Sauber DQ'd from Australian GP

Ah, nice see armchair critics pointing fingers again and jumping to conclusions again.

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http://scarbsf1.wordpress.com/2011/0...-infringement/

It seems a manufacturing error lead to Saubers disqualification from the Australian GP. New rules this year set a minimum radius for the rear wing elements, these were introduced to prevent slots being added to the wings to allow blown slots and F-duct stalling slots. However in post race scrutineering the Sauber fell foul of the new test, which is to uphold the revised rules; 3.10.1 and 3.10.2. The rear wing flap on both races cars was tested and its upper surface (with the logo “Sauber F1 Team&#8221 ;) was found to be made with too tight a radius.

The new test involves checking a minimum 100mm radius is applied to all areas of the wing on contact with the external airstream. As exclusively revealed by Gocar.Gr, it appears the upper face of the rear wing flap was too curved by some 5mm. Sauber have three versions of the flap available and two were brought to Melbourne. It seems the version raced was not fully checked at the factory and therefore the error was not picked up, whereas the other (un-raced) specification flap was checked and deemed legal. Not every car and every component gets fully checked by the FIA scrutineers. The cars will go through different tests at different points in the weekend. It seems the Sauber flap in question was not tested until after the race.

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Originally Posted by Garry Walker

Shame, but rules are rules

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The vast majority of which have reduced this form of racing to utter nonsense for years upon years.

WOW

5 millimeters!!!!

meanwhile things are dangling off the hamilton mac that might hurt somebody......

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Originally Posted by markabilly

WOW

5 millimeters!!!!

meanwhile things are dangling off the hamilton mac that might hurt somebody......

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It was no exhaust pipe flapping held on only by a sensor cable scenario - save the dramatics for Shakespeare......

F1 team Sauber accepts drivers' DQs in Australia
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/motor...81128770_x.htm

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Formula One team Sauber won't appeal the disqualification

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Originally Posted by Bagwan

This disqualification brings to mind a few questions .

If the car was deemed ok to race , and seemingly nothing changed between the quals and race , is it not the fault of the stewards and tech team failing to catch it beforehand ?
Was this team of tech guys the same team of tech guys who failed to find the issue beforehand ?

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Would be my first thoughts.

YES it's ultimately up to the team, but the stewards have a responsibility to let teams know if they are in an illegal position. Otherwise, we would not have scrutineering before/after quali rade etc. It would just be in parc ferme.

Definitely the blame should be shared.

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Originally Posted by Bagwan

If the car was deemed ok to race , and seemingly nothing changed between the quals and race , is it not the fault of the stewards and tech team failing to catch it beforehand ?

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No. It's the teams responsibility to make sure their car complies with the regulations. Not the FIA or the stewards or anyone else. If you don't comply with the regs, "It wasn't noticed before" is no excuse.

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Originally Posted by Ari

Would be my first thoughts.

YES it's ultimately up to the team, but the stewards have a responsibility to let teams know if they are in an illegal position. Otherwise, we would not have scrutineering before/after quali rade etc. It would just be in parc ferme.

Definitely the blame should be shared.

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If the stewards had measured that aspect of the car before the race, then obviously they would have let the team know they were in an illegal position. But as we have previously heard (and common sense predicts) the stewards cannot scrutineer every detail of every car at every point. There simply isn't the time. They perform only a subset of the available tests.
It's not the job of the stewards to validate the design of each car. It's their job to catch people who are breaking the rules. Sauber were unlucky to have been caught at the worst possible time, but I can't see how the stewards can take any part of the blame for a situation caused by Sauber's mistake.

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Originally Posted by AndyL

If the stewards had measured that aspect of the car before the race, then obviously they would have let the team know they were in an illegal position. But as we have previously heard (and common sense predicts) the stewards cannot scrutineer every detail of every car at every point. There simply isn't the time. They perform only a subset of the available tests.

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Not every aspect, however the Rear Wing has been checked both before and after the race, and once it was OK and 2nd time not, even though no changes have been done.

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Originally Posted by AndyL

It's not the job of the stewards to validate the design of each car.

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That is not entirely true. The teams might interpret the rules in another way as it happened in the past already, that wouldn't mean they are cheating just that they see it otherwise and in this case the design of the cars is validated by passing FIA scrutineering.