The Critical Mass

After every Grand Prix the drivers who finish from fourth on downwards leave the back of the FIA scrutineering bay after completing a personal weight check. There they face a barrage of TV cameras awaiting comments on the race. No one is obliged to stop, and if a driver has had a dire afternoon, he very often just pushes his way through the mob, the look of thunder on his face telling the hopeful interviewers that this is not the right time.

On Sunday at Hockenheim, Giancarlo Fisichella did just that, heading straight back to the sanctuary of the Renault motorhome. You could hardly blame him, considering the afternoon he had. But his teammate Fernando Alonso, ever the professional, faced up to his responsibilities. After running his hands though his hair, he stopped to give his verdict to the Spanish and Latin American TV crews, and after that, turned to the international broadcasters.

He'd just endured his worst afternoon since Hungary last year, finished off the podium for only the second time in 2006, endured a tyre blistering problem that made the car virtually undriveable, trailed his teammate until he too had tyre problems, survived a high speed trip across the gravel that could have finished his race, and seen his ever diminishing championship lead cut by a further six points to just 11. And all this after the FIA had seen fit to take away a key piece of technology that his team had honed.

Was he pissed off? He didn't show it, and instead gave the impression that this was another routine day at the office. The clear message was: I've done the best I could with the equipment I had today and, perhaps more the point, it could have been worse. You could even say he was buoyant, as if enjoying the challenge of a title fight, despite denying absolutely on Thursday that he would relish a closer battle.

"Well, you always want to be on the podium and if possible fight for the victory," he said. "It was not possible today, so at the end of the day I think we did the maximum, so I'm happy. We were not very competitive obviously, and then with the first set of tyres I had rear blistering, and that dropped me out too much for the podium. After that Fisichella had the same problem with the second set of tyres, so I arrived to him.

"I'm sure that the next weekend will be different, and we will be back on the podium again. We are in a close fight between Ferrari and Renault, Michael [Schumacher] obviously and me, so we all do the maximum, the team, the drivers, the tyre manufacturers, everyone is doing the maximum. At the moment we are 11 points ahead so we're still doing better than the others so far.

"There are six races to go, so it's not only Budapest. It's China, Brazil, there are many races to come. It's a very interesting championship and very close, so it's up to us if we want to win. We need to improve, we need to beat Ferrari, and we'll try next time. It's clear that the opponents make steps every time, and they are quicker and quicker. We finish all the races, but in the last two or three, not very competitively."

Fernando might have kept a brave face publicly, but there was no question that the Renault team were in a state of shock. At the back of the garage Flavio Briatore was in conference with engineering director Pat Symonds and technical director Bob Bell, and they didn't have much to smile about.

Nearby stood the clear evidence of one of the major contributing factors: two sets of tyres were saved for future examination, one clearly marked 'Alonso race set one', the other 'Fisichella set two' - together with the word 'mesure' (measure in French).

A series of gaping holes around the centre of both left rears told the story of what the drivers faced in those stints. Remarkably those tyres stayed on view for all to see for some time after the race; had they belonged to Bridgestone, they would have long since been carted away, or at the very least the damage would have been hastily covered up with the company's omnipresent red tape before any outsiders could see it.

So what went wrong?

Teams can't get it right every time, even when they appear to be on a roll. It simply isn't possible to be spot on with tyre choice and set-up every time, so competitive is the pace of development right now.

As noted earlier, Renault had a terrible time in Hungary last year, even without Alonso's first lap collision. The team struggled in Monaco as well, and the Spaniard put in a brilliant effort to salvage some points, having done his best to hold up a queue of cars. Those two races were blips in an otherwise near perfect season for the team. Sure, the McLaren were often quicker in the latter races, but Renault always extracted the maximum from the package they had.

Indianapolis wasn't great, but this year it took until race 12 for the team to really go off the rails, whereas Ferrari had their worst nightmare way back in Australia, where they got the tyre choice badly wrong.

On that occasion, Michael Schumacher never gave up and paid the price when he finished his race in the wall. At Hockenheim, Alonso had a little more margin and was able to escape when he had his major moment coming into the stadium. As he bounced through the gravel, an obliging Fisichella declined to use the incident to barge his way past. So in the circumstances, four points were certainly better than the big zero Schumacher scored in Melbourne.

It's easy to overlook just how complex the tyre issue is at the moment. Teams have to make their choices for a particular race a couple of weeks in advance, having tested the available options on a track that often has quite different characteristics. And they have to factor in the likely weather on race weekend as accurately as possible. It's been hot nearly everywhere this year, but there's hot and there's really hot, and it can make a big difference.

Symonds makes the final tyre choice for Renault, and he has done a brilliant job all season - at Silverstone he really pulled a masterstroke, for example, gauging the weather perfectly.

This time, the team went for a tyre that had a different construction to those chosen by McLaren and Honda, but was otherwise quite similar. But for some reason it blistered, despite having more 'blistering control' built into it, as McLaren's Martin Whitmarsh pointed out. While the blistering is what really ruined Renault's race, and cost both cars a position or two, the fact is that all weekend the package wasn't as quick as it should have been.

"I'm not saying this was just a tyre problem," Bob Bell told autosport.com as he contemplated the afternoon. "But in a tyre war you're trying to exploit every last performance from the tyre, you really optimise the design of that tyre to extract the most from it. And that means its operating margins are greatly reduced.

"If you get it slightly wrong, if you get the amount of blistering control, or graining control, or you get the temperature window a degree or two wrong, you're on a knife's edge. We're sitting on a very narrow peak, and if there wasn't a tyre war there would be a lot more scope for getting things slightly wrong. The tighter the competition between the two manufacturers, the more that problem will appear."

He was the first to admit that it wasn't a question of blaming Michelin for any deficiency.

"The tyres are an important part, and a very important part, at the minute. But it's not everything. Clearly we have a huge responsibility on our side to develop the car and the engine not only to totally perform in their own right, but also to work in harmony with the tyres.

"It's a package. You can't just take a tyre and bolt it on to any car and expect it to do the same job. You've got to produce the two together, so we have to work very closely with our tyre partner to make sure we've got a complete package, because we're racing complete cars, not tyres or chassis."

And tyres aside, there was one critical element of the package that was subject to scrutiny in Hockenheim.

Mass damping, mass hysteria?

How much of a factor the loss of the mass damper system was in the downturn in performance is impossible for outsiders to quantify, but if you have honed a car around a particular system for nine or ten months, and then that element is suddenly removed, there must be an impact.

Alonso himself played it down: "I don't think that much, to be honest. It's true that it's easy to say that this will affect the car, but I'm totally sure that in Hungary we will be back with the right set-up, the right tyres, and forget these dampers."

The mass damping saga has got a lot of media coverage, and it's worth taking a closer look at what's happened over the past couple of weeks.

Renault first introduced the system in September last year, and as is often the case with innovations, the team checked it out in correspondence with Charlie Whiting (on September 13, to be precise, as revealed by the stewards' judgement).

However, we now understand that all the French team did was ask if they needed to do a fresh crash test with a 'new device' fitted in the nose. Indeed, sources suggest that there was no specific formal request to verify the legality of the mass damper system - and nor has there been one from any team since.

Whiting and Jo Bauer effectively gave it the OK in that the Renault subsequently passed scrutineering, but as is always the case, the FIA's viewpoint is subject to change. Teams know that they can spend a lot of money going up blind alleys, and it's a risk they have to take.

We don't know when the opposition caught up with the idea, but as the FIA itself revealed last weekend, seven teams have used mass dampers in races this season. What we also don't know is how successful they have been in terms of finding lap time.

But it's logical to assume that having pioneered the system, and developed the 2006 car with a mass damper integrated from the start rather than as an add-on, Renault gain more from it than the others. And therefore they had more to lose when it was banned. In addition, the system is said to give more benefit to cars using Michelins than those running on Bridgestones.

With mass dampers gaining general acceptance in the pitlane, all was well until after the French GP. Whiting had collated evidence, including information from other teams, which suggested that the systems had a direct influence on aerodynamics, specifically by affecting ride heights. Since a mass damper is a moving part relative to the chassis, the system was illegal after all.

Whiting duly wrote to the teams on July 17th telling them that mass damping was no longer permitted. The format was a 'Technical Directive,' actually number TD/020-06. The fact that it was the 20th to be circulated this season shows that such updates are not uncommon.

You don't have to be Einstein to guess that those not in favour of mass dampers had failed to gain the sort of benefit that Renault had found. It's known that McLaren in particular had been pushing the FIA to take action. Interestingly, the team now employ an ex-Renault engineer who has intimate knowledge of the original system.

The Whiting judgement came in time for teams to test their cars without the systems fitted and attempt to optimise them for Hockenheim. But having invested a lot of time and money in something that had previously been cleared, Renault justifiably were far from happy with the decision.

Symonds decided to challenge it and get the matter out in the open by the simple method of leaving the system on the T-car for scrutineering in Germany. This ploy was tried by BAR a few years ago when they were in dispute with the FIA over their banned front differential arrangement.

On Thursday the 'illegal' Renault T-car duly generated a report to the stewards from technical delegate Jo Bauer, and in turn the stewards asked Renault to offer an explanation. And having had more than a week to consider his options, Symonds was well-prepared.

He successfully argued that mass dampers were all about mechanical grip and getting the best out of the tyres, and nothing to do with any aero benefit. He also made the obvious point that parts in conventional suspension systems also move, and they affect ride height too.

Here is where it got really interesting. This year we have a permanent steward in Tony Scott Andrews, who has already made his mark by making some tough decisions - notably that involving Michael Schumacher at Monaco. While at each event he has two colleagues who are selected from a pool, there's no doubt that he is the man leading the way.

A sharp legal brain, Scott Andrews listened to Symonds and studied the evidence in front of him. And he made a crucial decision to disregard much of Whiting's material. Since it involved confidential documentation from other teams, and thus could not be disclosed to Symonds, how could Renault argue against it? This was a controversial piece of logic, to say the least, expressed as follows:

"Reference is made by the FIA to "recent evidence" but by virtue of the confidential nature of such evidence it cannot be disclosed to Renault in its present form and as such the Stewards consider it inappropriate to give regard to such evidence in reaching a decision in circumstances where it cannot be disclosed to or challenged by Renault. The Stewards must therefore disregard this recent evidence and look only at that which is available to them in hearing this matter.

While showing some sympathy towards the FIA's position, and having disregarded the aforementioned evidence, the stewards decided that mass dampers were in fact legal.

A lengthy three page explanation was issued on Friday morning, timed at 9:00am. At first glance it looked like a good cure for insomnia, but closer examination showed just how much attention Scott Andrews had paid to the details of the case. The reasons he and his fellow stewards gave were carefully laid out:

1. The absence of any regulation specifically prohibiting its use.
2. The existence of unchallenged data showing there is negligible effect on aerodynamic performance (in circumstances where a variation of conventional dampers produce a much greater effect).
3. The use of such devices having been overt and commonplace by many Competitors throughout the current championship season.
4. The fact that the view (but only a view and not a decision) was held by the FIA until 21/07/06 [that should have read 17 not 21 - AC] that the use of such devices did not contravene the F1 Technical Regulations.
5. The fact that save for the document referred to above [the 'Technical Directive' from Whiting] there have been no change in the Technical Regulations referable to mass dampers throughout the current championship season.

Symonds seems also to have won favour by agreeing with the stewards that future development of mass dampers should be 'restricted' (not stopped), and that he was willing to help the FIA frame rules that would do just that.

A jubilant Renault's obvious reaction was to prepare to re-fit the dampers to the race cars for Friday morning practice. However, Whiting was seriously underwhelmed by the verdict, which completely undermined his position.

Perhaps the last time he was left in a similar situation was after Malaysia 1999, when he found the Ferrari bargeboards to be illegal, but his superiors made sure that they were not - and the title battle between Eddie Irvine and Mika Hakkinen thus went to the final race...

Whiting immediately decided to challenge the stewards' decision by taking it to the Court of Appeal - something that had only rarely been done before, most recently in the case of the BAR fuel tank saga last year.

On that occasion the stewards, who seemed not to fully grasp the gravity of the situation they were faced with, had chosen not to disqualify Jenson Button. The Court of Appeal thought otherwise.

Whiting duly told the teams of the FIA's intention to appeal against the Hockenheim judgement. Aware that an appeal certainly couldn't be convened until after the Hungarian GP, Whiting also informed them that if they fitted the dampers, and the appeal went against the stewards' decision, they risked a retrospective penalty. Thus Renault ran for the rest of the weekend without the system.

Then, after the race, Whiting wrote to the teams once again and told them that the FIA would specifically ask the Court of Appeal not to pursue any retrospective punishments. This in effect has given Renault and others the opportunity to fit mass dampers back on the cars for Hungary.

However, there is an important rider - the Court of Appeal can listen to Whiting's recommendations for leniency and still do what it wants. In other words, if Alonso wins in Hungary and the appeal goes in favour of the ban, Renault could still be punished and lose any points. It is a risk that the team appear to be willing to take.

Renault and the FIA both have plenty of time to prepare their cases. And there's one crucial point. The stewards decreed that they didn't want to share data from other teams with Renault, for obvious reasons. But what if those teams are now happy to supply either the same or modified documentation to the FIA on the understanding that it will be made public? Don't bet against it.

In addition, there remains the tantalising possibility that a rival team will make a direct protest against Renault's system in Hungary this weekend, in which case the whole story will blow up once more...

The bigger picture

It's all good material for conspiracy theorists, of course. The championship appears to be going Renault's way, the governing body throws a spanner in the works by banning a high profile bit of technology, the team loses momentum with a bad weekend, the championship miraculously comes alive again, and then the trick part is allowed back - and yet there's still some question of future race results being challenged.

It all sounds a bit reminiscent of the days when Michael Schumacher was running away with the 1994 championship for Benetton, hurdles were put in his way. Can that sort of manipulation really happen in our sport?

If you believe the theories, then this one is not as clear-cut as it seems. Renault might be leading the championship, but on the other hand the team have been a staunch supporter of the FIA's cost-cutting rules. Why, then, would the authorities trip the team up, even allowing for a desire to see a closer title battle? But hang on a minute - maybe after an intervention from above the stewards were righting a 'wrong,' and ensuring that Renault wasn't handicapped after all.

Consider too that Renault have recently been a thorn in the side of their fellow GPMA members. What better way for other manufacturer teams to wind up Flavio than by tipping off the FIA with data that creates doubt about the true role of the mass dampers? Although by happy coincidence, of course, slowing Renault also benefits Ferrari, the most FIA-friendly team...

It's all speculative fun, and I'm certainly not suggesting that any of the above has any basis in truth, but the convoluted way our sport works does leave room for such colourful interpretations. And it's not really fair on Schumacher, Ferrari and Bridgestone - they have simply done a better job than Renault of late, even before the Anglo-French team had their wings clipped.

Perhaps the most significant genuine outcome is that Scott Andrews has gone against Whiting's judgement, something that the stewards would have been loathe to in the past. There are two ways of interpreting that development.

You could argue that for all those conspiracy theories and fears of manipulation, there now exists within the FIA structure a system of checks and balances that appears to work. In other words, the arrival on the scene of Scott Andrews, a man who clearly bows to no one, is a good thing.

On the other hand, is it a recipe for anarchy? In most sports the referee's decision is final. You might not agree with what he says, but you have to put up with it. Next time he might make a mistake in your favour, after all.

Ferrari's technical director Ross Brawn made that key point in Hockenheim, and bear in mind that this year his team have been on the receiving end of much grief about flexing wings. He was disappointed not just with that the stewards had overturned Whiting's decision, but because Renault had challenged it in such a confrontational way by presenting their T-car equipped with the offending item. Does it mean that in the future teams will routinely challenge Whiting and Jo Bauer's carefully balanced judgements?

"I think the FIA technical department has been a reference for everybody for many years, and like it or not, people have generally respected their decisions," Brawn said. "Earlier this year we had a situation where they were telling us they wanted to do things with wings that we didn't necessarily agree with, but you've got to have that reference point.

"If every technical decision has to go through this process, then you don't have a system. I think that's something we've got to have a look at, because we all rely on the opinion of the FIA technical department, and in particular Charlie Whiting. I think we all respect his decisions, even if we don't always agree with him. Once we start going through these procedures, it becomes very difficult."

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the technicalities, this saga has been a fascinating case study in the machinations of the FIA and its systems, and it's far from over yet.

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- The Autosport.com Team

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