Japanese Grand Prix 2019: Grand Prix Weekend Thread - Round 17 of 21

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Adam43

INCONSISTENCY!

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/14...ret-tolerances

I wonder what method is used to detect movement? I can imagine that trying to detect any movement (threshold of zero) may be difficult as the precision of the sensor may not support it. So they have to set a threshold that prevents false positives at the risk of periodic false negatives. Imagine the outrage for penalties in which visually no motion can be detected, but the sensor said the car moved.

Note, I haven't watched the race yet, so I dont know how blatant the move was.

Richard

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by gert

Just watched the race very much delayed.


Some cases of poor stewarding I think:

1. I can see why Leclerc is punished but
a. why do they first decide: no action necessary, and then come back on that? I can't remember seeing that ever before that the stewards alter their decision. Why did they do that? Surely not because of a Honda-backed driver kept moaning about it?
b. why don't they hand out the penalty during the race like they usually do? If they did, then surely Leclerc would not have pitted a few laps from te end, taken the time penalty and still finish 6th. They had like 50 laps to anounce it. Leclerc was robbed 2 points there.
c. I don't understand why Gasly got away with doing more or less the same on Perez.

On a, apparently there was more footage. https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/14...rstappen-clash

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by steve nielsen

That defend was just a message to Leclerc I believe

not good.

[Mike Harte]

The subject came up in the last year or two about the FIA's secret tolerances for a jump start when a driver was not penalised for a slight movement before the lights went out. I seem to recall that Charlie Whiting stated at the time that they didn't publish the permitted movement figures because it might lead to some teams/drivers attempting to take advantage of the data.

[chillibowl]

For me a flinch is a flinch...sure his error cost him more (as it should) but the potential that his error can cause another to move is one of the reasons false starts rules exist.

That there are secret tolerances of allowable movement is a fairly goofy explaination imo. A race is a race and the start procedure needs to be clear and obvious especially after 1014(?) races right!

[Adam43]

How would you administer the start and allow for movements when the clutch is engaged or adjusted? If you do not then you end up with a lot of jump starts.

Seems to me that as long as the car is within its box and stationary when the lights go out then fine.

[wnut]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

For me a flinch is a flinch...sure his error cost him more (as it should) but the potential that his error can cause another to move is one of the reasons false starts rules exist.

That there are secret tolerances of allowable movement is a fairly goofy explaination imo. A race is a race and the start procedure needs to be clear and obvious especially after 1014(?) races right!

This would be my understanding too, neatly put!

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by Adam43

How would you administer the start and allow for movements when the clutch is engaged or adjusted? If you do not then you end up with a lot of jump starts.

Seems to me that as long as the car is within its box and stationary when the lights go out then fine.

Once set within their box, I would administer any early forward movement as a false start...so basically you need to be set once the lights start coming on.

Anyways, you cant have secret rules.

[F1Pete]

I was infuriated with Leclerc driving with bits flapping around. All I could think of was pieces flying off and nailing Hamilton in the visor. Next thing you know there was a replay showing a chuck flying through the air and taking out Hamilton's side mirror. I was appalled that no one really took that too seriously. He should have received a stiffer penalty because I consider that incident a "near miss". A direct hit to the visor through the gap in the halo could have been devastating. If Massa would have been watching, I'm sure he would have had a flashback.

As fans, we could all clearly see what was going on and Leclerc refusing to pit for a couple of laps. I'm really starting to dislike/disrespect Leclerc.

Sent from my SM-G955W using Tapatalk

[bjohnsonsmith]

According to the 2019 F1 Sporting Regulations, Article 36.13 states:

Either of the penalties under Articles 38.3c) or d) will be imposed on any driver who is judged to have :

a) Moved before the start signal is given, such judgement being made by an FIA approved and supplied transponder fitted to each car, or ;

b) Positioned his car on the starting grid in such a way that the transponder is unable to detect the moment at which the car first moved from its grid position after the start signal is given.

https://argent.fia.com/web/fia-publi...07-12-2011.pdf

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

The subject came up in the last year or two about the FIA's secret tolerances for a jump start when a driver was not penalised for a slight movement before the lights went out. I seem to recall that Charlie Whiting stated at the time that they didn't publish the permitted movement figures because it might lead to some teams/drivers attempting to take advantage of the data.

Yes. I remember that and generally agree otherwise they will try to game it.

Originally Posted by Adam43

How would you administer the start and allow for movements when the clutch is engaged or adjusted? If you do not then you end up with a lot of jump starts.

Yes. Need to avoid false positive alerts.

Originally Posted by Adam43

Seems to me that as long as the car is within its box and stationary when the lights go out then fine.

I would love to understand how they detect this now. Does anyone know for sure? I feel I can't praise or complain about a system that is a mystery to me.

I expect part of this is that we are seeing the limits of the system. Note the system needs to be pretty much fully automated. It can't consist of stewards manually looking at video of each car after each start (manual examination is fine if they need more data when an issue is reported).

No doubt if they spent more money (of which people would complain about the extra complexity of F1) they could shrink the threshold for trigger to be much smaller, account for slightly movement (chassis shake, etc.) while in the box, etc. But would it be money well spent?

Richard

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by F1Pete

I was infuriated with Leclerc driving with bits flapping around. All I could think of was pieces flying off and nailing Hamilton in the visor. Next thing you know there was a replay showing a chuck flying through the air and taking out Hamilton's side mirror. I was appalled that no one really took that too seriously. He should have received a stiffer penalty because I consider that incident a "near miss". A direct hit to the visor through the gap in the halo could have been devastating. If Massa would have been watching, I'm sure he would have had a flashback.

As fans, we could all clearly see what was going on and Leclerc refusing to pit for a couple of laps. I'm really starting to dislike/disrespect Leclerc.

Sent from my SM-G955W using Tapatalk

Totally agree and I think it is incredulous that Ferrari weren't reprimanded, as ultimately the responsibility lies with them. They could see the damage to Leclerc's car.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

I would love to understand how they detect this now. Does anyone know for sure? I feel I can't praise or complain about a system that is a mystery to me.

Sorry to quote myself. I always think that is bad form somehow. I also may be the only person who cares about these details.

Anyhow, I have done a tiny bit of digging. As best as I can tell the system probably relies upon the basic transponder/timing loop system. So in addition to the standard places like start/finish, pit entry/exit, sectors there is probably loops installed in all of the grid position boxes. As the position of the transponder in the car is fixed, then they can use one location in each grid box that will work for all cars.

In addition to the timing loop, high speed cameras are used (with GPS synchronized time stamps). However I suspect that is only in some critical areas such as start/finish and pit entry/exit? Do they have speed cameras looking at each grid box? I tend to suspect no. Or if they do, they are not directly tied into the jump start system, but are only used for review later on.

I also believe that the timing loop system is highly accurate for cars moving at a relatively good pace, but probably are relatively inaccurate for VERY slow moving cars (such as a car creeping forward very slowly in the grid box). I expect there is a zone of sensitivity within the loop system. That this zone is not infinitely narrow, but probably has a large width (front to rear in direction of car travel and clearly as wide as the loop in width). That while the signal generated is analog in nature, it is likely converted into a binary digital system by the timing loop system (a signal strength threshold is reached to "trigger" as you don't want background noise to create false triggers).

I can imagine that as the car passes into, through and out of the loop, that the signal increases, triggers "on" at some point, maybe increase, peak and start to drop, but the trigger stays "on" as the car moves through the loop, and then as the signal continues to drops again it drops below the threshold and triggers "off". The point here is that there may be a range in which the car can move forward/backwards and it does not indicate any change via the loop.

Lets assume they position the loop so that it triggers as the car comes to a stop. So that allows them to know "car x is in position" and then when it moves out of the range of the loop they know "car x is no longer in position". Depending upon the size of that range (and knowing that cars today will show some level of fore/aft variance when they park in the box), then the amount of movement that may trigger a jump start might be large and also even dependent upon where you stop in the box.

So that is ultimately my point. There probably is a high level of uncertainty and variability today in how much movement can happen before they detect a jump start. In addition to them not wanting teams to game the system (can I stop early and then launch slightly early to get a rolling start before it triggers a jump start?), it just might also be a bit of a dirty secret as to how much a car could actually move before the system notices?

Anyone with direct knowledge of how this works, please feel free to point out my bad assumptions.

Here is a link for some good reading. The original post is old, but there is some good stuff posted in 2017 by someone who IMHO is on the inside of F1 (or similar series) T&S and provides a lot of great details. Many of my facts/assumptions are based upon that post.

https://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9114

Item of interest on that page. Note that he says not ALL grid boxes have timing loops. So deeper in the grid, maybe there is no jump start system (at least for automated detection)!!!

Richard

[Richard C]

Last time I post on the topic of jump starts unless someone else participates in the discussion. I promise!

I found a MUCH more detailed thread that goes into more details. For the tech nerds like me, it's a great read.

https://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26569

TL;DR for that thread.

Initial speculation similar to mine around using timing loops for each grid position. But then on page three, an authoritative individual (who can't disclose exact details as it's a secret) says all that speculation is wrong. They don't use timing loop/transponder for this. It is a combination of things such as...

* Broad view (not car specific) high speed cameras with timestamps.
* Onboard sensors in car (could be anything ranging from accelerometer to RF/laser based ride height detection) to sense car movement.
* Time sync via GPS signals.

In the end, the stewards look at slow motion video like everyone else. They just have better videos.

Richard

[RWill2073]

Originally Posted by TrapezeArtist

Leclerc really blotted his copybook this time around. Or maybe it was the team. I'm less bothered by the first lap incident as I feel drivers need to be cut a bit of extra slack in the first few corners. However not pitting immediately for a front wing change was irresponsible. It caused damage to two cars, ruined the race for one of them, and could have been a whole lot worse.

I may be overdoing the conspiracy theory, but did Mercedes deliberately hobble Hamilton's strategy in order to keep him behind Bottas? Bottas is in greater need of every possible point to keep him ahead of Leclerc in the championship, whereas nothing short of catastrophe can stop Lewis winning another WDC. Realistically it shouldn't have been necessary because Lewis has a decent track record in giving up places when he can see the bigger picture. Perhaps I'm just being unduly influenced by Ferrari in Russia.

Looking for conspiracy in mercedes tactics that negatively impact hamilton? In a race where bottas was clearly performing better overall? After witnessing them asking bottas to slow down so Hamilton came out ahead a few races ago? Influenced by ferrari in Russia, but not mercedes in Singapore? Maybe the below quote applies here, too. Or... location checks out...

Originally Posted by TrapezeArtist

Perhaps your first two words reflect your own allegiance.

[RWill2073]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

Last time I post on the topic of jump starts unless someone else participates in the discussion. I promise!

I found a MUCH more detailed thread that goes into more details. For the tech nerds like me, it's a great read.

https://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26569

TL;DR for that thread.

Initial speculation similar to mine around using timing loops for each grid position. But then on page three, an authoritative individual (who can't disclose exact details as it's a secret) says all that speculation is wrong. They don't use timing loop/transponder for this. It is a combination of things such as...

* Broad view (not car specific) high speed cameras with timestamps.
* Onboard sensors in car (could be anything ranging from accelerometer to RF/laser based ride height detection) to sense car movement.
* Time sync via GPS signals.

In the end, the stewards look at slow motion video like everyone else. They just have better videos.

Richard

If they are looking at slow motion too, has it been made clear that vettel remained behind the line even after his false start? If so, seem like no harm no foul since he stopped moving before the lights went out and was still in proper position. He certainly didn't gain an advantage.

I guess I'm in the minority in not really caring that leclerc stayed out with damage. I know it's part of the deal with the cars nowadays, but it is kinda weak how the slightest bit of damage pretty much means a dnf. I like seeing a beaten car surviving and sometimes even thriving after some damage. I get the safety issue, but i was wanting to see him stay in the fight with a damaged car until pit stop window time.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by RWill2073

If they are looking at slow motion too, has it been made clear that vettel remained behind the line even after his false start? If so, seem like no harm no foul since he stopped moving before the lights went out and was still in proper position. He certainly didn't gain an advantage.

In that thread I linked. While it wasn't definitive (lots of speculation in that thread mixed in with good info), it sounded like the critical period is the time between the last red light is turned on and when all go off. That maybe movement in that time period is more suspect???

Another thing that is interesting that came out of that thread is that the random delay between all red lights and lights out is purely software controlled. Meaning there is a trigger to start the sequence and then the software takes over. There have been times that the field was slow to come around and the front row has sat still for a long long time and the random gap before lights goes out has been short. I sort of wondered if maybe someone was purposefully making it short, but apparently it's fully out of human control.

It would be interesting to see a statistical analysis of the length of time of the random gap.

Richard

[wnut]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

Last time I post on the topic of jump starts unless someone else participates in the discussion. I promise!

I found a MUCH more detailed thread that goes into more details. For the tech nerds like me, it's a great read.

https://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26569

TL;DR for that thread.

Initial speculation similar to mine around using timing loops for each grid position. But then on page three, an authoritative individual (who can't disclose exact details as it's a secret) says all that speculation is wrong. They don't use timing loop/transponder for this. It is a combination of things such as...

* Broad view (not car specific) high speed cameras with timestamps.
* Onboard sensors in car (could be anything ranging from accelerometer to RF/laser based ride height detection) to sense car movement.
* Time sync via GPS signals.

In the end, the stewards look at slow motion video like everyone else. They just have better videos.

Richard

If this is the way the stewards are judging what a jump start is, then they need to re-write their sporting code:

36.13 Either of the penalties under Articles 38.3c) or d) will be imposed on any driver who is judged to have :

a) Moved before the start signal is given, such judgement being made by an FIA approved and supplied transponder fitted to each car, or;

This rule does not give the stewards the flexibility to make a judgement whether a competitor has jumped the start based on video evidence, the fact is solely based on the supplied transponder's judgement. Their rule in black and white!

If the jumped start is based on video evidence, then the Bottas start that was deemed legal is undoubtedly jumped, the only way that can be justified is on the basis that the sole judge of fact, the supplied transponder, did not register his start as a jumped start.

Once again - total inconsistency by the stewards.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by wnut

If this is the way the stewards are judging what a jump start is, then they need to re-write their sporting code:

36.13 Either of the penalties under Articles 38.3c) or d) will be imposed on any driver who is judged to have :

a) Moved before the start signal is given, such judgement being made by an FIA approved and supplied transponder fitted to each car, or;

This rule does not give the stewards the flexibility to make a judgement whether a competitor has jumped the start based on video evidence, the fact is solely based on the supplied transponder's judgement. Their rule in black and white!

If the jumped start is based on video evidence, then the Bottas start that was deemed legal is undoubtedly jumped, the only way that can be justified is on the basis that the sole judge of fact, the supplied transponder, did not register his start as a jumped start.

Once again - total inconsistency by the stewards.

I think you have a very valid point about the wording if the source I quoted is accurate (and I have no reason to believe it isn't). They need to resolve that. My guess is the teams are ok with how it works now, so there is no drive to fix the wording. But the discrepancy is odd.

However, after reading the details, and the problems with a transponder based solution, I suspect what they have now is pretty good, but just not automated.

Richard

[TrapezeArtist]

Originally Posted by RWill2073

Looking for conspiracy in mercedes tactics that negatively impact hamilton?

No, just looking for conspiracy in Mercedes tactics. When Mercedes have used Bottas to help Hamilton it has been quite open. Done the other way (if that's what it was in Japan), it seems to have been more covert. Perhaps because Hamilton wouldn't have complied if they had done it more openly? Location doesn't check out.

[gert]

Bottas stopped twice, Hamilton stopped twice.
Bottas was faster than Hamilton in all but one session (Q1 I think)

Bottas led at the first corner and led throughout the whole race (except for the piststops)

=> Bottas (slightly) had the upper hand this weekend.

I see no conspiracy there.

It would have raised more suspicion if Mercedes would have stopped Hamilton only once and Bottas twice on a weekend were Bottas was just that little bit stronger.

[S griffin]

It would be so much better if pitstops weren’t so crucial to the race. Then it would make things easier for everyone and stops all this nonsense of conspiracy

[chillibowl]

im sure people will just find new conspiracies theories to peddle...which i suppose is only natural when the governing body does weird things like declare they have a secret rule set.

[S griffin]

It would be nice if drivers had a bit more freedom with regards to what strategy to use. Seems it’s a bit too easy to predict at the moment

[Alan52]

Originally Posted by S griffin

It would be so much better if pitstops weren’t so crucial to the race. Then it would make things easier for everyone and stops all this nonsense of conspiracy

Suggest you don’t watch the fiasco of last weekends Bathurst 1000 then!