Sidepodcast

The BMW Pit Lane Park is descending upon the Trafford Centre in Manchester in July. But not at just any old time in July, the 4th, 5th and 6th. Hmm, sound familiar? That’s because it’s at the same time as the British Grand Prix.

As an F1 nut, I would love to go to the Park and experience it. I’ve heard great things, and any opportunity to get closer to the cars, and the team is something I want to be doing. Plus, there’s a pit stop challenge, and we all know I can’t resist a challenge. It seems like a really fabulous way to spend some time, and I’ve been wondering when they’d turn up at location I could get to.

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As Christine pointed out on F1 Minute yesterday, Nick Heidfeld brought the BMW factory in Munich to a standstill when he turned up to thank employees for supporting the company’s F1 programme.

During the visit Nick demonstrated the raw power of this year’s F1.08 by throwing it into a wall while doing donuts, losing his front wing in the process. Here’s the obligatory audience video clip:

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• File: Episode53.m4a
• Length: 34:29
• Size: 31.7 MB
• Transcript: episode53.pdf

Last week we looked at the drivers taking to the grid, these week we look closer at the 2008 contenders - the teams, how they’ve changed and how they will fare.

Intro

A quick update on the status of my bad luck - this week is better but I have proof that last week was the worst ever.

Good Week / Bad Week

Bernie Ecclestone gets someone onside, Super Aguri can’t find anyone, Fuji are looking to stay in the sport, and which one is Pinocchio Schumacher?

News and Views

Alonso has his main sponsor following him around, so does that means he’s a pay driver? We’re worried about the state of mind of Toyota drivers, they seem unable to stick to an opinion. And we briefly recap a very wet testing session, and discover we’re looking forward to the return of a previously disliked figure.

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Testing in Spain has been a damp affair so far this week. On Monday, the BMW boys, in Valencia, suffered with Kubica running very few laps and Heidfeld relegated to dashing in and out of the pits. Today, things cleared up slightly in Valencia, but Barcelona got the full force of the weather. McLaren decided not to even bother attempting any runs, preferring to save their mileage for another day.

I find it slightly odd that the teams don’t want to make the most of the adverse weather conditions. The one thing that always catches teams out is when a race weekend has less sunshine and more raindrops. Why wouldn’t they want to use the opportunity to get some really good wet weather data?

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With all these launches, press releases and interviews with drivers, it’s easy to get caught up in the world of “we’re going to be brilliant this year.”

Everyone is so supremely confident, positive and upbeat about the upcoming season; you’d think we’d gate crashed on a private pat-on-the-back party. Here are three statements you are probably sick of:

• We want to challenge for the wins
• Both our drivers are the bee’s knees
• We’re happy with the progress we’ve made over the winter

If they sound familiar, it’s because they’ve been trotted out at practically every press conference since the start of the year, and I for one am starting to get bored.

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• File: Episode48.m4a
• Length: 18:09
• Size: 16.6 MB
• Transcript: Episode48.pdf

This episode brings you up to date with the most recent launches, plus discussion of some of the more controversial rule change suggestions, all with an irritating helping of sampling fun.

Intro

The new keyboard, what it does and why he loves it.

Good Week / Bad Week

This week has been good for the environment, and for Hamilton’s long term future, whilst his and ITV’s bank balance look set to suffer from a bad week.

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The announcement from the FIA on Friday told us very little about what went on during Thursday’s Court of Appeal hearing. In fact, it would be fair to say that the FIA did pretty much everything in their power to withhold information.

Rather than revealing any detail, the official press release announced the result and then stated:

The full text of the International Court of Appeal’s decision is available, on request, from the secretariat of the FIA International Court of Appeal in Paris.

Compare if you will, how the FIA handled the McLaren spy hearing, where it was so keen for the world to hear about the penalty imposed upon McLaren, it went as far as rushing out the PDF transcripts before they’d been properly checked.

Thankfully, grandprix.com went to the trouble of playing along with the FIA’s silly little games, and published the full decision text on their site.

Reading through the document, the main thing we learn is the reason why the appeal was deemed inadmissible:

Article 1 of the Rules of Procedure of the International Court of Appeal indicates that the International Court of Appeal may hear “Appeals from decisions of the stewards of the meeting, lodged by at least one of the parties concerned”.

The International Court of Appeal finds that the term “parties concerned” in the Rules of Procedure of the International Court of Appeal does not cover all parties whose interests may be affected by the decision in question.

Basically, the stewards findings relating to the cars of Williams and BMW was none of McLaren’s business. There is however provision within the rules to allow for McLaren to protest:

The International Sporting Code has foreseen in a formal fashion that in cases such as these the only recourse would be that set out in Article 174 d of the International Sporting Code which foresees that “Protests… referring to the non-compliance of vehicles with the regulations and concerning the classification established at the end of the event shall… be made within thirty minutes of the official publication of the results.”

So McLaren made a mistake in appealing the stewards descision, when they should have, in fact, been protesting the results of the race. A minor technicality you might suggest, but an important one in the grand scheme of things. How the team managed to make such a mistake will probably be revealed soon, but no doubt at the time they believed it was the correct thing to do.

What the text doesn’t go into is the discussions that went on regarding fuel rigs and ambient temperature sensors, as discussed yesterday by Sam Michael.

The last thing to note is the costs of the appeal will be paid by McLaren. As if it hasn’t been an expensive enough year already.

While the result of this week’s FIA Court of Appeal hearing may have been the correct one, the handling of the announcement shows yet again the contempt with which the FIA holds fans of Formula 1.

We have a lot to say on this subject, and tomorrow’s podcast is shaping up to be a riot, but for the moment we thought it was worth looking at the only bit of insight to so far have come out of the hearing.

Williams technical director Sam Michael, present in the courtroom on Thursday, revealed a few more details during an interview with ITV. He confirmed earlier suspicions that Formula One Management’s ambient temperature readings were not as accurate as they could have been:

FOM have a temperature sensor, but it was clear up to two years ago that that was not very accurate and was in no way accurate enough to be used as regulatory.

FOM temperature is used as a guide but sometimes it’s clear that it is inaccurate and when that happens they use Météo-France to determine what the real temperature was.

This was documented in a Sporting Working Group meeting on December 7, 2006.

Which backs up Pat Symonds thoughts on the subject back in October. It also explains why teams are contributing a large sum of money to have Météo-France turn up to each and every Grand Prix. Why they don’t just do away with FOM’s equipment altogether, remains open to debate.

Sam went on to divulge details about the paddock’s use of fuel rig temperature measuring equipment:

Sensors are different between teams up and down the grid depending on when you ordered your fuel rig.

Some of them haven’t been calibrated for seven years. They are not sealed in any way, they are not tamper-proof.

It seems like a fair question to ask why rules governing things like the temperature of fuel were created and recorded, yet nobody thought to mandate the need for some kind of standard piece of measuring equipment to enforce them? A severe lack of joined up thinking on the part of the rule makers, you might suggest.

Whether any teams have been tempted to abuse this lack of governance in the past will be the subject of much speculation in the future, I’m sure. And why, oh why, will no-one calibrate their god-damn equipment once in a while?

7 flippin’ years?

As we sit around awaiting the outcome of yesterday’s appeal hearing, it occurs to me that it might actually be amusing if McLaren win. That the championship be decided by a few men in suits, arguing in a courtroom.

I have never known such unanimous support for an appeal to fail. I don’t remember the last time so many within the sport were unified in agreement. All the way down the paddock, to the media, to the fans and even those with little more than a passing interest. Nobody wants to see a season end this way. Except of course for McLaren.

Which is why, if they’re successful, all hell will break loose. Caustic hate and vitriol, the likes of which Formula 1 has never experienced before, will be focussed directly at single team. And to be honest, that’s nothing less than Vodafone McLaren Mercedes deserve.

I’m not sure if it’s because we’re paying more attention this year, or because the season transpired to expose many of the Woking team’s weaknesses, but I haven’t seen very much that they have to be proud of in ‘07.

The team seems to have conducted itself in the most peculiar of ways, almost as if the people in the press office are paralysed by the frosted glass façade that is their ‘modern working environment’. That the management structure within the team encourages the propagation of misinformation and spin.

On occasion it will take the high road, with magnanimous proclamations of sportsmanly conduct, while next time falling on its sword, pleading forgiveness. This week has seen the perfect embodiment of this PR paralysis. Prior to the hearing, CEO Martin Whitmarsh goes on record with:

Like all true devotees of motor sport, we would never like to see a drivers’ championship decided in court rather than on track.

But days later, the team’s lawyer Ian Mill argues for exactly the opposite thing in the London courtroom:

It cannot make a difference it was the last race of the season, and that it will decide the championship. Invariably, whenever there has been a disqualification, there has been a reclassification.

Finally, as if to prove that they truly are the motorsport equivalent of the pantomime horse, Whitmarsh tries to defend Mill’s comments by saying:

The team was seeking to clarify the regulatory uncertainty that has arisen from a decision of the FIA Stewards at the 2007 Brazilian Grand Prix and not to win the Driver’s World Championship.

It really does defy belief. A never-ending stream of contradiction, subterfuge and misinformation. That’s all we ever seem to get from McLaren.

Compare, if you will, how BMW and Williams have handled themselves throughout this matter. You could argue that, anything said may be used against them, but the fact is they are the accused, yet even if found guilty, they will come out of this with their reputations intact.

Bring on the verdict.

In less than two days time, the FIA’s Court of Appeal will convene in London, to hear McLaren’s case against the result of the Brazilian GP. The conclusion of the hearing should offer a bit more clarity as to why two teams, both of whom were suspected of running fuel below the minimum specified temperature during the race, were completely exonerated by the stewards following post-race scrutineering.

At the time, the argument BMW put forward to the stewards was - while the temperature of their fuel may have dropped more than 10°C beneath FOM’s ambient temperature (the one shown on timing screens), the FIA’s independent weather data supplier noted that the ambient at the time was in fact much higher, and therefore the fuel did not fall more than 10°C below ambient.

The thing is, the FIA’s reading is not the measurement understood to be the one followed by the teams, that being the one that is provided by FOM on the third page of the timing screens (and also repeated on the weather and speed tab of internet Live Timing). However, FOM’s figure appears to be somewhat fallible.

During the post-Brazilian Renault podcast, Pat Symonds claimed that:

The equipment that is used to display the temperature on page 3 of the timing screens is very, very old. It’s not cared for, it’s not been calibrated for years.

To further back this up, Ted Kravitz suggested after the race that:

Either the air temperature probe was in the sun (air temp should always be taken from the shade) or it was not calibrated correctly.

When the race started, the FOM screens showed the track temperature as 62 degrees. That would’ve melted even my trusty Dr Martens boots.

For reference, the FIA data is supplied by a company called Météo-France, and has been since the FIA asked them to start providing accurate information last year. The majority of teams contribute to the cost of this service, and one has to wonder why?

Another obvious question would be, given that F1 is such a technology-focused sport, why is it that Formula One Management cannot be trusted to calibrate their own electronic equipment, especially the bits that the regulations specifically rely on? And finally, why do the teams readily accept this?

I wonder if the FIA anticipated a problem like the situation in Brazil occurring, and thus implemented their own back-up solution. Agreed, the timing couldn’t have been worse, but I believe that the FIA may have pre-empted problems, and provided the ideal answer.

With any luck, Thursday’s appeal will clarify the details and clear both teams of any wrongdoing.

As a final thought: one has to wonder how it is that the Bernie Ecclestone owned Paul Ricard circuit, manages to obtain weather data from a certain company called Météo-France, yet at the same time FOM president Bernie Ecclestone still didn’t rate said comapnies services enough to use them during race weekends.