RacingManiac wrote:No one called Gordan Murray's Brabham fan car as illegal, it was banned rightafter that race it won, but it was legal to keep that win, and no one called Porsche's 1994 "Dauer 962 LM" illegal, but it was a Group C car in GT1's disguise.
Or the mass damper, it wasn't illegal until someone found a way to call it an aero moving device, right?
That's the catch, fans were not forbidden in 1978, the Dauer had road homologation. But aero moving devices are forbidden by the letter of the law, not only by the spirit. The mass damper was only banned afterwards because it was a new interpretation (very far-fetched and, in my opinion, utterly ridiculous) of the rules: that such a device was considered an aero moving device, not because it didn't comply with some test that regulated the rigidity of aero devices. So, now where do we stand? It is the spirit or the wording of the rules that matter, now??? Furthermore, Nigel Stepney revealed that the undertray of the Ferrari was sprung in a way that worked also like a mass damper, which makes it break the same rule twice: in the wording and (as of FIA's interpretation) in the spirit. And mass dampers are banned since last year and Renault was threatened with disqualification if they kept running it!
That's actually a huge mix up you are doing. If a rule states that a wing must be 400mm long, not having a system to measure it, wouldn't be a reason for it to be longer, legally. And that's not a valid point to talk about material flex. It's because materials do flex that a compliance test must be put in place. But to pass the test doesn't make the test the rule. The rule is that an element with aero influence must be rigidly attached to the chassis. It may be an old wording and it may even be a stupid rule, but that's the wording.
To hide a system that makes something that the rule says must be rigidly attached to pass the rigidity test and flex afterwards, is cheating. Furthermore, if it works also has a device that is clearly banned. Or masses sprung in a way to dampen certain frequencies are only forbidden in encapsulated in the nose cone? Or perhaps only in yellow cars???
Since you seem to like so much historical comparisons, I tell you the story about Tyrrell fueling the cars in the 80's with gasoline mixed with little lead balls. The lead balls that stayed inside the fuel tank made for the difference between the initial weight and the legal weight. They found a system to pass the compliance test (cars were only weighted in the end of the race), but it was a cheat, because they were outside the rules since race start until refueling. Same with Ferrari: their floor was designed to pass the test, but in every situation where the floor moved, they were illegal. Tyrrell was disqualified from that championship, also...
Just an afterthought: if Ferrari would have been disqualified from the race they won with that cheat, the story of the championship would have been very different...
. Ferrari's moving floor and Renaults mass-dampers are only examples of it that received some mass-media coverage. Do you honestly believe that McLaren doesn't use anything like that? Do you believe that Q3 was supposed to be that fuel-burning parade? What's the point of this debate?
