The BAR Weight Controversy

[Mark Bacchetti]

Is anyone paying attention to this story? BAR released all of their legal information on the website. It's interesting stuff, especially if you have ever had a tough time in FSAE technical inspections. Theres lots of legal mumbo jumbo plus data and technical photos.

International Court of Appeal Article (http://www.barhondaf1.com/en/index.php?section=8&item=1144&type=1)

[Mark Bacchetti]

Is anyone paying attention to this story? BAR released all of their legal information on the website. It's interesting stuff, especially if you have ever had a tough time in FSAE technical inspections. Theres lots of legal mumbo jumbo plus data and technical photos.

International Court of Appeal Article (http://www.barhondaf1.com/en/index.php?section=8&item=1144&type=1)

[jack]

who cares if the stuards knew about the "legal" system or not?! they were underweight. end of story. they sould be banned for the rest of the season.

[syoung]

Anybody having a go at BAR should first read the technical submission that Mark B links to (PDF at the bottom of the page). Do read it - it's 103 pages long, but the first 11 or 12 summarise their case in full.

BAR's system was neither secret nor illegal (this is not disputed by the FIA). The team's main contention is that it was impossible for the car to run with less than 5 kg of fuel in the accumulator, which is separate to the main tank and an integral part of a primed fuel system. The accumulator normally runs completely full, at 0.5 bar pressure, before being boosted to 50 bar in the fuel feed line to the engine.

The technical submission includes data from the end of the first stint of the race, where Button's accumulator suffered a pressure drop-out twice as they pushed the car to run one extra lap before pitting: this was with over 5.3 kg of fuel still in the car.

The weight of fluids such as oil, water, fuel contained within the fuel lines, etc. is included in a car's minimum weight - a team asked to drain fuel from the tank for weighing purposes has never been required to drain fuel lines or indeed accumulators, even when they have been found to be close to the 600 kg limit. (The FIA, incidentally, was believed to have been acting on a tip-off from two ex-employees of BAR).

This would be an extremely crude way of cheating were it genuinely the case. ATL, which makes fuel cells for most of the F1 grid, confirmed that there was nothing unusual about the BAR system. I've heard from a friend with links to BAR that ATL has been extremely busy in the last 10 days, manufacturing new fuel cells for three other teams ahead of this weekend's race! BAR prepared formal protests against 6 other cars after the race at San Marino, but did not submit them because the stewards decided to take no further action against BAR on the day.

Incidentally, FIA technical delegates saw the fuel tank internally and externally at each of the two previous Grands Prix. In Bahrain, Button's pressure regulator was changed under parc ferme conditions (i.e. with an FIA delegate watching the procedure) and in Malaysia, FIA delegates asked to inspect BAR's spare fuel tank. In neither case was any objection raised.

[Russ-Turner]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v284/Russ-Turner/honda-bar.jpg http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif