Adam Cooper F1

The FIA is set to amend the F1 Sporting Regulations after admitting there was a lack of clarity concerning what should have happened on the last lap in Monaco.

Race control sent out a messages saying the safety car was coming in and green flags were waved, and Mercedes – with some justification – claimed that meant the safety car was no longer deployed (as the rules stated) and the cars could race.

Since the track was clear at Rascasse there appears to be no reason why the drivers should not have raced on the last lap, considering that in 2010 they can race from the safety car line at a normal restart.

This appears to be a rare admission from the FIA that it got something wrong.

I understand that there is a chance that the rules could be amended to allow racing from the safety car line if, as in Monaco, the track is clear and the safety car comes in because of that, rather than when it comes in purely to allow the cars to drive across the start/finish line for TV. In the latter case as before no overtaking will be allowed if the track is still ‘yellow.’

The rules will be discussed by the Sporting Working Group in Turkey, for possible clarification at an F1 Commission meeting after Canada. So in theory the European GP will be the first race where any formal amendment will apply. However, clearly the teams are now fully aware of what the current interpretation is.

A statement read as follows: “The problems identified during the final lap of the Monaco Grand Prix, counting for the 2010 FIA Formula One World Championship, showed a lack of clarity in the application of the rule prohibiting overtaking behind the Safety Car.

“Adjustments to the regulations are necessary to clarify the procedure that cars must meet when the last lap is controlled by the Safety Car whilst also ensuring that the signaling for teams and drivers is made more clear.

“These adjustments will help to avoid the problem which occurred during the Monaco Grand Prix from happening in the future.

“The Formula One Commission, upon a proposal of the F1 Sporting Working Group will submit an amendment to the Sporting Regulations to address this issue. These amendments will be considered by the World Motor Sport Council at its next meeting in Geneva on June 23.”

Chandhok was set for a welcome finish until Trulli landed on his HRT

The Monaco GP finished on a spectacular note when Jarno Trulli’s Lotus climbed over the back of Karun Chandhok’s HRT, triggering the safety car that in turn led to the controversial Michael Schumacher/Fernando Alonso incident.

The crash got HRT and Chandhok some TV time, but it robbed the Indian of the chance to be the first car home from one of the new teams after a tenacious drive – one that even saw him drag Rubens Barrichello’s steering wheel around from Massenet to the Chicane.

“It was really disappointing for me and the team,” Chandhok told this blog after the race. “With Petrov’s problem we would have been P13, which would have put the team into 10^th in the World Championship, which was important for them.

“It’s very frustrating because I think I drove a good race. I pushed like hell to make the gap to Bruno early on. I caught the Lotus and the Virgin, which was surprising. I had more pace than Jarno, and later on I was catching Bruno again after the strategy didn’t work out for me.”

Chandhok says the overtaking attempt by Trulli came as a surprise, although the Italian himself insisted that the HRT slowed more than usual.

“I knew Webber was coming because I saw the blue flags,” said Chandhok. “That’s why I was surprised that he was trying it on me. Obviously he had to let him past before me. It was pretty unacceptable what he did.

“It was ridiculous. It’s impossible to pass into Rascasse, and he’s apologised for it. If you remember Brazil last year… When he apologises, he knows he’s screwed up. He would never have gone round the corner, he wouldn’t have had enough steering lock from the angle he was coming at. He would have just done the old Schumacher 2006 parking move! I ducked and it went over my head, so I got away with it.”

In the end the stewards took no action against Trulli: “It doesn’t matter does it? It doesn’t get my race back, and doesn’t do anything for me, so I don’t really care. I’m sure he didn’t do it on purpose, it was just a bit of brain failure. He’s a nice guy, he’s not an idiot.”

The battered HRT is carried back to the pits. Photos: Cooper

A frustrated Button heads back to the McLaren garage

McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh says the mistake that led to Jenson Button’s early retirement in Monaco was “devastating” for the mechanic involved.

A cover was left blocking a radiator inlet when Button drove to the grid, and despite the team having over 20 minutes before the start to address the issue, the damage had already been done. Jenson retired soon after the safety car came out, which forced him to run slowly and added to the overheating problem. It was his first retirement of the year, and cost him his championship lead.

“It was something that’s used in transport or the garage,” Whitmarsh told this writer. “It’s a cooling cover, a water one, and it was left in. So the car went to the grid with no air flow. So the car was cooked. You do what you can after, but you can’t recover it. On a circuit like this, and with safety car as well, you really can’t recover from that sort of thing.

“These cars don’t have fans, they rely on airflow, so if you deny the airflow, you’re not going to live very long. An F1 engine dissipates 200kW of heat energy, and if you don’t take the measures to do something about that, then it’s over very quickly unfortunately. You don’t know what’s going to fail, but we knew we were over temperature, and there’s not much you can do at that point.

“Obviously people are monitoring temperatures, and at a race like this it’s particularly critical anyway. Other parts under the engine cover would have been very, very hot, and it was a secondary failure rather than a primary failure of the engine.”

The only positive for Button the team was that the engine was near the end of its working life: “Fortunately it was an engine that was on its third race, and it was due not to race again.”

Whitmarsh said that the problem was a huge blow for everyone in the camp, not just the mechanic involved.

“I think it’s disappointing for everyone in the team, and devastating for the person responsible. I know these things happen, but it’s just hard to accept when it happens.

“Anyone who’s involved with a team like this, when you’re trying to do your best and you make a mistake and it contributes to something like that, it’s devastating for them.”

Mercedes GP has dropped its appeal against the decision that dropped Michael Schumacher from sixth to 12th at the Monaco GP.

While the team (and some of its rivals) believe it has a good case, it has accepted that is is unlikely to win a legal battle, despite the obvious anomalies in the rules. This was the first time that a safety car had been withdrawn on the last lap of the race under the new rules that allow drivers to race from the safety car line at the pit entry.

What the FIA should have done to avoid any confusion was to use the message “The race will be completed under the safety car” on the timing screens, instead of saying that it would be “in this lap.”

Had the stewards not acted on Sunday, rivals teams would have protested – and Toro Rosso, who stood to gain 10th place, were literally first in the queue. However two teams, not surprisingly those with nothing to gain from Michael’s penalty, told this writer that Ross Brawn’s interpretation was perfectly valid.

Mercedes has also questioned the scale of the penalty. Logic suggests that swapping of Schumacher and Alonso in the results would have been fair, which could have been achieved by a 1sec penalty. However the only weapon the stewards had was a drive through. Mercedes says the FIA has agreed to look into both that and the safety car rules at the next meeting of the Sporting Working Group.

The team’s statement reads as follows: “On the final lap of the 2010 Monaco Grand Prix, MERCEDES GP PETRONAS instructed our drivers, Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg, to race from safety car line one until the finish line as permitted under articles 40.7 and 40.11.

“MERCEDES GP PETRONAS were fully aware of article 40.13 which states that no overtaking is permitted if the race finishes under safety car conditions. However we believed that the combination of the race control messages ‘Safety Car in this lap’ and ‘Track Clear’ and the green flags and lights shown by the marshals after safety car line one indicated that the race was not finishing under the safety car and all drivers were free to race.

“This opinion appears to have been shared by the majority of the teams with cars in the top ten positions who also gave their drivers instructions to race to the finish line.

“It was clear from our discussions with the stewards after the race that they understood the reasons for our interpretation and acknowledged that this was a new and previously untested situation but ultimately disagreed with our interpretation.

“MERCEDES GP PETRONAS would like to emphasise that we fully support the inclusion of past drivers on the stewards panel and are completely satisfied that the Monaco Grand Prix stewards acted professionally, impartially and properly in this matter.

“The FIA has agreed to include article 40.13 on the agenda of the next Sporting Working Group for discussion and to consider the scale of post race penalties. We believe that the 20 second penalty imposed on Michael to be disproportionate in the circumstances.

“Whilst we cannot be happy with the outcome, we are pleased that the FIA has recognised the reasons for our interpretation. Therefore in the best interests of the sport, MERCEDES GP PETRONAS will not be submitting an appeal.”

Did this drain cover cause a problem for Rubens?

Williams appeared to accept responsibility for Rubens Barrichello’s accident in Monaco when Sam Michael explained in a team press statement on Monday that the Brazilian driver had suffered a suspension breakage.

“Rubens had a rear suspension failure,” said Michael. “We have a good idea which part is suspect, but to be completely sure, we need to await the results of materials tests back at the factory.”

The team hasn’t made the obvious suggestion – in public at least – that Rubens had touched a barrier. Sam confirmed to me by email this morning that in such instances the team has to take the view that there may be an engineering issue to address, unless it has clear proof that there was an outside issue, such as contact.

But could there have been another contributing factor? After the race I asked Tonio Liuzzi, who was right behind the Williams, what he had seen.

“I was behind Rubens,” said the Italian. “It was pretty weird. I saw already two times before he was going really close the left guardrail and there was something lifting from the ground, then once I saw this thing lifting completely and I saw Rubens flying into the wall. I thought he touched the left wall, this is what appeared to me.

“Something was lifting from the ground when a car was going that close to the left wall. He was always going really close to the left wall and there was this thing on the floor.”

Check out the onboard shot below for a view of what he saw. As was reported at the time, the race’s third safety car was caused by a loose drain cover, but that was located close to where the crashed Williams ended up, on the way to Casino Square. It was close to but not on the racing line, but FIA sources suspect a car may have run wide and pulled it a few centimetres clear of the track surface. It was removed, rather than replaced, under the safety car.

But was there another loose cover further down the hill towards Ste Devote? On Sunday night I told Patrick Head and Frank Williams what Tonio had observed, and on Monday before leaving Monaco I wandered down to the scene of the accident.

Sure enough, there was a drain cover – followed by a grill with alarmingly exposed sharp edges – pretty much where Liuzzi had suggested. Although on foot it’s hard to ascertain exactly where the racing line goes through that section, it certainly seemed possible that it could be run over by someone shaving the barriers.

Despite showing signs of once being welded shut, as is normal practice for street races, the cover was loose and could be picked up. If it did get sucked up by the Williams, it would be easy to imagine it causing a puncture or rim failure. Whether it could also have somehow triggered the sort of suspension breakage that the team has apparently detected is harder to judge.

The FIA knows nothing about a problem with a drain cover in that area during the race, and admittedly it seems unlikely that it could have popped up and sent a car into the wall and dropped neatly back into place without any marshals seeing it.

It’s possible that it could have been replaced while the Rubens wreck was being cleared up, but if a marshal did observe a problem, the message didn’t get through to race control. The fact that an issue was later reported just a few hundred feet further up the road seems to be something of a bizarre co-incidence. Unless the Monagasque workman who did the pre-race welding on that hill was having a bad day! Having said that my FIA source says that the superb Monaco marshals do check things like drain and manhole covers every morning.

After reading an earlier version of this story, Williams has asked for Liuzzi and Barrichello on-board footage from FOM. Even if the team concludes that there was no link, it is nevertheless worrying that the cover could have worked loose. And it seems highly unlikely that it could have been deliberately unsealed by the authorities by 10am on Monday, which is when I saw it.

And one little aside on another piece of very expensive debris. Karun Chandhok quite literally collected the Barrichello steering wheel, because it remained under his HRT until falling off at the exit of the tunnel, which must have given the marshal who saw it and picked it up quite a fright. Especially when the car it fell off carried on…

Tonio Liuzzi says Rubens was running close to this barrier...

...and this onboard shot (thanks Bernie!) seems to show the drain cover

...and here's proof that the thing was loose and could have popped up

Rubens lost control immediately after the drain cover

Mercedes motor sport boss Norbert Haug says that the team is convinced that its interpretation of the safety car rules is the correct one.

Ross Brawn has therefore appealed against the decision that led to Michael Schumacher losing his sixth place finish in Monaco after he passed Fernando Alonso on the last corner.

The rule says that if the race finishes when the safety car is deployed it will come into the pits and the cars will cross the line without overtaking.

However there is in essence a dispute over the wording. The Mercedes view is that the safety car was not deployed as its lights were out, it came into the pits, and the green flag was waved.

While it’s clear what the FIA’s intent was when the rules were written, there is obviously a conflict. The problem is a new one because from this year drivers can overtake after the first safety car line – in other words before the start line – after a ‘normal’ safety car withdrawal.

This was the first time we have had a situation where the race finished under a safety car that left open the possible interpretation that overtaking might be possible between the last corner and the flag. However, the FIA has made it clear that passing should not be allowed.

The key consideration is that the safety car can go into the pits on the last lap when the track is not yet clear (it was in this case), and thus in theory drivers could be racing past an accident scene on the pit straight. That clearly cannot happen.

Haug told this writer that Schumacher was convinced he was in the right: “He thought it’s green, safety car in, the race is on, I can overtake after the safety car line. Which looked smart and was our interpretation, and obviously it was not the FIA interpretation.

“We have a different one, and that’s why Ross wants to appeal. He spoke with the specialists. Certainly I know the rules, but I am not a rules specialist.”

The team has in effect bought time, and on reflection could yet withdraw the appeal. In addition the FIA has to decide whether the appeal is admissible, as in theory drive throughs, even those applied as retropective time penalties, cannot be appealed. One exception involved Jarno Trulli in Australia last year.

“You have to cover and support the decisions, that’s for sure,” Haug told me. “Whether it will be withdrawn or not, is a different matter.”

Michael Schumacher has lost the points he scored in Monaco after a penalty dropped him to 12th place.

The former champion passed Fernando Alonso on the last corner when the safety car peeled into the pits. This year the rules changed to allow drivers to overtake from the safety car line at the pit entry onwards, but that does not apply on the last lap.

Schumacher was given a retrospective drive through which meant 20secs was added to his race time.

Fernando Alonso is now sixth, Nico Rosberg seventh, Adrian Sutil eighth, Tonio Liuzzi ninth and Sebastien Buemi gets a point in 10th.

A FOTA gathering of team principals on Sunday morning failed to resolve the question of whether Pirelli or Michelin wins the F1 tyre contract for 2011 and beyond.

The consensus from those emerging from the meeting – which took place in McLaren’s motorhome – was that the contest is still finely balanced, and either party could yet get the deal.

The complication is that the offers from the two manufacturers are not easily comparable, with both sides offering different packages. However the general view is that a tyre war should be avoided at all costs.

The manufacturers, who are OEM customers of both brands, also have a different take on things than the smaller teams.

“It’s not clear cut which way it will go,” Mercedes GP CEO Nick Fry told this writer. “The technical and commercial packages are different. We think Pirelli and Michelin can both do the job, and to be honest we are ambivalent about it.”

As reported on this blog a couple of weeks ago, Michelin has dropped its price from €5m per team to €1.5m. The Pirelli deal meanwhile is complicated by the fact that it includes elements such as track advertising from which the teams ultimately gain a cut.

Pirelli has strengthened its hand by being part of the F1 circus this year as supplier to GP3, which means that the company is gathering data on many of the European venues.

Lewis Hamilton insists he put everything he had into qualifying in Monaco, and in the end he couldn’t make up for the McLaren’s current downforce defficiency. Hamilton will start tomorrow’s race from fifth on the grid.

“I touched all the barriers I could touch and used all the road I could use,” he said. “I’m happy with my performance, we got through it, and tomorrow we believe the car will be competitive in the race, and hopefully it’s an interesting race where we can make some steps forward.

“It definitely is the best that we could do, I really did put everything into all those three qualifying sessions. Especially my last lap, I got every ounce of the car that was there. There was no more I could get. We’re literally lacking downforce – we need a good step on some downforce to keep up with the Red Bulls.

“I definitely expected them to be the fastest, and I expected the Ferraris to be competitive. The Red Bull has so much downforce. I don’t think people understand it, but when he boots the power he just has full throttle so much quicker than me, and carries much more speed through these corners. It gives you so much confidence.  But we’re getting there, we’ll keep pushing, and I’m hoping in the next couple of races we’ll begin to close the gap.”

“The guys in front of me, it is very close. It is not so close from us to the Red Bulls, but with the other guys we’re not so far off. I think tomorrow is going to be an interesting day. I don’t know what the weather is going to do. If it’s a dry race it’s pretty straightforward, you can’t overtake here, but hopefully the strategy might come in to play.”

Hamilton is known for his overtaking abilities, but he concedes that the chances are slim: “There’s coming out of the tunnel, but even that is almost impossible. You have to outbrake the guy on the dirty surface and probably lock up your tyres and cross the chicane, then you have to let him past you. It’s very, very tricky. It’s not impossible, but it’s quite risky.”

Alonso will not be in qualifying - here's why

Fernando Alonso will miss qualifying and start the Monaco GP from the pitlane after a huge shunt in practice, team boss Stefano Domenicali has confirmed to this blog.

The Spaniard went off at the entry to the Casino right at the start of the session, and slid along the barrier. Both right hand corners were ripped off and crucially the tub was badly damaged just behind the front wheel.

It is impossible to repair on site and the rules say a change of chassis means no qualifying and a pit lane start.

Alonso made a real mess of the Ferrari. Photos:Adam Cooper