Good Point. Everybody knows who the REAL constructors champion was last year!

 

Not so fast there, sport. Seven Hundred Eighty pages of stolen Ferrari data might have had something to do with it...

 

My question is "Why did Ferrari take action against Mclaren when Stepney was the guilty party ?"

In the case of selling secrets to say, the Soviets, generally we track down the traitor and take action against the individual rather than trying to take action against the Soviets.

The whole thing is/was ridiculous and did nothing but cost money for all involved except the incredible payday the lawyers got.

 

Because McLaren benefited from it! I'm both pro-McLaren and pro-Ferrari (I support both Hamilton and Massa), but Stepney handed the data directly to McLaren. The drivers confirmed it last year, but because they came forward voluntarily they weren't penalized. McLaren was.

 

Hmm, good point, but did McLaren ACTUALLY benefit from it? Can that be empirically quantified? When the "rubber hits the road" McLaren wins, at least until the FIA takes it away . . .

 

If someone gave you the winning lottery ticket would you complain ?

 

Well, let's see. The lottery ticket was worth $100 million - quite a temptation. But would I really enjoy spending the money knowing the lottery ticket was stolen? Hmm . . . decisions decisions. A moral dilemma for sure.

 

Depends. Do they have a winning lottery ticket of their own? Or are they already rich? Am I robbing them by some chance for said ticket?

 

There was enough of a suspicion that FIA watched McLaren's '08 construction very, very carefully. And as I recall, there WAS something on the '07 car relating to wings that came from Ferrari. Also, I remember issues about fuel loads, set up strategy, pit timing, and the like. I might be wrong--I do have senior moments at my age, but that's my recollection, and there's some evidence to that extent if you probe the internet.

I'm also not too thrilled at McLaren got the contract for the universal ECU all teams must use. Theoretically no advantage, but...

 

If someone gives me a stolen lottery ticket, and I know it's stolen, and I know who he stole it from, I take it straight to the guy it belongs to.

 

Take a look at this:

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/070820...bow-title.html

 

Interesting. Sounds like he figures ham will take the title this year.

The comments below the story are entertaining.....

 

Is it me or has F1 gotten a lot more (and better) air time within the last year or so? Inside Grand Prix was on around lunch time and Hungary was just replayed now. No longer is it on at 3am, either. Speed seems to be maintaining a good 7-8am timeslot for both Quali and the race. Maybe they realize they shouldn't bet everything on NASCAR and Pinks.

 

Enough about stolen lottery tickets.....

If you're winnin' there's probably something in your car that no one (Ferrari) thought a rule up for yet !

 

Flexi-wing!

 

Actually, that might be right on the mark. From what I've read, the flex-wing and flex-floor that we've heard about were in the data Stepney sent to McLaren.

 

I forgot all about flexi-floor!

 

Mclaren should have gone to the FIA and shown them that Ferrari was cheating but then knowing that action would not be taken........

 

Actually, as I recall, they did, even before the drivers did.

 

Wonder what's going to happen with this KERS thing.

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/080820...orry-kers.html

 

Yeah, it won't be as simple to push back KERS as it was to just drop the rule banning tire warmers. Some teams have already spent HUGE money to get it working on time, and if even a single team manages to get it right (and make it safe) they'll scream bloody murder about pushing it to 2010 or dropping it altogether just because others are behind their development curve. Besides, I think I read KERS is optional in 2009, with other constraints on any team that opts to run without it.

My question is, will there be some safety issue (like BMW's mysterious problem) that no one can resolve in time? Once in a while when you try to push a new technology into a very high stress environment you find a new phenomenon that no one understands and requires a bit of scientific discovery and unprecedented engineering.....and that can take a lot of time (and $$$).

 

It was stated during the Hungarian race that it's going to be optional next year. I didn't hear any mention of restrictions on teams not using it but I wouldn't be surprised. And I would definitely worry of the problems it could cause. Wasn't BMW's tech facility evacuated because of a fire or potential fire? And it was stated what happens if someone reaches over the battery pack and gets electricuted? Not good.

 

Electrocution is never good. (Well, I guess it is in "Old Sparky")

 

Coulthard wants to ban refueling

Not a bad idea.....

http://f1.gpupdate.net/en/news/2008/...an-refuelling/

 

I remember they brought this up some time back but it was shot down. I think it was a safety issue? Certainly tires would have real problems.