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During the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix race broadcast Martin Brundle made reference to some changes to the Red Bull rear suspension. The imputation was that the spec they had run from Malaysia to Mexico (when the car appeared to be one of, if not the, fastest on the grid) had been reverted due to concerns about its legality.

Charlie Whiting seemed to give a weak response to queries, according to Ted Kravitz.

Has there been much more said about this?

And was it used on both cars?

Yea, I found it. Maybe Brundle needs to clarify instead of just throwing a bucket of paint at a wall. Pretty shoddy and low quality journalism.

https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... 93024.html

Was this the subject that Lazenby and Kravitz quizzed Horner over in Austin? And his smug response was that there was always 'grey areas' in the rules that teams can exploit under there interpretation of the rules? He then went on to say that Technical Directives were not rules and rather, a Stewards response to a legality issue and not enforceable?

I think it was in relation to this?

@Blink McSquinty - He has become worse this season with "fact" dropping. He wouldn't reveal his source in Brazil either where he was shown data to prove the differences between the Power Units.

Malkiiin wrote:Was this the subject that Lazenby and Kravitz quizzed Horner over in Austin? And his smug response was that there was always 'grey areas' in the rules that teams can exploit under there interpretation of the rules? He then went on to say that Technical Directives were not rules and rather, a Stewards response to a legality issue and not enforceable?

I think it was in relation to this?

@Blink McSquinty - He has become worse this season with "fact" dropping. He wouldn't reveal his source in Brazil either where he was shown data to prove the differences between the Power Units.

Sometimes it's hard for me to define the difference between grey areas and flat out cheating.

pokerman wrote:

Malkiiin wrote:Was this the subject that Lazenby and Kravitz quizzed Horner over in Austin? And his smug response was that there was always 'grey areas' in the rules that teams can exploit under there interpretation of the rules? He then went on to say that Technical Directives were not rules and rather, a Stewards response to a legality issue and not enforceable?

I think it was in relation to this?

@Blink McSquinty - He has become worse this season with "fact" dropping. He wouldn't reveal his source in Brazil either where he was shown data to prove the differences between the Power Units.

Sometimes it's hard for me to define the difference between grey areas and flat out cheating.

When Mercedes do it it's a grey area(Oil burn+HPC suspension) and when Red Bull do it it's cheating (HPC Suspension).

There, done it.

Lotus49 wrote:

pokerman wrote:

Malkiiin wrote:Was this the subject that Lazenby and Kravitz quizzed Horner over in Austin? And his smug response was that there was always 'grey areas' in the rules that teams can exploit under there interpretation of the rules? He then went on to say that Technical Directives were not rules and rather, a Stewards response to a legality issue and not enforceable?

I think it was in relation to this?

@Blink McSquinty - He has become worse this season with "fact" dropping. He wouldn't reveal his source in Brazil either where he was shown data to prove the differences between the Power Units.

Sometimes it's hard for me to define the difference between grey areas and flat out cheating.

When Mercedes do it it's a grey area(Oil burn+HPC suspension) and when Red Bull do it it's cheating (HPC Suspension).

There, done it.

For starters the Mercedes system wasn't designed as an aerodynamic aid like the Red Bull system which got banned at the beginning of the season and lead to the Mercedes system also being banned, Mercedes let it go but here we have Red Bull deliberately developing another illegal system to do the same thing as before under the guise of a grey area.

Let's not forget that Red Bull deliberately cheated twice in 2014, first in Australia when they ran an illegal fuel flow rate trying to claim that the sensor was faulty, they ignored several orders by the stewards to turn the fuel flow rate down thinking they were cleverer and could blag their way through it.

Then at seasons end in Abu Dhabi they ran an illegal mechanical device within the front wings and got disqualified from qualifying, that was deliberate cheating.

Several weeks ago Matt Sommerfield, technical expert, said that Red Bull's much improved performance coincided with the resignation of the Chief FIA Technical Inspector who got poached by Renault, he said the guy was really good at his job and the teams weren't able to run anything dodgy past him, what we are left with now are not so good and he believed Red Bull in particular were taking advantage of the situation.

Now we hear of Red Bull's big hike in performance being linked to the suspension and I would be guessing that the teams have flagged this up rather than the stewards and that's why it's taken so long for them to act, when Horner says grey area I smell cheat.

pokerman wrote:Sometimes it's hard for me to define the difference between grey areas and flat out cheating.

A grey area is where you can cheat and not get punished. Simple as that.

Exediron wrote:

pokerman wrote:Sometimes it's hard for me to define the difference between grey areas and flat out cheating.

A grey area is where you can cheat and not get punished. Simple as that.

It is what I thought it was then.

It's just reliant on you being cleverer then the stewards.

pokerman wrote:

Lotus49 wrote:

pokerman wrote:

Malkiiin wrote:Was this the subject that Lazenby and Kravitz quizzed Horner over in Austin? And his smug response was that there was always 'grey areas' in the rules that teams can exploit under there interpretation of the rules? He then went on to say that Technical Directives were not rules and rather, a Stewards response to a legality issue and not enforceable?

I think it was in relation to this?

@Blink McSquinty - He has become worse this season with "fact" dropping. He wouldn't reveal his source in Brazil either where he was shown data to prove the differences between the Power Units.

Sometimes it's hard for me to define the difference between grey areas and flat out cheating.

When Mercedes do it it's a grey area(Oil burn+HPC suspension) and when Red Bull do it it's cheating (HPC Suspension).

There, done it.

For starters the Mercedes system wasn't designed as an aerodynamic aid like the Red Bull system which got banned at the beginning of the season and lead to the Mercedes system also being banned, Mercedes let it go but here we have Red Bull deliberately developing another illegal system to do the same thing as before under the guise of a grey area.

Let's not forget that Red Bull deliberately cheated twice in 2014, first in Australia when they ran an illegal fuel flow rate trying to claim that the sensor was faulty, they ignored several orders by the stewards to turn the fuel flow rate down thinking they were cleverer and could blag their way through it.

Then at seasons end in Abu Dhabi they ran an illegal mechanical device within the front wings and got disqualified from qualifying, that was deliberate cheating.

Several weeks ago Matt Sommerfield, technical expert, said that Red Bull's much improved performance coincided with the resignation of the Chief FIA Technical Inspector who got poached by Renault, he said the guy was really good at his job and the teams weren't able to run anything dodgy past him, what we are left with now are not so good and he believed Red Bull in particular were taking advantage of the situation.

Now we hear of Red Bull's big hike in performance being linked to the suspension and I would be guessing that the teams have flagged this up rather than the stewards and that's why it's taken so long for them to act, when Horner says grey area I smell cheat.

They were both designed as an aerodynamic aid and both used the same elements, one to create a stable aero platform in all conditions(Mercedes) and one by stalling the rear wing on the straight (RB). And Mercedes tested using it to stall the rear wing, it was a piece in AMuS about that very test that raised the suspicion around the suspensions in the first place.

Because Red Bull's effectively stored the energy to be used later was the issue IIRC and Charlie said 'up and down bad but side to side good' and Red Bull chose not to run theirs. No-one forced Mercedes not to run their own. Neither Hyrdaulics,heave dampers/springs,actuators or accumulators are banned. The FIA simply said if they were protested at any time they'd force the teams to reveal their workings. Mercedes said they didn't run theirs for weight reasons IIRC.

I was just pulling your leg a bit anyway.

Malkiiin wrote:Was this the subject that Lazenby and Kravitz quizzed Horner over in Austin? And his smug response was that there was always 'grey areas' in the rules that teams can exploit under there interpretation of the rules? He then went on to say that Technical Directives were not rules and rather, a Stewards response to a legality issue and not enforceable?

I think it was in relation to this?

@Blink McSquinty - He has become worse this season with "fact" dropping. He wouldn't reveal his source in Brazil either where he was shown data to prove the differences between the Power Units.

Why would a journalist reveal their source?

I'm fairly certain Brundle could keep quiet on his facts, but his job is to drop the odd fact on us without throwing any of his sources under the bus. A result of that is it'll sometime be vague, and he'll almost always not be able to say how he knows.

Malkiiin wrote: @Blink McSquinty - He has become worse this season with "fact" dropping. He wouldn't reveal his source in Brazil either where he was shown data to prove the differences between the Power Units.

Do you actually need this explained to you?

Ennis wrote:Why would a journalist reveal their source?

I'm fairly certain Brundle could keep quiet on his facts, but his job is to drop the odd fact on us without throwing any of his sources under the bus. A result of that is it'll sometime be vague, and he'll almost always not be able to say how he knows.

Because when one (I am not even going to refer to Brundle as a journalist, that is a slap in the face of real journalists) just drops unsubstantiated tidbits, they lose all integrity.

I did the research, I provided a link to a German news site, at least I pointed people in the right direction. And this is not a secret, this information is available for anyone willing to just spend a few minutes researching. Brundle is not protecting any sources, Brundle is just behaving like a trash tabloid gossip columnist.

In previous races Red Bull became competitive. One suspected piece of the puzzle was that the car could run a high rake angle (they all do now) but at high speed when the downforce should be compressing the rear end of the car and thus reduce rake, the Red Bull had a system where (supposedly) the rear suspension did not react to the aerodynamic downforce. Remember back at COTA in the USA the Red Bulls just ripped up the sector with the high speed esses? When you can find a solution that does not allow the rear end to compress at high speed, thus maintaining high downforce, the car will be superior in high speed corners.

Fast forward to Interlagos and Abu Dhabi, and since Red Bull had to remove that system, the Red Bull cars were not the high speed corner monsters they could have been.

Blinky McSquinty wrote:

Ennis wrote:Why would a journalist reveal their source?

I'm fairly certain Brundle could keep quiet on his facts, but his job is to drop the odd fact on us without throwing any of his sources under the bus. A result of that is it'll sometime be vague, and he'll almost always not be able to say how he knows.

Because when one (I am not even going to refer to Brundle as a journalist, that is a slap in the face of real journalists) just drops unsubstantiated tidbits, they lose all integrity.

I did the research, I provided a link to a German news site, at least I pointed people in the right direction. And this is not a secret, this information is available for anyone willing to just spend a few minutes researching. Brundle is not protecting any sources, Brundle is just behaving like a trash tabloid gossip columnist.

In previous races Red Bull became competitive. One suspected piece of the puzzle was that the car could run a high rake angle (they all do now) but at high speed when the downforce should be compressing the rear end of the car and thus reduce rake, the Red Bull had a system where (supposedly) the rear suspension did not react to the aerodynamic downforce. Remember back at COTA in the USA the Red Bulls just ripped up the sector with the high speed esses? When you can find a solution that does not allow the rear end to compress at high speed, thus maintaining high downforce, the car will be superior in high speed corners.

Fast forward to Interlagos and Abu Dhabi, and since Red Bull had to remove that system, the Red Bull cars were not the high speed corner monsters they could have been.

I don't even know what you're rallying against here.

Brundle referred to suspension changes, the article references suspension changes. The article is fully dedicated to the details of it, Brundle is employed partly to give short and snappy pieces of information.

What is it you're actually so emotionally challenging here?

Ennis wrote:

Blinky McSquinty wrote:

Ennis wrote:Why would a journalist reveal their source?

I'm fairly certain Brundle could keep quiet on his facts, but his job is to drop the odd fact on us without throwing any of his sources under the bus. A result of that is it'll sometime be vague, and he'll almost always not be able to say how he knows.

Because when one (I am not even going to refer to Brundle as a journalist, that is a slap in the face of real journalists) just drops unsubstantiated tidbits, they lose all integrity.

I did the research, I provided a link to a German news site, at least I pointed people in the right direction. And this is not a secret, this information is available for anyone willing to just spend a few minutes researching. Brundle is not protecting any sources, Brundle is just behaving like a trash tabloid gossip columnist.

In previous races Red Bull became competitive. One suspected piece of the puzzle was that the car could run a high rake angle (they all do now) but at high speed when the downforce should be compressing the rear end of the car and thus reduce rake, the Red Bull had a system where (supposedly) the rear suspension did not react to the aerodynamic downforce. Remember back at COTA in the USA the Red Bulls just ripped up the sector with the high speed esses? When you can find a solution that does not allow the rear end to compress at high speed, thus maintaining high downforce, the car will be superior in high speed corners.

Fast forward to Interlagos and Abu Dhabi, and since Red Bull had to remove that system, the Red Bull cars were not the high speed corner monsters they could have been.

I don't even know what you're rallying against here.

Brundle referred to suspension changes, the article references suspension changes. The article is fully dedicated to the details of it, Brundle is employed partly to give short and snappy pieces of information.

What is it you're actually so emotionally challenging here?

Yeah I'm totally confused as well, maybe Blinky just doesn't like Brundle?

Blinky McSquinty wrote:

Ennis wrote:Why would a journalist reveal their source?

I'm fairly certain Brundle could keep quiet on his facts, but his job is to drop the odd fact on us without throwing any of his sources under the bus. A result of that is it'll sometime be vague, and he'll almost always not be able to say how he knows.

Because when one (I am not even going to refer to Brundle as a journalist, that is a slap in the face of real journalists) just drops unsubstantiated tidbits, they lose all integrity.

I did the research, I provided a link to a German news site, at least I pointed people in the right direction. And this is not a secret, this information is available for anyone willing to just spend a few minutes researching. Brundle is not protecting any sources, Brundle is just behaving like a trash tabloid gossip columnist.

In previous races Red Bull became competitive. One suspected piece of the puzzle was that the car could run a high rake angle (they all do now) but at high speed when the downforce should be compressing the rear end of the car and thus reduce rake, the Red Bull had a system where (supposedly) the rear suspension did not react to the aerodynamic downforce. Remember back at COTA in the USA the Red Bulls just ripped up the sector with the high speed esses? When you can find a solution that does not allow the rear end to compress at high speed, thus maintaining high downforce, the car will be superior in high speed corners.

Fast forward to Interlagos and Abu Dhabi, and since Red Bull had to remove that system, the Red Bull cars were not the high speed corner monsters they could have been.

Do you even know what you're talking about?

Blinky McSquinty wrote:

Ennis wrote:Why would a journalist reveal their source?

I'm fairly certain Brundle could keep quiet on his facts, but his job is to drop the odd fact on us without throwing any of his sources under the bus. A result of that is it'll sometime be vague, and he'll almost always not be able to say how he knows.

Because when one (I am not even going to refer to Brundle as a journalist, that is a slap in the face of real journalists) just drops unsubstantiated tidbits, they lose all integrity.

I did the research, I provided a link to a German news site, at least I pointed people in the right direction. And this is not a secret, this information is available for anyone willing to just spend a few minutes researching. Brundle is not protecting any sources, Brundle is just behaving like a trash tabloid gossip columnist.

In previous races Red Bull became competitive. One suspected piece of the puzzle was that the car could run a high rake angle (they all do now) but at high speed when the downforce should be compressing the rear end of the car and thus reduce rake, the Red Bull had a system where (supposedly) the rear suspension did not react to the aerodynamic downforce. Remember back at COTA in the USA the Red Bulls just ripped up the sector with the high speed esses? When you can find a solution that does not allow the rear end to compress at high speed, thus maintaining high downforce, the car will be superior in high speed corners.

Fast forward to Interlagos and Abu Dhabi, and since Red Bull had to remove that system, the Red Bull cars were not the high speed corner monsters they could have been.

...aren't you just agreeing with Brundle, in albeit slightly more detail? Brundle isn't paid for in depth technical analysis, he isn't Scarbs; hell, he isn't even Mark Hughes. He's a commentator with a fairly throwaway blog/article piece after every race on the SkySports website, really odd to go after him for pointing people in a direction (and which upon your own more detailed investigation, appears to be true?).

pokerman wrote:

Lotus49 wrote:

pokerman wrote:

Malkiiin wrote:Was this the subject that Lazenby and Kravitz quizzed Horner over in Austin? And his smug response was that there was always 'grey areas' in the rules that teams can exploit under there interpretation of the rules? He then went on to say that Technical Directives were not rules and rather, a Stewards response to a legality issue and not enforceable?

I think it was in relation to this?

@Blink McSquinty - He has become worse this season with "fact" dropping. He wouldn't reveal his source in Brazil either where he was shown data to prove the differences between the Power Units.

Sometimes it's hard for me to define the difference between grey areas and flat out cheating.

When Mercedes do it it's a grey area(Oil burn+HPC suspension) and when Red Bull do it it's cheating (HPC Suspension).

There, done it.

For starters the Mercedes system wasn't designed as an aerodynamic aid like the Red Bull system which got banned at the beginning of the season and lead to the Mercedes system also being banned, Mercedes let it go but here we have Red Bull deliberately developing another illegal system to do the same thing as before under the guise of a grey area.

Let's not forget that Red Bull deliberately cheated twice in 2014, first in Australia when they ran an illegal fuel flow rate trying to claim that the sensor was faulty, they ignored several orders by the stewards to turn the fuel flow rate down thinking they were cleverer and could blag their way through it.

Then at seasons end in Abu Dhabi they ran an illegal mechanical device within the front wings and got disqualified from qualifying, that was deliberate cheating.

Several weeks ago Matt Sommerfield, technical expert, said that Red Bull's much improved performance coincided with the resignation of the Chief FIA Technical Inspector who got poached by Renault, he said the guy was really good at his job and the teams weren't able to run anything dodgy past him, what we are left with now are not so good and he believed Red Bull in particular were taking advantage of the situation.

Now we hear of Red Bull's big hike in performance being linked to the suspension and I would be guessing that the teams have flagged this up rather than the stewards and that's why it's taken so long for them to act, when Horner says grey area I smell cheat.

You mention deliberate cheating a fair bit here.
Re fuel flow sensor, they had changed the sensor twice that weekend before the race as the results they were getting from it were inconsistent.
Once they clarified and fixed the sensors, no team has been penalised since. Interesting also was the graphic they developed for the 2014 season that showed real time fuel levels. That lasted about 4 races as it soon became clear it was a none issue they scrapped it from the TV coverage.

Re deliberately developing suspension that was illegal. I would say they would have just been looking at a way to develop the suspension, and it just so happened to be illegal.
Why would a team bother developing stuff that was flat out illegal when they can be disqualified?

Randine wrote:Re deliberately developing suspension that was illegal. I would say they would have just been looking at a way to develop the suspension, and it just so happened to be illegal.
Why would a team bother developing stuff that was flat out illegal when they can be disqualified?

Because they thought they could get away with it, obviously.

Randine wrote:

pokerman wrote:

Lotus49 wrote:

pokerman wrote:

Malkiiin wrote:Was this the subject that Lazenby and Kravitz quizzed Horner over in Austin? And his smug response was that there was always 'grey areas' in the rules that teams can exploit under there interpretation of the rules? He then went on to say that Technical Directives were not rules and rather, a Stewards response to a legality issue and not enforceable?

I think it was in relation to this?

@Blink McSquinty - He has become worse this season with "fact" dropping. He wouldn't reveal his source in Brazil either where he was shown data to prove the differences between the Power Units.

Sometimes it's hard for me to define the difference between grey areas and flat out cheating.

When Mercedes do it it's a grey area(Oil burn+HPC suspension) and when Red Bull do it it's cheating (HPC Suspension).

There, done it.

For starters the Mercedes system wasn't designed as an aerodynamic aid like the Red Bull system which got banned at the beginning of the season and lead to the Mercedes system also being banned, Mercedes let it go but here we have Red Bull deliberately developing another illegal system to do the same thing as before under the guise of a grey area.

Let's not forget that Red Bull deliberately cheated twice in 2014, first in Australia when they ran an illegal fuel flow rate trying to claim that the sensor was faulty, they ignored several orders by the stewards to turn the fuel flow rate down thinking they were cleverer and could blag their way through it.

Then at seasons end in Abu Dhabi they ran an illegal mechanical device within the front wings and got disqualified from qualifying, that was deliberate cheating.

Several weeks ago Matt Sommerfield, technical expert, said that Red Bull's much improved performance coincided with the resignation of the Chief FIA Technical Inspector who got poached by Renault, he said the guy was really good at his job and the teams weren't able to run anything dodgy past him, what we are left with now are not so good and he believed Red Bull in particular were taking advantage of the situation.

Now we hear of Red Bull's big hike in performance being linked to the suspension and I would be guessing that the teams have flagged this up rather than the stewards and that's why it's taken so long for them to act, when Horner says grey area I smell cheat.

You mention deliberate cheating a fair bit here.
Re fuel flow sensor, they had changed the sensor twice that weekend before the race as the results they were getting from it were inconsistent.
Once they clarified and fixed the sensors, no team has been penalised since. Interesting also was the graphic they developed for the 2014 season that showed real time fuel levels. That lasted about 4 races as it soon became clear it was a none issue they scrapped it from the TV coverage.

Re deliberately developing suspension that was illegal. I would say they would have just been looking at a way to develop the suspension, and it just so happened to be illegal.
Why would a team bother developing stuff that was flat out illegal when they can be disqualified?

Ignoring the directives of the stewards is to deliberately cheat, they had to remove suspension that they developed to be an aerodynamic aid so just developed a different system that did the same thing hoping the stewards wouldn't pick up on it, taking an advantage perhaps as I said of the Chief Technical Inspector having given his notice in.

What tends to happens I believe is that the car gets checked before hand and if the suspension gets passed before the race then it's not going to be disqualified after the race, that's why basically we don't see Red Bull getting disqualified for all the races it was used.

I believe it got taken off for the last 2 races, there is no actually wish to disqualify them as such.