which was a total weight of 594.6 Kg.
The minimum weight, including on-board camera is to be 605 Kg.
Thus, car number 3 was 10.4 Kg underweight.

Upond discovery, Charlie Witing asked Willis if the car had a secondary tank.
Willis denied this.
To BAR's surprise, the FIA stewards produced an Endoscope and examined the tank in detail.
The camera did indeed find another tank inside the original.

In general, all teams calculate their fuel consumption very accurately.
Most teams are so precise that the norm is 1.5 Kg of fuel remains after a race.
On Jenson's car it was 11.5 Kg. He carried an extra 13.5 Litres.
The amount of the hidden fuel is enough to extend the first pit stop by 3 extra laps.
While other teams need to add ballast weights, BAR could burn its extra weight.
This weight advantage amounts to about .4 seconds per lap.

Regulations do not prohibit the instalation of more tanks,but these must be clearly indicated in the technical drawings submitted to the FIA, which BAR had not done.
The car may not be underweight during any time during the competition.

Before May 4th, the FIA will now attempt to prove that BAR has deliberately and regularly cheated in this regard. They will examine; the times of the stops, the pumped volumes and the lap times of all past races, including 2004, where BAR was second in the constructors championship.

When Max was asked about the incident, he made it very clear that any infaction will be dealt with severly and there will be no compromise. BAR and Button will therefore lose much more than just 3rd place at Imola. "If anyone is caught, wilfuly and deliberately cheating, they will be expelled from the championship, no matter who it is" said Mosley.


http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/d/81743

[SPEEDKILLAR]

Wow, I'm glad they have been caught, if they did it many times, I will loose all respect for BAR, its such a shame.

[ZfrkS62]

:shock: holy fuck, this is serious :shock: i wonder if Jenson knew about this second tank or if maybe the endoscope produced an echo or something that got picked up as a second tank. i'll be JB is even more pissed now that he had to stay at BAR this year.

The hell with the testing issue, this is much more entertaining

If this proves to be true what a screw up!, not exactly a grey area as far as i can see, were used to teams pushing the rules but this is pure cheating if they run that much underweight regularly

[saadie]

wow ... never thought anything like this could happen ... :shock:
B(anned) AR(se)

[zondaland]

Its certainly a very serious issue, and an extremely complex way of cheating. I must admit that having watched the live timing of both first and second qualifying I was expecting the BARs to pit early, as they were much quicker in 2nd quali than 1st relative to everybody else. Then in the race I was surprised when they ran fairly deep. I noticed it particularly with Sato as he was in the freight train behind Trulli. Perhaps this explains why.

[gucom]

hmmm it'd be sad but right if BAR were to be banned...it looked like BAR was pickin up the pace again in imola, and we might have a VERY interesting championship with 3 or 4 (or maybe even more) teams competing for wins regularly...but hey if they cheated they deserve to be banned :x

[|Nuno|]

Meh, I have mixed feelings about this...

In one hand, if they cheated then they should be banned; rules are rules. And it's not the first time that they have a different interpretation of the rules...

But on the other hand this would be pretty bad for the sport... Imagine a grid with only 18 cars...


However, there's something that bothers me. Why wasn't Sato's car in the same situation...?




EDIT: Another article.


The revelation that Jenson Button's BAR was underweight without fuel on board in post-race checks at Imola has prompted fresh speculation that teams could be trying to gain an unfair advantage by running their cars below the minimum weight limit at certain points of a Grand Prix.

According to documents seen by Autosport-Atlas, Button's car, including driver, weighed 606.1kg with its fuel on board after the San Marino Grand Prix - but only 594.6kg without the fuel. This is below the 600kg minimum weight limit laid down by the FIA and indicated almost 12kg of fuel and fluids on board.

Although the stewards accepted BAR's explanation for the discrepancy, the FIA believes that there is reason for further action - which is why the FIA Court of Appeal will meet on May 4.

There has been no official confirmation about why the FIA have chosen to examine the case further, but high level sources have claimed that the matter could revolve around the use of a secondary fuel tank.

This could be illegal on two counts. Article 6.1.1 of F1's technical regulations states that, 'a fuel tank must be a single rubber bladder', while there are ways of using that secondary fuel tank that would also go against the sport's rules.

One way would be for a secondary tank to be filled with fuel for the final stint of the race to allow the weight of the car to fall in line with the minimum weight limit at post-race checks - even if the main tank was emptied to check the weight of the car.

During the race itself, this tank could be run until empty and, when the car has little or no fuel on board at the end of stints during the race, then it would be theoretically running underweight. This would give it extra speed.

Teams are not allowed to use fuel as ballast and such use of a secondary fuel tank to provide extra ballast would be in contravention of the regulations and would almost certainly be deemed as an act of deliberate cheating.

Moreover, the FIA have long maintained that such a course of action by teams was impossible to get away with because the weight checks take place post-race both with fluids (including fuel) and without them.

Since 1982, the Formula One regulations require the cars to meet the minimum weight without any fluids at all. Furthermore, the regulations specifically state the car must be equal or above the minimum weight at any given point during the event.

Back in 1982, teams were permitted to refill their cars with cooling fluids in the parc ferme after the race. Brabham and Williams built pseudo-brake coolers into their vehicles and while the tanks were empty during the race - making the car lighter and under the minimum weight - they would refill them before scrutineering.

The FIA moved forward and officially outlawed the process that year, and since then cars are pumped out of all liquids during scrutineering and weighed empty and bare.

There is no ambiguity about the regulations where it comes to using fuel as weight, and it would therefore seem quite strange if BAR-Honda were to use fuel as weight. Most certainly, it seems inconceivable this was done deliberately.

Should the FIA find any evidence of deliberate cheating, then there would likely be severe consequences for the BAR-Honda team. The FIA showed in the past - when Toyota were banned from the 1996 World Rally Championship after they were found cheating, and Tyrrell were banned from the 1984 F1 World Championship for failing to meet the technical regulations - that they are not afraid to take harsh action against front-line teams.

Teams have, however, long known how harsh penalties are for cheating. The possibility of bans, and the negative publicity such a move would entail, have always been too much of a deterrent for teams to risk being caught breaking the rules.

Finally, even if BAR-Honda made a mistake without any cause for malice, should the FIA's Court of Appeal find that indeed the car was underweight without fuel - and therefore did not meet the technical regulations - the team are likely to lose their podium finish from the San Marino Grand Prix and possibly pay a fine.

In 1994, the FIA had appealed the British GP stewards' decision not to penalise Michael Schumacher for ignoring the black flag during that race. Subsequently, the Court of Appeal not only disqualified him from that race but also imposed two race bans on him.

A spokesman for the FIA refused to confirm any details about the BAR case. "It is inappropriate to comment on this matter at the moment," he said.

BAR-Honda were unavailable for comment.

Autosport Atlas

[Max Power]

this all sounds like speculation...but if they were cheating why only on JB car

[yg60m]

I wonder if they would say the same if it was Ferrari ... :roll:

[|Nuno|]

Originally Posted by Ronin005 and nuno there wouldnt be 18 cars on the grid, teams would have to provide a 3rd car.

Yeah, but I'm not too fond on that idea...

I wonder if they would say the same if it was Ferrari ... :roll:

Oh yes, they would.

What I wonder is what the public would say. If there's so much bitching about smaller things, I can't imagine what would be like if Ferrari was caught cheating...

[phantomfocus]

BAR have obviously minipulated the system into their favor. If they have indeed cheated than they must suffer the consequences. But with it being as easy to do as it sounds, and having as much of effect as it supposedly has, I wonder if their hasn't been any other teams using this little trick? I would hope that they are all building new tanks as we speak, but it would interesting to know. You have to wonder why the team would allow themselves to make the mistake of letting the car finnish with too low fuel. This might turn into one EXPENSIVE brain fart. Think of all their sponsers, and even Honda their are probably thrilled!

[|Nuno|]

they say, Alonso had engine problems. but in all honestly i dont think so, they just want to add more drama to it and make Alonso look better.

Man, that's so true. When I heard that his engine was severely damaged I just had to laugh... Okay, he probably saved it during some time in the race, just like everyone else does, and I'm sure he had some minor troubles with it (common with Renault this year), but come on...!

If the engine was so damaged then how come he clocked 311.5 Kmh on the very last lap..? :roll: In some sites people were saying that his engine was limited to around 154000 rpms. Bunch of fools.

And by the way, by saying this I'm not trying to take away any credit from Alonso. He drove a very good race and I'd certainly love to see him behind the wheel of one of the 'red cars' when Michael retires, but this "ah, he's engine was severely damaged" bullshit pisses me off...



Back on topic: it seems that the rules aren't as clear as expected, so it's unclear what will happen to B.A.R.

[blah]

Funny even though they are cheating they cant seem to win. Did they blow their engine in the last race too?

[phantomfocus]

Somebody once told me that "in motorsport there are cheaters and there are losers" I always wanted to believe that wasn't true, I sure hope that's not what we've come to.