REPORT MONACO gp - Mundo Motorizado

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Bull stumps rivals
Legality of the holes in the RB8’s floor – approved by the FIA – has other teams scratching their heads
Hole in front of rear wheels
appeared for Bahrain GP
iLLEGAL?
CASE STuDy BENETTON BARgEBOARDS IN 1994
At the 1994 Brazilian Grand Prix,
AUTOSPORT’s Gary Anderson
learned that holes aren’t always
clear-cut after protesting Michael
Schumacher’s winning Benetton.
“Where the bargeboards were
mounted front and rear, there was a
huge hole between the under-floor
and the bargeboard when it should
have been an impervious surface
defined by the external periphery
of the floor,” recalls the then-Jordan
technical director.
“But the FIA threw out the
Schuey’s win
was protested
Red Bull’s rivals were baffled by
the team’s insistence that the
controversial holes in the rear
of the RB8’s floor are legal during
the Monaco Grand Prix weekend.
AUTOSPORT understands that
Red Bull has previously run the
design by FIA technical delegate
Charlie Whiting, who has declared
it legal. But technical sources from
rival teams in the Formula 1
paddock admit that they consider
the design to be explicitly illegal
and cannot come up with an
interpretation of the regulations
that would lead to the holes on
the Red Bull being allowed.
But Red Bull is under no
obligation to make public its
interpretation of the rules. When
protest because ‘the surface that
was left’ was impervious meaning
that the rule didn’t apply to the
holes as long as the bargeboards
and the brackets that enclosed
them were solid.
“I included the dictionary
definition of impervious, ‘not
affording passage to a fluid’, but it
didn’t get anywhere with the FIA.
“Using their definition it means
that a sieve is impervious. I don’t
think many people would agree.”
a design run past Whiting is
rejected, it is immediately circulated
to all teams, but in the case of a
successful enquiry this does not
happen. This means the other
teams remain in the dark. Several
rivals, including Ferrari, Mercedes
and McLaren, all considered
protesting Mark Webber’s Monaco
victory, but decided against it on
the basis that a public row might
taint the blue-riband event.
As AUTOSPORT closed for
press, the FIA was working towards
issuing a rules clarification on the
matter. There is a good chance that
this could lead to Red Bull having
to remove the holes, which are used
to channel airflow to energise the
underfloor and diffuser section.
Red Bull is used to
coming under fire
LEGAL