An investigation by Formula 1 stewards regarding fuel temperature of the BMW-Sauber and Williams teams initially put into question Raikonen's F1 title. Article 6.5.5 of the Formula 1 technical regulations states that the fuel on board a car can not be more than 10 degrees centigrate below the ambient temperature, and the four cars from the BMW-Sauber and Williams teams were found to be in violation of this rule following the Grand Prix yesterday. Three of those four cars - driven by Nico Rosberg, Robert Kubica, and Nick Heidfeld - finished in the top six ahead of Lewis Hamilton. The exclusion of those drivers from the race results would put Hamilton in fourth, giving him enough points to move past Raikkonen in the overall points. However, stewards chose not to punish the teams for the violation and confirmed that the F1 championship would go to Raikkonen. McLaren has notified the FIA that they plan to appeal the decision.
[Source: F1Way.com, Photo by Clive Mason/Getty]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Rafa @ Oct 22nd 2007 1:19PM
What a shame, they can´t even loose in a honourable manner.
Opposite Lock @ Oct 22nd 2007 1:26PM
Not really, choosing not to penalize those teams for cheating because of the championship context is a pretty spineless decision if you ask me. It also only adds to the almost universal belief in the Formula One world that the FIA favours Ferrari. Especially considering the draconian penalty applied to McLaren earlier in the season, and all of a sudden the rules don't really matter?
bill @ Oct 22nd 2007 1:48PM
So how we define honourable? Getting shafted and taking it, then getting shafted and taking it? Maybe McLaren should just take it instead of getting shafted.
Ivan @ Oct 22nd 2007 3:40PM
The lenghts to which you McLaren fanboys are able to go to while defending your team are amazing. You do, however, need some perspective. McLaren was caught with almost a thousand pages of Ferrari documentation, and for that, they were stripped of one year's worth of constructors' points. They weren't banned, so sponsors' decals were still on TV, hence the cash flow remained uninterrupted. Granted, they will have earned a little less money than they would have if it hadn't been for the whole scandal, but nevertheless, in future seasons they won't suffer from lack of funding. In my book, this is very mild punishment for a very flagrant foul. They didn't mess with fuel temperatures or fiddle with aerodynamics; they went out and stole their main rival's technical documents. And their defense was, frankly, invented by three-year-olds: We didn't use it! We are supposed to believe that, although they had 700 pages of Ferrari papers, they didn't take so much as a peek? Right, I bet they only photocopied all that because someone needed a really big stack of papers to put under their washing machine to stop it rattling. Right.
Eduardo @ Oct 22nd 2007 8:40PM
Ivan, you got the point, and more
This cheater called ron dennis, got used to pose as a fair play man, but never was, since Prost days, to the present, he plays hard on internal mclaren politics
And what is worse, about the so called "100 m. fine" ; he joked and laughed about it, during the Belgian GP race weekend, he said that "this will not compromise our yer, as we got the FOM prizes, we will pay less than half of this amount" (he said somethign alike, to be honest)
He and his "loser hamilton" should be quiet, even when we analise with cold hearts that, they both, mclaren and hamilton, escaped from penalties this season, hamilton mainly, he did everything in the track, including those ashaming brake tests in Japanes GP, and no further actions were taken
Alonso, on the other hand, was punished last season in Hungarian GP for applying a brake test on a Free Practice ! And caused no incident, while hailton brake tests caused that incident involving Vettel and Webber
adrian @ Oct 22nd 2007 1:24PM
It's a front. They know what they did in the race.
Mussolini @ Oct 22nd 2007 1:31PM
it's no surprise, and mclaren won't win the appeal, although the teams did break the rules they can't go and strip a driver of his title. the sport would lose alot of its integrity. "they're gonna start stripping drivers of their titles now?...after they already crowned/announced them world champion". maybe they'll take away the points or give the teams fines or penalties but they won't take away titles. imagine what would have happened had they taken even a single point away from hamilton and alonso after the trial w/ mclaren having ferrari's documents.
Hansi @ Oct 22nd 2007 1:40PM
I can't believe McLaren is doing this, after all the negative press they have gotten this yeat, do they really need any more?
I agree with Alonso, "this [Hamilton getting the trophy after appealing] would be an embarrasment for the sport". I can't understand how Hamilton would even want this, it would lose him a lot of popularity
Mussolini @ Oct 22nd 2007 1:41PM
opposite lock said that fia favors ferrari and that now with this incident they're throwing out the rules so that kimi can keep his title, that reminded me someone i think it was top gear said that there's a rule in going into the brazillian gp that "Ferrari Must Wins" (i'm sure they were joking but it just made me laugh)
why not the LS2LS7? @ Oct 22nd 2007 1:42PM
Isn't the FIA concerned about how the fuel got to be over 10C below ambient? It didn't happen by accident. BMW-Sauber and Williams were pretty clearly doing it on purpose, despite it being against the rules.
I don't know if I would change the outcome either though. Even if they penalized them, they'd likely just strip their own points and leave the rest of the finish order unchanged.
bill @ Oct 22nd 2007 1:47PM
If you look up gutless in the dictionary you will find a group picture of the FIA governing body. Amazingly enough each of the persons in the picture are wearing Ferrari jackets and caps.
adam @ Oct 22nd 2007 1:49PM
The stewards decided there wasn't conclusive evidence that any temperature infractions actually occurred. Even if they had, the precedent set this year would be that a technical matter involving the team would only deduct constructor points, not driver points, otherwise Hamilton and Alonso would have 0 points this year because of the cheating incident.
Luis @ Oct 22nd 2007 2:09PM
I say enough is enough. Let's move on to a hopefully non-controversial 08 season. My being a Kimi fan aside, let's take what we've learned from this year and get on with it. It's a shame that the winners can't celebrate because of yet another controversy...please!
Dev @ Oct 22nd 2007 2:22PM
Truth of the matter is that Ron (and not only Alonso) is a sore looser.
As far as the "draconian" penalty is concerned they actually "stole" the Ferrari data, so the cars they were driving around had a lil bit of Ferrari in'em.
All this talk of fairness is crap as if FIA had to be fair, Macca shoul'nt have been contesting at all. But we all know that the TV Ratings & sponsors matter more than we give them credit for and hence they could atleast carry on.
So finally, Kimi won it fair n square with Hamilton getting into the rookie mode only for the final race and the cry baby unable to do anything on track.
Cool fuel or not...what Ron's doing is not cool for sure.
TheGeekGuy @ Oct 22nd 2007 7:54PM
Huh? Did you actually watch the same F1 Championship?
1. McLaren got caught with Ferrari data and got fined. The FIA inspected the McLaren and found NO Ferrari parts or tech.
2. Kimi won because Ferrari moved Macca over *cough* Team Orders *cough* Macca was clearly faster
3. If the roles were reversed do you not think that Ferrari would have also questioned the result? Think of all the times Ferrari have protested when someone else won...
4. Alonso got his arse handed to him by a rookie. He gave evidence against his employor only because McLaren refused to give him #1 status, otherwise he was happy with the "arrangement" of Ferrari data
5. I am actually happy that Lewis didn't win. Not because I dislike him, I actually think he is a real talent, but because it would have been tainted with all the other crap.
F1 is a business first, sport second. It's a good business decision for Ferrari to win the WC. They are a recognized name, McLaren are not for the most part.
So congrats to Kimi and Ferrari. Celebrate now, cause next year there will be a 3 way fight between you, McLaren and BMW. Who will you blame then when things go wrong?
adrian @ Oct 22nd 2007 2:27PM
@Preevo
Remember Alonso is no friend of Hamiliton.
Hamiliton was too close behind the safety car that's why he slowed down. I think the rules state that the lead driver has to be five car lengths behind the safety car. Vettel was too close to Webber in the wet and that's why the crash happened.
Alonso did block Hamiliton in the pits, no question about that.
I think it was Alonso that mainly beneifited from the Ferrari infomation via Del La Rosa the McLaren test driver.
Ferrari only complianed when Hamiliton pushed Raikonen down to P3 during qualifying. He moved out of the way, there was no blocking.
Still the title should stand as it is.
The corruption is rife though.
zakudomgoog @ Oct 22nd 2007 2:29PM
sore losers man....
mibbe next year dinnae recruit ex ferrari employees
zakudomgoog @ Oct 22nd 2007 2:32PM
sore losers man...
mibbe next year dinnae recruit ex scuderia emloyees
TuuSaR @ Oct 22nd 2007 2:46PM
I'm quite sure that FIA just measured the outdoor temp wrong. Most say that temp was around 32 during the race but FIA's timing system claimed 36 which it surely didnt look like.
andybee @ Oct 22nd 2007 2:58PM
McLaren have every right to appeal if they feel that the three cars ahead of them ran illegal. They also have shareholders and sponsors to answer to. This is a business, not a sport. If they are allowed to do that, then that sets a very danegrous precidence for the future.
Everyone in the paddock knows the rules regarding temprature and the temp as given by the FiA was clarified just a few weeks ago in a Techinical Committe meeting.
Say this happened in round 4 of the championship, what would have happened then? Would the FiA have DQ them? The decision shouldnt be different because of the championship.
(i.e: Lewis didnt just loose the championship in Brazil, its a year long season)
Saw this quote from last nights, wintunnel (which I have borrowed from autosports forum - remember Peter Windsor was Williams mechanice so he should be bias towards Williams...
Peter Windsor: "[...]and I should make the point it was the technical delegate of the FIA, who cleary came up with these numbers taken from the fuel rig temperature and also from the ambiance temperature, from which the measurements are taken and all the numbers that were wrong. [...] (The race stewards) took the numbers from the FIA technical delegate and said 'Yeah, yeah. That's very well. In reality, may be we should measure the fuel temperature in the car, not on the fuel rig and may be take the temperatures given out by some meteorologists and not just only the official FOM ambient temperature. And as a result that we think that you (the technical delegate) should have done the other things, we think there's a lot of doubt about this, so therefore we not going to impose any penalty.' [...]"
"McLaren are going to appeal this, because they have correspondence with Charlie Whiting [FIA head technical director], which in documentation that all regulations this year have clarified, that the temperature of the fuel must be measure in the fuel rig, not in the car and only the FOM ambient temperature (as seen in the live timing screen) is to be reached. So basically the stewards have come to a conclusion based on [?] measurements, so McLaren thinks they were beaten by three cars that have been using illegal fuel, so we appeal on behalf of our driver. I personally think they are correct!"
Bob Varsha: "[...]The discrepancy was whose version of ambient temperature you go with. [...] McLaren is certainly within their rights, cine they are a damaged party [...] You know, it goes back to being pretty darn shaped!"
Dave Despain: "Peter, [...] where does that go, how long will it take and when we might know for sure who is World Champion?"
Peter Windsor: "[...]The court of appeal might say that McLaren are right, but we're not gonna change the result of the championship. [...]"
"I should add BMW have always been warned once of the fuel cooling in the last couple of months. In one of the last four races, they were found to be dangerously near that 10 degree-limit! So it's not the first time that has happened. [...] Everybody clearly knew the rules! [...] And one of the reasons what happened today was because the ambient temperature was 37°C and the predicted ambient temperature was 32°C. A large discrepancy between (these two figures). [...] What BMW and Williams have failed to do was readjust the cooling temperature of their fuel rigs. [...] It was a negligible thing, they've made a mistake. [...] These things happen. But there's no excuse. If the fuel is illegal, it's illegal. No combat on this! [...]"
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I'm sure, if anything does come of this, the teams will loose there Constructors points.