FIA Appendix D: Report from Jo Bauer

San Marino GP 24/04/05       Post Race Fuel Drain on Car 3 - Jenson Button

The BAR car number 3, driver Jenson Button, was weighed after the race with 606.1 kg. To confirm, that the car number 3 has respected the minimum weight of 600 kg at all times during the race, the team was asked to drain all remaining fuel out of the car.

For this procedure the car's front end was lifted to allow all remaining fuel within the fuel cell to be drained completely. With this method 0.16 kg of fuel could be drained. The team was asked, whether this was all fuel on board the car and they declared it as empty.

The team was then asked to open the fuel hatches on both sides of the car (on the RHS the race valve used during the race pit stops and on the LHS the service plate which the team uses to refuel and drain the car). This gave access to the internals of the fuel cell. The fuel cell consisted of two buffer floors (baffles) which we removed in order to see the bottom of the fuel cell. These buffer floors have been fixed by means of Velcro to the main structure of the fuel cell. On the bottom of the fuel cell there was still some fuel visible.

At the bottom front end of the fuel cell a further compartment was discovered which had a clear plastic tube connected to it. This tube was disconnected by the team's mechanics. By doing this the internals of this forward compartment could be inspected by means of an endoscope. This compartment was found full of fuel. This fuel was drained manually by feeding a hose, which was connected to a draining pump, into that compartment. With this manual method 8.92 kg of fuel could be drained.

After draining this forward compartment, the fuel on the bottom of the main fuel cell was drained using the same method and a further 2.46 kg of fuel could be recovered.

At the back end of the fuel cell was a cylindrical collector tank, made of carbon fibre, visible. We did not check the content and the internals of this tank.

All the above amount of fuel was measured by using the team's refuelling and draining equipment, which has a built in scale. According to this measurement the total amount of fuei still on board the car was 11.54 kg.

The car was refitted with all parts taken off and was weighed on the FIA scales again. The weight was 594.6 kg, a difference of 11.5 kg to the original weight after the race. This weight was confirmed in front of a team member (Craig Wilson). The accuracy of the F1A scales was also confirmed to the team member by putting 600 kg of calibrated weights onto the scales. The FIA scales have been reading 0.5 kg high (showing 600.5 kg with 600 kg weights on). The FIA scales are showing increments of 0.5 kg.

With these findings a report was made to the stewards of the meeting at 18:25 (Document 47)