There was never any doubt that Redbull's appeal was going to fail. Ignoring all the other stuff, they directly ignored instruction from the FIA. If they won an appeal, it opens the door for everyone else to ignore the FIA.

With the FIA, it's do what I say, not what I do. As it ever has been, it ever shall be.

 

In this instance though the argument is the FIA's yardstick is wrong.

If I got a speeding fine even though I knew I was driving exactly to the speed limit and it was simply that the equipment measuring me was wrong, and I could prove it was wrong I wouldn't expect the decision to hold.

I'm no Redbull fan but I am a fan of the sport and I think bad rule enforcement hurts everyone.

 

We'll have to wait for the explanation. It may be that they accepted Red Bull didn't exceed the fuel limit, but upheld the penalty anyway because of the way they disobeyed the FIA (though I'm not sure that's a regulation either).

 

Is it wrong? Would you trust the word of any F1 team?

 

I still don't understand how, if he finished the race with fuel in the tank (ie he used less than 100 litres or whatever the limit is) he is deemed to have used too much fuel...

 

They have 100kg of fuel which is the most they can use for the entire race.

At certain points they are using no fuel flow like when lifting and coasting the injectors will shut off.

On partial throttle and certain engine maps they will no be using the 100kg/hour maximum rate.

This means at certain points in the race like when overtaking, building a gap or defending they can ramp the power up to the max, which should only be 100kg/hour.

Redbull are accused of going over that amount repeatadly. Again in an hour they are using far less than 100kg of fuel, but during acceleration the rate of fuel usage could be more than 100kg/hour.

If I travel at 200mph through a speed camera, and then slow down for the rest of my journey so that the average is calculated at 70mph, I've still broke the speed limit.

 

Fortunately it isn't the "word" that they have to trust. Red Bull will have certainly gone along with a whole load of evidence to show the accuracy of equipment, and the inaccuracy of the FIA's, probably verified by an independent third party. The court of appeal would have had to have good reason to dispute that, if that is indeed what they did.

People have got out of speeding fines by proving the radar gun hadn't been calibrated when it was meant to be; I'm not sure anybody's got out of speeding fines by proving the radar gun was actually wrong.

 

I am sure they put more than a 100kg in. but the FIA measure from point to point and the fuel rate.

 

They're required to put more than 100Kg in, as they need to get round the slow down lap and still be able to provide a sample as well as get to the grid. The 100Kg is from lights out to chequered flag.

A lot of the doom mongers were talking about drivers running out of fuel, but obviously that's not going to happen. In fact apart from Ricciardo's penalty, none of this fuel and economy stuff seems to have made a lot of difference.

 

Apart from Ferrari who from the sounds of it are really struggling with the fuel limits and crying for an increase in the rules.

Mercedes if anything are still under-fuelling for the performance gains of saving weight.