Inconsistency of decisions?

[John Turner]

Reading the Nick Fry thread reminded me of comments he made during the Shanghai race. He stated that he considered that Mark Webber (This thresd is NOT about MW specifically, by the way!) had held up the field coming into the pits, which had led to loss of track position for Jensen (and probably others) and he had appealed to the stewards. They apparently told him that they would give consideration to this at the end of the race. Do we know whether there was an outcome to this?

I'm interested because, as we know, Fisi had to serve a drive through penalty for the same offence; hence my reference to inconsistency. Maybe the allegations against Mark were unfounded but it would be good to know.

[Jordi]

It wouldn't be the first case of inconsistency by the stewards this year.

[Kicking-back]

If all the decisions were consistent it would close off an avenue of debate on fora like this one

[T0MAT01]

Inconsistencies would normally be fair enough, or just papered over, when similar incidents happen at different races, but in this case it's the same offence happening during the same GP.

It's odd that they weren't treated in the same way.

[Adam43]

What we can do is check out the two situations to see if they are the similar.

Did Webber hold back as much as Fisi? What was to be gained by Webber holding back? etc...

[Kirk]

I was also wondering about that Adam, however I assumed after the penalty to Fisi that he had caused the chain reaction and Webber was just part of it.
I did hear mention of the "5 car length" guideline regarding that ruling. Perhaps Mark did slow up somewhat but was within those 5 car lengths of the driver ahead?

[BootsOntheSide]

Clealry, Fisichella gained from blocking the field on the way into the pits, as he avoided losting places to all the drivers behind him who could have gone straight into the pits. But Webber was the lead Williams, so he would surely gained nothing. I don't even know if his 'block' was in the pitlane or on the restart either. As another angle on this, maybe all Giancarlo really did was preventing himself being unfairly penalised by F1 teams only having one pit-box and one set of mechanics, which is a major difference from other forms of racing which use a pace car?

[chezza]

The clerks and stewards would have had a busy time what with the pre-race accident, safety cars, crashes and goodness knows what else. They can only do so much within the race, and can only deal with one thing at a time. If it is deemed that they cannot deal with a situation until after the race has finished thats all they can do. Whilst annoying for the people involved we just have to put up with the situation.

Also wasn't the incident with Jenson and Webber behind the safety car rather than in the pits? Meaning that in the safety car train webber was more than 5 car lengths behind the car in front of him. This type of rule is made so that the cars stay together in a short a chain as possible. It would also mean that he would hold up the cars behind him, making them lose time.

[John Turner]

Yes, TOMATO1, that's what I was thinking. Adam, I don't think it was televised so that is an avenue of checking closed to us. Kirk, my understanding, from Nick Fry's comments, was that Mark dropped back nearer 20 car lengths, but I may have got that wrong.

[Nado]

That's the thing, Webber gained nothing from the alledged blocking, and neither lost any positions or time other than to the guys that didn't pit during the second safety car.

[John Turner]

Yes, point taken Chezza, but a team had appealed and surely a time penalty equivalent to a drive through (which due speed limit through the pits) could have been imposed at the end of the race. Just a thought!

[John Turner]

Originally Posted by Thanh Ha

That's the thing, Webber gained nothing from the alledged blocking, and neither lost any positions or time other than to the guys that didn't pit during the second safety car.

My concern is with the drivers it did have an impact upon. Certainly BAR had an issue (if the allegation is correct, of course).

[Nado]

Originally Posted by John Turner

My concern is with the drivers it did have an impact upon. Certainly BAR had an issue (if the allegation is correct, of course).

I had live timing running and from memory, I don't think anyone lost out, maybe it was during the brief period that Monteiro was in front? Nonetheless, Webber had nothing to gain, and if it's true, I'd be at a lost to explain as to what he was doing.

Though I am concerned that unless the FIA were certain nothing was wrong, even though they were busy that the incident wasn't set to be investigated after the race.

[Adam43]

I am very uncomfortable with the blame being laid by people who don't know anything about the situation. I

think john is trying to find out something about it to be able to make a judgement. These words are written

before I look into it. The actual outcome being irrelevant to the point I am trying to make.

However we can investigate the lap times and the pit stops. Lets see what we can learn from that.

When were these pit stops?
Fisi stopped on laps 19, 30, 52 (penalty)
Webber stopped on laps 19, 30
Button stopped on laps 18, 30

When were the SC laps?
18-24
29-34

What did people say about this?

Originally Posted by Nick Fry

Furthermore he was delayed by Webber coming into the pits for our second stop, which denied

us the opportunity to improve our position at that time.

There were two stops that this could have take over, but we are presumably talking about the second round. For the first SC Button pitted just before the SC and was ahead of Webber at that stage,

so there was no change of being slowed down! In addition over the first stops Webbers gap to the car in front (Ralf) was 0.7, 0.6, 0.6, 0.8 over laps 17, 18, 19, 20. Showing he did not drop back.

Just for completeness did Fisi drop back at the first stops? His gap to Alonso was 19.2, 19.9, 2.3. (17, 18, 19, 20) So he did fall back a little, but no more than he was doing anyway! The small gap afterwards is due to the SC.

Anyway now on to the juicy 2nd stops.

Let's stay with Fisi. The second SC was at lap 29. Was were Fisi's gaps to Alonso leading up to that?
3.8, 3.8, 4.3, 4.6, 13.5 (26, 27, 28, 29, 30pit). So Fisi lost about 13s over what you would have expected on one lap!

What about Webber? He was behind Ralf at this stage.
0.5, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 5.0 (26, 27, 28, 29, 30pit). So it looks like he lost an extra 4s on that final lap into the pits. However this isn't as reliable as the data for Fisi because Ralf did not pit. We don't know the relationship of using the pitlane and where the timing transponders. However we can compare Webber's laps to the driver ahead of him who pitted. That was Rubens.
1.2, 1.2, 1.5, 1.6, 10 (26, 27, 28, 29, 30pit)
So he lost over 8s extra to Rubens. Maybe he has slowed more then.
I have noticed that Ralf also slowed compared to Rubens. Rubens made an effort and closed 5s on Kimi (because Fisi was holding him up).

Of course you can throw in the 'being in full control' of the car under SC as an argument to slow down.

So Fisi did drop 8s to the guy who pitted ahead, however he only dropped 5s to the car ahead (so he couldn't have gone 8s quicker anyway). Therefore we are comparing a loss of 5s for Webber to 13s for Fisi.

Inconsistent? Perhaps not then.

A 'five car length rule' has been quoted. However this is not an official rule and more of a guideline I expect. In addition I am not sure how this can be applied rigorously on the first lap after the SC when cars may race back to the pits and are spread out more than 5 car lengths to begin with.

Make what you will of the above (and I'm up for corrections and disputes etc), but IMHO here are the conclusions.

It is obvious that Fisi delayed the pack on purpose and with the aim of avoiding queuing behind Alonso. It also protects Alonso (although he was fairly safe).

It is less clear for Webber. He dropped less time to the car in front and there is no clear reason to do it (Pizzonia was behind him). You can easily argue that he was being correctly circumspect on the first SC lap (as Ralf was too).

Fisi got a penalty, Webber didn't. From the evidence we have I can't disagree strongly with that. In addition I presume the FIA have more information available (more TV, sector times, other data).

[T0MAT01]

Very informative Adam.

What still doesn't make sence though is why he would be so far behind when he was the leading Williams.

I can only assume that perhaps the pit crew weren't ready for him for whatever reason, but I'm not sure if race control have access to the radio transmissions to determin if he was asked to slow.

One thing's for sure though, he would have been slaughtered by the team for losing 5 seconds in a pit stop window...

[Kirk]

I am surprised that we have not heard a word about this after it was announced that it would be investigated.
Unfortunately (or fortunately if you're on the right side of the fence) those two SC occasions ruined the race for a few drivers with their pre-race strategies out the window. Massa and Klien and of course Ralf were the lucky ones. I can understand the frustration from Fry and BAR .. it seemed to emulate their year though, didn't it.