[Ducati] re: Jerez GP testing 800's

[Mikiel Kingsley]

On 12/3/06, fred lindstrom <flindstrom at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> hi Alex,
>
> i'm in no way a student of the physics behind this...but wouldn't the
> concept of adding ballast to the bike, create yet another issue? aren't
> there restrictions in Formula One of where ballast can and cannot be added
> so as not to not introduce another cornering or traction advantage? i seem
> to recall Renault getting slapped for utilizing an auxillary fuel tank
> design that in effect acted as ballast. maybe there's no carry over in
> logic
> between the four wheel and two wheel world?
>
> cheers,
>
> Fred


It was BAR/Honda that got caught doing this.  They had an auxillary fuel
tank inside the main fuel tank, which they didn't normally drain when the
car was in scrutineering.  This allowed them to have the car weighed before
the race and meet the minimum weight requirements.  Then they could burn
that auxillary fuel during the race, essentially running the car under
weight (if only by a few kilos).  At the last pit stop they could add enough
fuel to bring the car back above the minimum weight.  The issue wasn't the
placement of the ballast, but that using fuel for ballast was strictly
forbidden.

What followed was quite comical.  There had been rumors for over a year that
BAR/Honda was cheating by using fuel for ballast because they had a "hidden"
fuel cell in the car which didn't appear in the car's blueprints, on
file with the FIA.  These rumors became so persistent that the FIA actually
put an endoscope down the throat of the fuel cell and did find a compartment
inside the main fuel tank with a capacity of 14 liters (enough for a handful
of laps at race speed for an F1 car, or about 200 miles on my Duc).  At the
time, the FIA deemed this "extra" tank to be perfectly legal, but the rumors
didn't go away.  At the 2005 San Marino Gran Prix BAR/Honda's cars finished
3rd and 5th.  During post-race scrutineering when ALL the fuel was drained
from Jenson Button's car it was about 5 kilos underweight.  Automatic
disqualification.  BAR/Honda scrambled and got data to the race stewards
showing that despite the car being underweight after the fuel was removed,
at no time during the race were they carrying so little fuel that they were
under the 600 kilo limit.  The stewards accepted this and Jenson Button's
3rd place and Takuma Sato's 5th place were reinstated.  However, the FIA
said in no uncertain terms that BAR/Honda was cheating by running their car
underweight, and they appealed the stewards decision.  (The stewards work
for the FIA, so the FIA was essentially appealing its own
ruling.)  Eventually, the FIA court of appeal found BAR/Honda not guilty of
cheating but of "misinterpreting the rules."  They were stripped of their
points for the race (again) and made to replace their fuel cells.

Interestingly, all F1 teams have a smaller fuel tank inside a larger one
(the smaller tank completely immerses the fuel pump and is fed by the larger
tank so that the pump always has fuel despite high cornering Gs).  Honda's
mistake was in not normally allowing the smaller tank to drain during
scrutineering, meaning the "dry" weight car always contained a few kilos of
fuel, which by definition means they were using fuel for ballast.  The issue
was an awfully big hullabaloo during the 2005 season for a team that didn't
win a single race all year.

Renault had issues with the FIA during the 2006 season due to "mass damper"
suspensions, but that's another story.

-Mikiel
'96 900SS/SP "Buttercup"