Even though technically Ferrari where 'wronged', I feel very anti-Ferrari at the moment. I somehow feel that the whole thing is incredibly contrived and horribly unfair to McLaren.

I also dislike the way that Fred has been distancing himself from McLaren, so i want to see him fail too.

Actually the absolute best result is a string of DNF's from Fred and the Ferrari's

 

IP drives the Engieering world, and McLaren took posetion. It was their engineering responsibily not to use that information. They were COPYING it at a photocopy store and the cleark phoned Ferrari...

They used the information also to get the floor board banned in July.

i have no sympathy for the people that decided that information was ok to be used...they all know they effects of being caught with other peoples ip. (you down with OPiP yeah you know me ? )

 

Make McLaren finish the season on last year's chassis!

 

Bhatch - I beleive that you need to differentiate between McLaren and an employee of McLaren. Secondly you have to understand the level of information passing and leakage - this is exactly what the FIA have tried to do, but in my opinion, failed to impose a fair solution through fear of losing Ferrari - the biggest name in F1.

Personally I think that the outcome is 'interesting', but also hugely biased towards Ferrari.

 

You really, truely, honestly beleive that any company is capable of implimenting another companies designs into their own in a matter of months on something as complex as an F1 car ????




Best joke of evAr !

 

No being involved in the case, I can only assume there are more facts at hand than what's been released to the media. But regardless of this being McLaren, or an engineer at McLaren, if technology developed by Ferrari (or any other team) was incorporated in the McLaren chassis, then is outcome is justified and I applaud it. I also think it was a fair move by the FIA to NOT strip the drivers of thier points and allow the fight for the Drivers title to continue.

As an interesting result, I for one would like to see Freddie depart McLaren, perhaps back to Renault and hopefully we can get a real 3 way battle going, maybe even 4-way if BMW can find that little pace they're lacking.

 

The problem with this, is that NO technology developed by Ferrari has been incorporated into McLaren! The FIA has no evidence of anything like that.

 

That's news to me! Of course, it would also be news to me to learn that something definitely WAS incorporated. Real facts are pretty hard to come by at this point aren't they? I have yet to read any details from any official source that say Ferrari IP either was or wasn't involved in any McLaren decision-making, at any level, regarding any type of change, however small. The council may have ruled (and it's just a recommendation at this point, right?), but that doesn't mean the facts are all known to those of us in the peanut gallery. I still don't (and may never) know any where near enough to judge whether the recommended punishment fits the crime (if there really was one).....

 

The previous announcement is that there was no Ferrari IP on the McLaren car - this was proven by dumping the Change Management documentation for each and every development on the car since Jan 1st.

Note that if the FIA thought for one moment that there was any Ferrari IP on the car, it would not be racing this weekend.

The 'crime' is simply possession of Ferrari information.

 

Sorry, but I don't see the Change Management documentation as "proof" of anything. Feel free to call me a cynic (I do it all the time), but who authored that documentation? It may show change which can be seen manifested in/on their cars, but that doesn't mean their decision-making regarding those changes wasn't affected in some way. They certainly wouldn't document anything like that.

I'm not defending Ferrari or the council, in fact I think you're probably right about the strength of the motive to do exactly as you said -- rule in favor of the big red dog to keep those cars from packing up and going home -- I'm just saying the meager facts I've read (here and elsewhere) don't support ANY ruling. I'm still waiting for more.

 

..... and in the meantime, I'm much less interested than I usually am to watch the next race.....

 

True difficult to use in this years car, by F1 does a huge amount of man hours in one day. Honda for instance runs 8 F1 motor round the clock at the F1 test cell.

They are constantly updating the cars and even Honda last race recived updated components from the windtunnel calibraion. New tech could have easly found it's way into the new car.

True they did not have Ferrari stuff on the car, but it may have influenced the change.

i am really interested in what Renalut had to do with this.

 

Yeah - the Renault angle is going to be real interesting - McLaren are not only not going down without a fight, but I am sure that they intend to take others with them.

How long before Fred's contract is broken then ?

 

By using that reasoning, then standing in the pits, and seeing that Ferrari has a new randomizing widget attached to their airbox, means I can't incorporate my own version of a randomizing widget because seeing it on Ferrari influenced my design?

Might as well toss F1 all together then.

 

There's a big, fat, gray, dotted line that meanders somewhere between that which folks want to call "IP" and all the stuff you can see/observe in the pits, on the test tracks, etc, and reverse engineer, but there is a line. Unfortunately, exactly where that line lies is a matter of opinion and nothing more. I'm sure glad I'm not the poor sap responsible for determining what falls in the secret IP category at any moment in time.....esp given that the overarching politics usually color every so-called "fact" we're fed. I imagine I'd feel like saying "ok, just tell me what you want me to say so I can write it down and get out of here."

 

There are two important bits you are missing - the 'lead time' and the 'context'.

The lead-times are fairly huge - work on the 2008 car probably started in January of 2007 - ie as soon as they had the first pieces of data from this years car. Design changes on the 2007 car have been coming all year, but they have a fiarly long gestation period where the changes are computer modelled and tested prior to manufacturing.

As for context, well the Ferrari and the McLaren may accomplish the same task, but they do it in different ways. The cars are very different.

I guess it is like expecting an anti-roll bar designed for a Mini to be any use on a Golf Git.

 

Max, don't try to introduce logic into this. It will just confuse the FIA.

FIA: Ferrari Infiltrtated A**Holes

 

Like I said - I am hoping for four BMW 1-2's and 8 (total) Ferrari DNF's.....

 

 

I'm hoping for more good races.

My favorite quote of the day is from Norbert Haug (sp?) who said they would fight back on the track. I hope to see plenty of that.

 

As of now, I would be very happy to see a breakaway series.

F1 and the sport are severely damaged, unless you happen to be a blind Tifosi.

Might as well go the whole route, get out from under Bernie, Max, and Ferrari.

 

I'll second that.

 

What could Max and Bernie do? Wave the "Concorde Agreement" at them?

If the major manufacurers jumped ship, leaving only Ferrari and a few of the non-contenders, how long to you think the sponsors and fans would follow "F1?"

 

YEAH!!!

Glad to know someone on this board has some sense!

 

Aw c'mon . . . LOL . . . that doesn't excuse anything!

The question is not whether they benefitted, but whether they knowingly took the information and kept it under wraps. I wasn't privvy to the "evidence" but apparently someone felt Mr. Dennis and company could've handled this situation differently

Of course, we all know that McLaren DID benefit. They benefitted in ways which don't necessarily require incorporating designs into their own vehicle.

Ron Dennis could've come out at the beginning of the season and reported this to Ferrari. He chose not to. Sorry guys, blaming the FIA and Ferrari is kind of weak.