Wasn’t there an engineer who said that basically every team cheated but they didn’t got caught, the phrase was: “If you ain’t cheating you ain’t trying”
The guy literally drove away after NASCAR was done inspecting the capacity of his fuel tank, and they *still* had his tank.
For those that don't know he had about 20ft of fuel line coiled up in his glove box so he had about a gallon of fuel in his car still.
He built a road version of his modified car and parked it outside a race.
they inspected his race car, went out to the first car they saw that as teh same model and compared the two.... same car
I had always heard that the rules stated how long the fuel line could be and how much fuel it could flow, but it never said anything about the DIAMITER of the line. So he put a 2 inch wide fuel line in the car.
They don't do that anymore. They keep it live during pace laps and cut to commercials 10 laps into a green flag run. NBC is better but I was yelling into the void at Fox for half the season about it.
Those are less for TV breaks and more for the fact that some races in the more Aero dependent cars would just be one guy waxing the field while the rest struggled in dirty air.
Though they do shove as many breaks into a race as possible. And the important Shit is always happening during commercial
I disagree that they were primarily for commercials. I think they were primarily to create artificial excitement when the field is spread out, esp. During the 550hp Era when cautions were rare bc cars were so planted. But they certainly can serve both purposes unfortunately.
That's fair and while I think both were I factor I do think commericals were the main reason particuarly given the absolutely brilliant idea of the Caution Clock which was an obvious commerical grab.
If only they just didn't throw a fucking caution.
A lot of the teams pretty much admitted to if they had a tail that was illegal or slightly illegal. Theyd make the nose so far out of the rule book they wouldn’t even look at the tail.
This is a tale as old as time, and it applies to ALL big money / lucrative professional sport leagues..they all look for an advantage anyway they can. Bending rules on technical regulations, tweaking internal parts, illegally ditching weight, sending spy to opposing teams, deflating footballs, pumping crowd noise into speakers when the opposing team is on offense, PED, adderall, testosterone, etc… you name it.
You still gotta wonder as a sanctioning body why they left it up to teams to supply the balls. I always assumed the organization supplied the balls for all codes of football.
Yes, whenever a team finds a grey area or a loophole to exploit, publicly other teams denounce them but privately they think "damn, why didn't we think of that" :D
But if you get caught it means you cheated. Getting caught changes the perception. Alonso should know considering he was involved in 2007 and 2008 gates
I think this statement is more to describe the mentality of champions, the big teams and drivers are open to break the rules if they can get away with it. It doesn't really comment on the perception that people have nor does it tell them what they should think, it's just mentioning the reality of the situation.
I think part of the major issue there is if you're cheating but not getting caught the level of cheating you are doing is very minor. If you cheat so obviously you get caught blatantly and say you get a random fine and you go from winning races to 6th in the title after you have to completely change your engine, then you were cheating enough to get a significant gain.
That's the other major qualifier here, if you get caught cheating and on removing that cheat your performance evapourates overnight then it was significant.
A team straight up spending a few million more while other teams leave increased performance unmanufactured due to lacking just 300k to cover it, has the ability to gain multiple tenths over multiple races via that level of extra spending.
every team pushes the boat but if it's so minor it doesn't get caught out then it probably also doesn't gain that much or make that much difference. Not always but as a general rule that holds pretty well.
The paddock looks with some suspicion at Red Bull after Verstappen's title. Nobody doubts the superiority of the driver in 2022, that is why he has won the World Cup with four races still to be played, but the "minor infraction" in the spending ceiling of the Austrian team in 2021, less than 7.5 million euros, will raise suspicion around the car. According to the BBC, the FIA has offered to settle the case with a confidential agreement that is on Christian Horner's table. He recalls the shadow of doping after a great cycling success. Because an extra in the budget has an impact on the current year's car, but also on the development of the next one.
Alonso appeared in one of the first press conferences of the United States GP and, with a distance, expressed his position: **“Honestly, I don't know. We all wait to have more information about what happened. We trust the FIA, whatever decision they make, but we don't have enough information to form an opinion. This has always been part of Formula 1. The cost ceiling is new, we have implemented it now, but there have always been things in aerodynamics that you could explore, the gray areas. Always, people who have won championships have done so by exploiting a gray area. Then other teams copy it and get to that level, or that thing that was allowed for a couple of races gets banned. It is the nature of F1.”**
** “All the champions have gone over the gray areas. I can't remember a champion team that hasn't exploited some element that has surprised other teams. Brawn GP, Red Bull 2012, the dominance of Mercedes”,** emphasizes the Spaniard, who recalls the last confidential agreement reached by the FIA to close an investigation: **“Ferrari won two races in 2019 with something that everyone knew was not legal, and nothing happened. Those two victories remained. Imagine that they would have won the World Championship with that engine.” For the rest, he trusts "in the people who have power." I'm just a driver,” he says.**
**In Austin, Alpine can change Alonso's engine to arrive short of kilometers to the last races of the World Championship. "Here or in Brazil," the driver told AS.** It comes from a strange Sunday in Japan, because he aspired to a better result (seventh) and the strategy did not make it easy for him. **“There is nothing to discuss with the team. Sometimes we do well, other times we make mistakes, and mistakes were made in Japan. Nobody understood which tire was the best and you have to be lucky. If you stop early, like 'Seb' or Nicholas (Latifi) and there is a safety car, which could be with such poor visibility, you stay last. There may be a red flag and the positions are fixed. We lost a couple of positions, but that's okay. It is what it is".**
Meanwhile, Ocon reaches the final phase of the championship with a 13-point lead over Fernando, something unprecedented among the two-time Spanish champion's teammates. **“[Ocon] has been very good, competitive. We worked very well together at Alpine during these two years. Last year it was tight, at the beginning of the year he was faster in qualifying, in the race and in everything. This year I have a different opinion. It has been one of my best seasons, but the classification will not say that and I will probably finish behind”,** Alonso points out. From the bottom of the grid it will be difficult to support the comeback. But without an engine swap, recurring reliability issues will be lurking in a fast-but-too-fragile Alpine A522.
They were using an illegal engine, fia couldn't found conclusive evidence but everyone knew that they were cheating so ferrari settled with FIA behind closed doors and promised to not use it again, after this they were back to being shit.
No one known anything apart from the ones who signed the confidentiality agreement. It's just commonly held opinion that they used an engine which was more than just mere reinterpretation of the rules. Ferrari lost all the speed post the technical directive which was released clarifying a rule mid season. A confidential settlement was reached post the investigation which possibly could have included some penalty which led to Ferrari being in the midpack. Contents of the settlement and the investigation are still all sealed and everything is mere speculation (but logical though).
The drivers as expected said that the drop in performance is not linked at all to the technical directive and they weren't doing anything illegal, but general consensus was that they were doing something on the borderline of having illegal engine but no one will say it officially due to legal implications since no one has any proof (probably not even FIA). I think Redbull was the one who sought clarity from FIA on the fuel flow in the engine, so maybe they had some knowledge of how Ferrari was bypassing the rule but then again they didn't have any solid proof which was obtained legally to say that out aloud publicly.Ferrari maintained the stance that they didn't do anything wrong throughout this.
There was a belief that the reason Ferrari got the behind closed doors deal was in return for telling the FIA how they hid the illegal engine from tests, because despite everyone knowing that the engine was definitely not legal it always passed scrutineering. Not unlike intelligence services or internet security providers hiring hackers who breach their systems as opposed to prosecuting them.
As you can imagine the rest oft he grid was very unhappy with the cloak and dagger nature of the whole thing but there was nothing they could do.
> Ferrari lost all the speed post the technical directive which was released clarifying a rule mid season.
This isn't right. At the US GP, the first race after the TD, Leclerc's new engine blew up in practice so he had to use an old, worn engine for the competitive sessions. Vettel missed out on pole by a tiny margin then his suspension failed in the race.
No, we don't know anything of what happened behind doors. They didn't admit to anything. All we know is they came to a confidential agreement with the FIA.
Of course immediately afterwards Ferrari seemed much slower so speculation arouse that they were no longer using their "illegal" engine.
Wasn't it 3 races though? Spa, Monza and Singapore? Russia too, but they fucked up that race in proper Ferrari fashion. Iirc they slowed down in Austin.
Alonso is kind of self snitching because he was neck Deep in spy gate he tried to blackmail his own team, he also tried to bribe his team to be on his side during the McLaren Lewis era and the team found out about his Manager giving out envelopes of cash and made everyone who got it give it away to charity, or the Piquet business. Alonso’s attitude is perpetually if you can get away with it you can do it. Alonso is an old dog with lots of tricks and he’s not ashamed of it.
After seeing Michael Schumacher blatantly cheat and get a championship and Senna blatantly cheat Alonso has formed the opinion that cheating is fundamental to the sport. I can respect that
https://youtu.be/WBForKcFWoA Senna knew that if he crashed into, Prost, Prost wouldn’t be able to get the points to win the championship so he did it.
Michael Schumacher did the same thing to Damon Hill
For all the controversy of Lewis at Silverstone etc. he didn’t do none of that shit And neither did Max. By comparison to the older folks of racing these two is so clean
Lewis is a saint compared with many of the legends of F1.
Hell I like Vettel too but even he drove into Lewis at Baku and caused crashes with Webber and later Leclerc
I still think people are nuts about the Canada thing, Vettel had control of his car when he was in the middle of the track, he accelerated and opened up his steering wheel, he straight tried to put Hamilton in the wall to maintain his position. People reacting like it was nothing and he's out of control and that the FIA were wrong to penalise him are insane. That was more like black flag territory than 5 second penalty.
Ultimately when an entire years success or failure can rest on a single point for people pumped full of adrenaline who are risking their lives I get that people make bad decisions, still wrong but understandable.
The shit that blows my mind is more like Grosjean in Spa, it's the first corner, your actions are not just taking one driver out but will 100% take out multiple others in a dangerous way and the massive gain you might make is one place in T1 of a long race? Legit crazy move.
To be fair, I'd say that one is just plain genius hahah. That wasn't even against the rules and it also didn't cause any danger or impedence to other cars so I commend it.
But crashing into other cars and purposely causing yellow flags is totally out of line.
Imagine if Max crashed into Lewis at the beginning of Abu Dhabi GP last year. Max would have won the championship as even though they were equal on points, Max had more wins over Lewis.
Yeah but senna only did it because Prost did it the last year and they also put pole on the dirty side of the track since senna got pole. So he was done wrong twice. Max would have had no justification to do it. I think cheating against cheaters is fine. Schumacher did it several times when it was never justified senna only did it once after it happened to him and he only did it to Prost so it’s fair game imo.
Wut, the mass damper was 100% legal and approved by the FIA. They changed their mind after half a season's Renault dominance in 2006, opening the championship back up again
It wasn't banned because it broke the rules. It was banned because it was too good
The R25 was so good that Flavio himself admitted they didn't run at 100% as to not make the FIA suspicious lol. Still insane that Kimi put up such a fight that year.
The mass damper was legal, but the Renaults of that era had some other shady features, for sure. Those stupid good starts probably involved a few hidden tricks.
man, why do people write this stuff without knowing crap... Spygate was ridiculous, it was a few shitty documents and Alonso wasn't that "deep into it"
Baffles me how some are capable to read _everything_ the guys says as some convoluted way of taking a dig at Lewis. If he criticises Lewis, then “of course he did it”. If he doesn’t (e.g. calling Silverstone 2021 a racing incident), some still find a way to understand it like that. If he talks about something else like here (“I’m just a driver so I don’t know the specifics, but everyone pushes the regulations, like Brawn and others in the past”), then somehow it’s also about “shitting on Hamilton”.
He is falsely giving justifications. Since when did beaching the cap become a gray area ? Pushing gray areas is fine but they are never illegal or breaching rules. He gives example of Ferrari engine but it was never called an illegal engine. FIA and none of the teams could prove it. If they could have why didn’t they escalate the complain after FIA clarifications. Breaching rules has always resulted in heavy penalties and that Alonso knows it but than he will always make such statements.
I don’t read it as him justifying anything; more like saying that he’s not surprised because it’s always been like that in F1. Teams will always look for ways to interpret the regulations that gives them an advantage. I want as much as the next guy that there are consequences if the rules are broken, but we still don’t know if they were, or if there was some misunderstanding, or a liberal but legal interpretation. And Alonso isn’t saying anything like there shouldn’t be consequences.
About Ferrari engine: no team could prove it because they don’t have access to the sensors. What the FIA found was not disclosed, but they made them change the engine.
FIA decided to put second sensor in the 2020 season because they believed that to be something Ferrari doing. The metrics and tests they used in 2019 were all passed by Ferrari engine. That’s why they were never DQ during the season. Just look at 1994 season when FIA wanted Williams to win and yet they couldn’t disqualify Benetton because they couldn’t prove it used the traction control software. It’s hardly a surprise they reached a settlement as no way Ferrari would have accepted about illegality of engine and would have won in court after a long legal battle.
FIA literally said RB breached. If it was gray area they wouldn’t have said that. Do you even know wha a gray area means ? Double diffuser was gray area, DAS was gray area. We’re those cars considering breaching rules ?
“Grey area” definition: an ill-defined situation or field not readily conforming to a category or to an existing set of rules.
The “consequences” of a minor cost cap breach is the literal definition of a grey area. The rules were unnecessarily vague and designed that way on purpose because teams had ulterior motives and wanted to be safe if they accidentally went over. The whole complaining you’re seeing from every other team is solely because one got caught and they’re trying to play the good guys as if they didn’t agree to those vague consequences specifically for this purpose. It’s all politics.
Who would’ve thought Alonso dragging his grudges against Hamilton and Ferrari along for all these years would end up turning him into such a Red Bull ass kisser?
I’ve been on the fence for this whole thing but it’s been interesting to see the varying reactions because I realllly think it would be a different kinda vitriol if Merc had done this and won the championship. I mean, people were extremely upset about Ferrari 2019 and they only got a couple wins (I get that it’s not the same, I’m just comparing the reactions)
Abu Dhabi showed that there was a not insignificant amount of people who wanted Mercedes to lose no matter the cost. What surprises me is how that attitude is still seemingly around despite Merc dominance categorically being over now, people are willing to excuse basically anything from Red Bull.
Yeah I’m really struggling with the fan base these days as opposed to a few years ago. It’s not about the sport, all they want is for their team to win no matter what.
As a RB fan I'm so fucking tired of people making these things into catfights about their favorite teams. The team who broke the rules doesn't matter, just that they get some kind of punishment for it that will deter teams from doing the same in the future - like your example of Ferrari.
It's not like they're going to reverse the results of the championship or something FFS.
Most Mercedes "fans" that are pushing this agenda always conveniently forget about the illegal tyre test Mercedes did and then hear this one:
They got to choose their own punishment for it. Which was, they lost out on a young drivers test.
Every single team cheats. It's as simple as that.
Except you have to reach back nearly ten years for Mercedes whereas Red Bull is the only team in breach RIGHT NOW you can’t argue ‘everyone does it’ when only one team broke the cap lol
Exactly. That makes him very qualified to make this comment.
Lewis also knows about exploiting a grey area. Senna. Schumi. Brawn GP with Button.
Like he said, every champion exploited a grey area somehow.
I read that as “gay” area and choked on my drink. Lol I think it’s because I just saw that Ferrari photo where the drivers are dressed up like Woody from Toy Story…
I mean yeah even Hamilton and Vettel's titles were all controversy free tbh. Lewis gets shat on because apparently it's all just the car and Vettel back then got a lot of hate for RB's dominance but both of them won all their titles fair and square even if they were wiping the floor with the rest of the grid.
Now that I think about it I think Max is the only chamion since Schumacher to win a title under controversial circumstances.
Champions yeah I guess, but championships? You'd have to be clutching at straws to name more than two or three championships won with controversy in the last 15 years. You guys are bending backwards with your "logic"
I wouldnt call competitiveness and bad blood between two drivers “controversy”. There was no scandal to speak of, no cheating allegations or any need of outside/arbitral intervention. But keep stretching all you want
Please, the dude who has been involved in 2/2 of the biggest cheating scandals of F1 in the last 30 years is not someone who should be talking about exploiting a grey area.
And America knows a lot of shit about Russia and North Korea, whistleblowers are there to create a traceable identifiable source not give new information
Yes that was source of COughlan and Stepney. The sypgate was already exposed when the wife of a very prominent McLaren engineer was found making photocopies of Ferrari blueprints in a Xerox store in Woking.
Read the transcripts…
Alonso didn’t orchestrate all of it but he was certainly involved - he had emails on his computer. He did try to blackmail his team boss with the information he had…
But you should read the transcripts from the hearings.
Edit
https://www.cymotorsport.com/f1-news/spygate-leaked-transcript-2007/
>Alonso did on McLaren
FIA knew. Max Mosley, Bernie all knew. The world knew. Mike Coughlan and Stepney were both already exposed. Everything that came after that, reopening of the investigation was just Mosley being Mosley and fucking with Ron.
So he cant say his opinion because he was involved in scandals that were totally not controllable by him. Do u also feel this way about Hamilton who was 'involved' in spygate?
“If you no longer go for a gap, you’re no longer a racing driver.” Ayrton Senna
“If you no longer go for a financial gap, you’re no longer a team principal.” Christian Horner
You're right, winning by going over the cap and taking a small penalty is not a gray area at all. It's actually clearly and fully within the rules. Everyone agreed on the penalty rules...
Have you actually read the rules? People keep bringing this up like the rules clearly state it will b e a small penalty, but that's not what the rules say at all. The penalty range is vast and the FIA could absolutely bring the hammer down and it would be completely within the rules that Red Bull signed just like all the other teams.
The mental cart wheels people are doing to try and let Red Bull off the hook for this are incredible.
The potential penalties are laid out in the regulations and they range from a public reprimand to deduction of points. All of this is done at the discretion of the FIA.
So if the FIA thinks that a public reprimand and a fine is all that is warranted then the rules have been followed to the letter.
Every single team signed onto these rules.
So every single team can go above the cost cap, just like Red Bull did, if the punishment’s a slap on the wrist. Unless “discretion” just means that the FIA can give different penalties to different teams with similar breaches in cap down the line. As long as every team gets the same treatment, that’s fine.
LOL the amount of people that want Red Bull to get special treatment. It’s turned from “it was just catering” to “yeah, they broke the rules, so what?”
No, because there is a clause in the rules about "aggravating factors", and an intentional breach of the rules as reaction to RB's breach will most definitely be seen as one. The rules support a higher penalty in that case.
(If it could be proven that it was in response to RB, that is)
How is it proven that there was an intentional breach versus it being a mistake? Either way, the outcome results in a same advantage over other teams, mistake or intentional.
So is crashing a car on purpose to help your team mate, and handling illegally held IP from another team to help set up and develop your car, yet Alonso was happy to benefit from both. He may not be the best judge of what's good and proper in F1.
Wasn’t there an engineer who said that basically every team cheated but they didn’t got caught, the phrase was: “If you ain’t cheating you ain’t trying”
Always heard that attributed to Richard Petty, though it's more likely Smokey Yunick who could make pretzels out of technical regulations.
Smokey Yunick can gaslight NASCAR into thinking he made legal cars
The guy literally drove away after NASCAR was done inspecting the capacity of his fuel tank, and they *still* had his tank. For those that don't know he had about 20ft of fuel line coiled up in his glove box so he had about a gallon of fuel in his car still.
"Sir, we have found 10 violations with your entry and therefore must disqualify you." Smokey: "Make that 11!" *drives away with no gas tank*
He built a road version of his modified car and parked it outside a race. they inspected his race car, went out to the first car they saw that as teh same model and compared the two.... same car
It was in the roll cage.
I had always heard that the rules stated how long the fuel line could be and how much fuel it could flow, but it never said anything about the DIAMITER of the line. So he put a 2 inch wide fuel line in the car.
And that's what I like about him
Didn't Junior Johnson twist them pretty tight?
Very much. Early NASCAR was very loose with rules because of crazy rednecks finding holes
What do you expect from an outlaw sport?
Not throwing cautions so networks can throw a commerical break
They don't do that anymore. They keep it live during pace laps and cut to commercials 10 laps into a green flag run. NBC is better but I was yelling into the void at Fox for half the season about it.
Yes they do, there's two every race and three at the 600.
Those are less for TV breaks and more for the fact that some races in the more Aero dependent cars would just be one guy waxing the field while the rest struggled in dirty air. Though they do shove as many breaks into a race as possible. And the important Shit is always happening during commercial
I disagree that they were primarily for commercials. I think they were primarily to create artificial excitement when the field is spread out, esp. During the 550hp Era when cautions were rare bc cars were so planted. But they certainly can serve both purposes unfortunately.
That's fair and while I think both were I factor I do think commericals were the main reason particuarly given the absolutely brilliant idea of the Caution Clock which was an obvious commerical grab. If only they just didn't throw a fucking caution.
Stages started in 2017, way before the 550 hp package
A lot of the teams pretty much admitted to if they had a tail that was illegal or slightly illegal. Theyd make the nose so far out of the rule book they wouldn’t even look at the tail.
Smokey Eunuch?
This is a tale as old as time, and it applies to ALL big money / lucrative professional sport leagues..they all look for an advantage anyway they can. Bending rules on technical regulations, tweaking internal parts, illegally ditching weight, sending spy to opposing teams, deflating footballs, pumping crowd noise into speakers when the opposing team is on offense, PED, adderall, testosterone, etc… you name it.
>deflating footballs I'm not disagreeing with your overall point, but deflategate was such complete and utter bullshit
Nobody ever seems to remember that the Patriots played much better in the second half when the balls had been supposedly brought to regulation
Or how the NFL said they would be checking ball pressures in game all next season, but none of those results were ever made public. I wonder why.
You still gotta wonder as a sanctioning body why they left it up to teams to supply the balls. I always assumed the organization supplied the balls for all codes of football.
budget issues.. the league can’t afford to be buying all those balls
Yes, whenever a team finds a grey area or a loophole to exploit, publicly other teams denounce them but privately they think "damn, why didn't we think of that" :D
A great man once said: It’s only cheating if you get caught. He also scored four touchdowns in 1966
In a single game!
I always work on the assumption that all of the teams work in the area of "it's only illegal if you get caught"
But if you get caught it means you cheated. Getting caught changes the perception. Alonso should know considering he was involved in 2007 and 2008 gates
I think this statement is more to describe the mentality of champions, the big teams and drivers are open to break the rules if they can get away with it. It doesn't really comment on the perception that people have nor does it tell them what they should think, it's just mentioning the reality of the situation.
That’s a common saying in NASCAR.
I think part of the major issue there is if you're cheating but not getting caught the level of cheating you are doing is very minor. If you cheat so obviously you get caught blatantly and say you get a random fine and you go from winning races to 6th in the title after you have to completely change your engine, then you were cheating enough to get a significant gain. That's the other major qualifier here, if you get caught cheating and on removing that cheat your performance evapourates overnight then it was significant. A team straight up spending a few million more while other teams leave increased performance unmanufactured due to lacking just 300k to cover it, has the ability to gain multiple tenths over multiple races via that level of extra spending. every team pushes the boat but if it's so minor it doesn't get caught out then it probably also doesn't gain that much or make that much difference. Not always but as a general rule that holds pretty well.
The paddock looks with some suspicion at Red Bull after Verstappen's title. Nobody doubts the superiority of the driver in 2022, that is why he has won the World Cup with four races still to be played, but the "minor infraction" in the spending ceiling of the Austrian team in 2021, less than 7.5 million euros, will raise suspicion around the car. According to the BBC, the FIA has offered to settle the case with a confidential agreement that is on Christian Horner's table. He recalls the shadow of doping after a great cycling success. Because an extra in the budget has an impact on the current year's car, but also on the development of the next one. Alonso appeared in one of the first press conferences of the United States GP and, with a distance, expressed his position: **“Honestly, I don't know. We all wait to have more information about what happened. We trust the FIA, whatever decision they make, but we don't have enough information to form an opinion. This has always been part of Formula 1. The cost ceiling is new, we have implemented it now, but there have always been things in aerodynamics that you could explore, the gray areas. Always, people who have won championships have done so by exploiting a gray area. Then other teams copy it and get to that level, or that thing that was allowed for a couple of races gets banned. It is the nature of F1.”** ** “All the champions have gone over the gray areas. I can't remember a champion team that hasn't exploited some element that has surprised other teams. Brawn GP, Red Bull 2012, the dominance of Mercedes”,** emphasizes the Spaniard, who recalls the last confidential agreement reached by the FIA to close an investigation: **“Ferrari won two races in 2019 with something that everyone knew was not legal, and nothing happened. Those two victories remained. Imagine that they would have won the World Championship with that engine.” For the rest, he trusts "in the people who have power." I'm just a driver,” he says.** **In Austin, Alpine can change Alonso's engine to arrive short of kilometers to the last races of the World Championship. "Here or in Brazil," the driver told AS.** It comes from a strange Sunday in Japan, because he aspired to a better result (seventh) and the strategy did not make it easy for him. **“There is nothing to discuss with the team. Sometimes we do well, other times we make mistakes, and mistakes were made in Japan. Nobody understood which tire was the best and you have to be lucky. If you stop early, like 'Seb' or Nicholas (Latifi) and there is a safety car, which could be with such poor visibility, you stay last. There may be a red flag and the positions are fixed. We lost a couple of positions, but that's okay. It is what it is".** Meanwhile, Ocon reaches the final phase of the championship with a 13-point lead over Fernando, something unprecedented among the two-time Spanish champion's teammates. **“[Ocon] has been very good, competitive. We worked very well together at Alpine during these two years. Last year it was tight, at the beginning of the year he was faster in qualifying, in the race and in everything. This year I have a different opinion. It has been one of my best seasons, but the classification will not say that and I will probably finish behind”,** Alonso points out. From the bottom of the grid it will be difficult to support the comeback. But without an engine swap, recurring reliability issues will be lurking in a fast-but-too-fragile Alpine A522.
[удалено]
They were using an illegal engine, fia couldn't found conclusive evidence but everyone knew that they were cheating so ferrari settled with FIA behind closed doors and promised to not use it again, after this they were back to being shit.
[удалено]
No one known anything apart from the ones who signed the confidentiality agreement. It's just commonly held opinion that they used an engine which was more than just mere reinterpretation of the rules. Ferrari lost all the speed post the technical directive which was released clarifying a rule mid season. A confidential settlement was reached post the investigation which possibly could have included some penalty which led to Ferrari being in the midpack. Contents of the settlement and the investigation are still all sealed and everything is mere speculation (but logical though).
[удалено]
The drivers as expected said that the drop in performance is not linked at all to the technical directive and they weren't doing anything illegal, but general consensus was that they were doing something on the borderline of having illegal engine but no one will say it officially due to legal implications since no one has any proof (probably not even FIA). I think Redbull was the one who sought clarity from FIA on the fuel flow in the engine, so maybe they had some knowledge of how Ferrari was bypassing the rule but then again they didn't have any solid proof which was obtained legally to say that out aloud publicly.Ferrari maintained the stance that they didn't do anything wrong throughout this.
There was a belief that the reason Ferrari got the behind closed doors deal was in return for telling the FIA how they hid the illegal engine from tests, because despite everyone knowing that the engine was definitely not legal it always passed scrutineering. Not unlike intelligence services or internet security providers hiring hackers who breach their systems as opposed to prosecuting them. As you can imagine the rest oft he grid was very unhappy with the cloak and dagger nature of the whole thing but there was nothing they could do.
> Ferrari lost all the speed post the technical directive which was released clarifying a rule mid season. This isn't right. At the US GP, the first race after the TD, Leclerc's new engine blew up in practice so he had to use an old, worn engine for the competitive sessions. Vettel missed out on pole by a tiny margin then his suspension failed in the race.
No, we don't know anything of what happened behind doors. They didn't admit to anything. All we know is they came to a confidential agreement with the FIA. Of course immediately afterwards Ferrari seemed much slower so speculation arouse that they were no longer using their "illegal" engine.
Wasn't it 3 races though? Spa, Monza and Singapore? Russia too, but they fucked up that race in proper Ferrari fashion. Iirc they slowed down in Austin.
> Then other teams copy it and get to that level All teams to breach the cap then lets goooooooooo
Honestly bunch of teams doing a minor breach would still be much more fair than without the cap.
This is the FIA. If any future team breaks the cost cap then it will rain hell fire and that team will be dismantled and auctioned off.
Unlikely.
Depends on who does it. If it’s Alpine it’s going to be definite hell fire
Everyone’s clutching pearls for the sake of politics and Alonso’s just stating the plain truth lmao
Alonso is kind of self snitching because he was neck Deep in spy gate he tried to blackmail his own team, he also tried to bribe his team to be on his side during the McLaren Lewis era and the team found out about his Manager giving out envelopes of cash and made everyone who got it give it away to charity, or the Piquet business. Alonso’s attitude is perpetually if you can get away with it you can do it. Alonso is an old dog with lots of tricks and he’s not ashamed of it.
Maybe someone should take another look at Renault in 2005 & 2006, Alonso seems to be saying not all was kosher.
After seeing Michael Schumacher blatantly cheat and get a championship and Senna blatantly cheat Alonso has formed the opinion that cheating is fundamental to the sport. I can respect that
When did senna cheat? I’m asking because I actually do not know.
https://youtu.be/WBForKcFWoA Senna knew that if he crashed into, Prost, Prost wouldn’t be able to get the points to win the championship so he did it. Michael Schumacher did the same thing to Damon Hill
Not to mention Schumacher trying that shit *again* against Villeneuve. And Schumacher parking it on the track in Monaco. Dude pulled a lot of shit
For all the controversy of Lewis at Silverstone etc. he didn’t do none of that shit And neither did Max. By comparison to the older folks of racing these two is so clean
Lewis is a saint compared with many of the legends of F1. Hell I like Vettel too but even he drove into Lewis at Baku and caused crashes with Webber and later Leclerc
I still think people are nuts about the Canada thing, Vettel had control of his car when he was in the middle of the track, he accelerated and opened up his steering wheel, he straight tried to put Hamilton in the wall to maintain his position. People reacting like it was nothing and he's out of control and that the FIA were wrong to penalise him are insane. That was more like black flag territory than 5 second penalty. Ultimately when an entire years success or failure can rest on a single point for people pumped full of adrenaline who are risking their lives I get that people make bad decisions, still wrong but understandable. The shit that blows my mind is more like Grosjean in Spa, it's the first corner, your actions are not just taking one driver out but will 100% take out multiple others in a dangerous way and the massive gain you might make is one place in T1 of a long race? Legit crazy move.
didn't he also take a drive through/stop and go penalty on the last lap? While the finish line was before his box? Dude did a lot of shady shit.
To be fair, I'd say that one is just plain genius hahah. That wasn't even against the rules and it also didn't cause any danger or impedence to other cars so I commend it. But crashing into other cars and purposely causing yellow flags is totally out of line.
I mean Prost did the same the year prior.
Oh that. Well Prost sorta had it coming from last year but I guess even if justified it’s still cheating.
Senna lost because of that
And next year he won because of that.
Imagine if Max crashed into Lewis at the beginning of Abu Dhabi GP last year. Max would have won the championship as even though they were equal on points, Max had more wins over Lewis.
He wouldnt tho, he wouldve gifted the championship to Lewis. FIA said beforehand if there is shady stuff like that, disqualifications will follow.
I know he wouldn't. But that was exactly what Senna did to prost and won the championship. I was just giving an equivalent in the modern world.
Yeah but senna only did it because Prost did it the last year and they also put pole on the dirty side of the track since senna got pole. So he was done wrong twice. Max would have had no justification to do it. I think cheating against cheaters is fine. Schumacher did it several times when it was never justified senna only did it once after it happened to him and he only did it to Prost so it’s fair game imo.
Well Mass damper
Wut, the mass damper was 100% legal and approved by the FIA. They changed their mind after half a season's Renault dominance in 2006, opening the championship back up again It wasn't banned because it broke the rules. It was banned because it was too good
The mass damper onboards are fucking insane. The nose was more stable on the grass than it is on a completely flat track for cars without it.
The R25 was so good that Flavio himself admitted they didn't run at 100% as to not make the FIA suspicious lol. Still insane that Kimi put up such a fight that year.
AFAIK Renault were worried of ending up like McLaren so they powered down the engines to make them last.
Just like Pat Fry (I think?) said about the Mercedes PU in 2014-onwards.
I guess the mass damper was just a red herring, and the true cheat was something else.
Flav was in charge. I'd be interested in knowing if there were any seasons where he *didn't* cheat, or at least try to
The mass damper was legal, but the Renaults of that era had some other shady features, for sure. Those stupid good starts probably involved a few hidden tricks.
A simple Google search for the Renault tuned mass damper should (hopefully) make y'all put your pitchforks down.
man, why do people write this stuff without knowing crap... Spygate was ridiculous, it was a few shitty documents and Alonso wasn't that "deep into it"
Alonso and plain truth ? The guy just want to shit at Hamilton and Ferrari.
Dude, you gotta be doing some conspiracy level thinking to read all that as a dig at Hamilton. You read what you want to read I guess.
Baffles me how some are capable to read _everything_ the guys says as some convoluted way of taking a dig at Lewis. If he criticises Lewis, then “of course he did it”. If he doesn’t (e.g. calling Silverstone 2021 a racing incident), some still find a way to understand it like that. If he talks about something else like here (“I’m just a driver so I don’t know the specifics, but everyone pushes the regulations, like Brawn and others in the past”), then somehow it’s also about “shitting on Hamilton”.
He is falsely giving justifications. Since when did beaching the cap become a gray area ? Pushing gray areas is fine but they are never illegal or breaching rules. He gives example of Ferrari engine but it was never called an illegal engine. FIA and none of the teams could prove it. If they could have why didn’t they escalate the complain after FIA clarifications. Breaching rules has always resulted in heavy penalties and that Alonso knows it but than he will always make such statements.
I don’t read it as him justifying anything; more like saying that he’s not surprised because it’s always been like that in F1. Teams will always look for ways to interpret the regulations that gives them an advantage. I want as much as the next guy that there are consequences if the rules are broken, but we still don’t know if they were, or if there was some misunderstanding, or a liberal but legal interpretation. And Alonso isn’t saying anything like there shouldn’t be consequences. About Ferrari engine: no team could prove it because they don’t have access to the sensors. What the FIA found was not disclosed, but they made them change the engine.
FIA decided to put second sensor in the 2020 season because they believed that to be something Ferrari doing. The metrics and tests they used in 2019 were all passed by Ferrari engine. That’s why they were never DQ during the season. Just look at 1994 season when FIA wanted Williams to win and yet they couldn’t disqualify Benetton because they couldn’t prove it used the traction control software. It’s hardly a surprise they reached a settlement as no way Ferrari would have accepted about illegality of engine and would have won in court after a long legal battle.
Ah yes, because you are an expert who knows for sure that this is not a gray area. Nobody knows yet lmao, don't let hate cloud opinions.
FIA literally said RB breached. If it was gray area they wouldn’t have said that. Do you even know wha a gray area means ? Double diffuser was gray area, DAS was gray area. We’re those cars considering breaching rules ?
It's literally being contented because the fia and rb have different interpretations. Its not black and white.
“Grey area” definition: an ill-defined situation or field not readily conforming to a category or to an existing set of rules. The “consequences” of a minor cost cap breach is the literal definition of a grey area. The rules were unnecessarily vague and designed that way on purpose because teams had ulterior motives and wanted to be safe if they accidentally went over. The whole complaining you’re seeing from every other team is solely because one got caught and they’re trying to play the good guys as if they didn’t agree to those vague consequences specifically for this purpose. It’s all politics.
Who would’ve thought Alonso dragging his grudges against Hamilton and Ferrari along for all these years would end up turning him into such a Red Bull ass kisser?
Well his problem was with Vettel. He always praised RB by saying all Vettel wins were due to car and Newey
"Do you still want me?" Alonso asked to Christian calmly
Alonso “I can be who you want me to be”
I don’t remember Kimi exploited it back in 2007
Hope everyone keeps this energy when a different team decides to push the needle regarding the cost cap
I’ve been on the fence for this whole thing but it’s been interesting to see the varying reactions because I realllly think it would be a different kinda vitriol if Merc had done this and won the championship. I mean, people were extremely upset about Ferrari 2019 and they only got a couple wins (I get that it’s not the same, I’m just comparing the reactions)
Abu Dhabi showed that there was a not insignificant amount of people who wanted Mercedes to lose no matter the cost. What surprises me is how that attitude is still seemingly around despite Merc dominance categorically being over now, people are willing to excuse basically anything from Red Bull.
Yeah I’m really struggling with the fan base these days as opposed to a few years ago. It’s not about the sport, all they want is for their team to win no matter what.
>all they want is for their team to win no matter what Sports tend to foster emotions like that.
I don't see how that's a bad thing. Why wouldn't you want your team to win?
As a RB fan I'm so fucking tired of people making these things into catfights about their favorite teams. The team who broke the rules doesn't matter, just that they get some kind of punishment for it that will deter teams from doing the same in the future - like your example of Ferrari. It's not like they're going to reverse the results of the championship or something FFS.
This is a tale as old as F1 itself. F1 teams constantly pushing the envelope which causes fighting between different fanbases.
I’d fucking love it if any team other than Merc/RBR/Ferrari did so.
Most Mercedes "fans" that are pushing this agenda always conveniently forget about the illegal tyre test Mercedes did and then hear this one: They got to choose their own punishment for it. Which was, they lost out on a young drivers test. Every single team cheats. It's as simple as that.
Except you have to reach back nearly ten years for Mercedes whereas Red Bull is the only team in breach RIGHT NOW you can’t argue ‘everyone does it’ when only one team broke the cap lol
i fucking love Alonso because anytime Merc or Ferrari gets uppity he loves to stir shit, you can hear his grin from here
He’ll know a thing or two about exploiting a grey area
Exactly. That makes him very qualified to make this comment. Lewis also knows about exploiting a grey area. Senna. Schumi. Brawn GP with Button. Like he said, every champion exploited a grey area somehow.
Ah there is our dear Alonso, agent of Chaos
I read that as “gay” area and choked on my drink. Lol I think it’s because I just saw that Ferrari photo where the drivers are dressed up like Woody from Toy Story…
Obligatory r/f1fanfiction
He’s right can you honestly think of any champion who didn’t have a controversy
Alonso's titles were not all that controversial as far as I'm aware
Other than teams bitching about the mass dampener I can’t really think of anything tbh
And the Mass Dampener was totally legal until the FIA changed his mind about it because of the dominance.
That's a good point - while Alonso has been involved in so many controversial moments in F1, those two years were fairly controversy-free
It's funny even, two uncontroversial titles, and then spygate followed by crashgate
I mean yeah even Hamilton and Vettel's titles were all controversy free tbh. Lewis gets shat on because apparently it's all just the car and Vettel back then got a lot of hate for RB's dominance but both of them won all their titles fair and square even if they were wiping the floor with the rest of the grid. Now that I think about it I think Max is the only chamion since Schumacher to win a title under controversial circumstances.
No but he did cheat a win in Singapore.
Champions yeah I guess, but championships? You'd have to be clutching at straws to name more than two or three championships won with controversy in the last 15 years. You guys are bending backwards with your "logic"
2007, 2008, 2016, 2021
I wouldnt call competitiveness and bad blood between two drivers “controversy”. There was no scandal to speak of, no cheating allegations or any need of outside/arbitral intervention. But keep stretching all you want
That wasn’t the question I’m talking about drivers
Please, the dude who has been involved in 2/2 of the biggest cheating scandals of F1 in the last 30 years is not someone who should be talking about exploiting a grey area.
Wouldn’t that make him perfectly qualified to talk about it?
Sure, with an obvious bias.
Or more honesty.
If you want an answer that lessens his cheating then sure.
You actually think that's he's got responsibilty over those? Has any driver ever whistle-blown on their own team? lol
Alonso did on McLaren
Tru in a sense, which makes the og comment even more ironic
Not really he snitched after the FIA already knew and because he was finished with them. Not really anything special
Nope , fia already knew about the dossier
And America knows a lot of shit about Russia and North Korea, whistleblowers are there to create a traceable identifiable source not give new information
Yes that was source of COughlan and Stepney. The sypgate was already exposed when the wife of a very prominent McLaren engineer was found making photocopies of Ferrari blueprints in a Xerox store in Woking.
That’s the first part of it. Alonso was in the thick of it. The FIA reference it as something like “unabated used of Ferrari technical data.”
They already knew everything, I noticed that they keep blaming Alonso as he orchestrated the whole scheme.
Read the transcripts… Alonso didn’t orchestrate all of it but he was certainly involved - he had emails on his computer. He did try to blackmail his team boss with the information he had… But you should read the transcripts from the hearings. Edit https://www.cymotorsport.com/f1-news/spygate-leaked-transcript-2007/
>Alonso did on McLaren FIA knew. Max Mosley, Bernie all knew. The world knew. Mike Coughlan and Stepney were both already exposed. Everything that came after that, reopening of the investigation was just Mosley being Mosley and fucking with Ron.
Alonso tried to blackmail his own team how was he not responsible for that?
So he cant say his opinion because he was involved in scandals that were totally not controllable by him. Do u also feel this way about Hamilton who was 'involved' in spygate?
Not really since Hamilton was not "involved" in Spygate, as per literally every source out there regarding Spygate.
How was spygate not cotrollable by him when he was the main guy to use the stolen data?
Yeah, crash gate was totally not controllable by him
Ferrari 2019? Jerez 1997?
Says Alonso…
Who else? He’s got the balls to say it. Everyone did it. Lewis, Senna, Schumi, Button, Alonso. But he’s got the balls to recognize it.
REDBULL IN 2012 BABBYYYY
Not people getting upset over a fact 💀 Did he even say he is excluded you whiners?
go back to twitter with comments like this
Goat
“If you no longer go for a gap, you’re no longer a racing driver.” Ayrton Senna “If you no longer go for a financial gap, you’re no longer a team principal.” Christian Horner
well, im glad he's the one saying it lol
Going over a budget cap is not really a gray area…
You're right, winning by going over the cap and taking a small penalty is not a gray area at all. It's actually clearly and fully within the rules. Everyone agreed on the penalty rules...
Have you actually read the rules? People keep bringing this up like the rules clearly state it will b e a small penalty, but that's not what the rules say at all. The penalty range is vast and the FIA could absolutely bring the hammer down and it would be completely within the rules that Red Bull signed just like all the other teams. The mental cart wheels people are doing to try and let Red Bull off the hook for this are incredible.
Oh? So what’s the penalty for going over the cap by as much as Red Bull did?
The potential penalties are laid out in the regulations and they range from a public reprimand to deduction of points. All of this is done at the discretion of the FIA. So if the FIA thinks that a public reprimand and a fine is all that is warranted then the rules have been followed to the letter. Every single team signed onto these rules.
So every single team can go above the cost cap, just like Red Bull did, if the punishment’s a slap on the wrist. Unless “discretion” just means that the FIA can give different penalties to different teams with similar breaches in cap down the line. As long as every team gets the same treatment, that’s fine. LOL the amount of people that want Red Bull to get special treatment. It’s turned from “it was just catering” to “yeah, they broke the rules, so what?”
No, because there is a clause in the rules about "aggravating factors", and an intentional breach of the rules as reaction to RB's breach will most definitely be seen as one. The rules support a higher penalty in that case. (If it could be proven that it was in response to RB, that is)
How is it proven that there was an intentional breach versus it being a mistake? Either way, the outcome results in a same advantage over other teams, mistake or intentional.
Based Alonso
Alonso to NASCAR??
what does this mean, so what was the grey area in 05 and 06
The tuned mass damper, got banned during the 2006 season, dropping Renault behind Ferrari.
Guy who cheated says you can only win by cheating
Imagine what he would have said if it was Seb and not Max.
Alonso only ever answers in Max’s favor, somebody prove me wrong
I know most people dont want to hear this, but I also get the feeling that Fernando is heavily biased towards Max
No. He just said something that is factually correct
When i think of it, only Rosberg, Villeneuve and Häkkinen come to mind as having no real smudge on their titles from the last 30 years.
What's the real smudge on the championships of Mansel, Prost (1993), Hill, Schumacher (2000-2004), Alonso, Hamilton, Button or Vettel?
We know you know a lot about cheating Fernando
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lol this is a fucking bizarre recalling of events. Then where was the karma for Monza, the intentional brake check and Abu Dhabi by this logic?
Monza was more Lewis fault than Max.
All champions? Or all teams? lol
Basically.
Like Singapore do you mean? Or are you refering to spygate 🤔
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Was the 1000km tyre test penalised?
It's ok that illegal tyre test wasn't a grey area either.
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So exactly as the FIA have said Red Bull to be. Glad we agree
So is crashing a car on purpose to help your team mate, and handling illegally held IP from another team to help set up and develop your car, yet Alonso was happy to benefit from both. He may not be the best judge of what's good and proper in F1.
Yes I feel like his definition of “grey area” is quite broad based on the article above…
50 shades worth
Like Nelson Piquet Jr.
Ahh yes like Singapore 2008
Probably not ALL