The FIA caused some unexpected action yesterday. It pointed out that several teams, particularly Ferrari, Mercedes and Force India, were in some error concerning their overalls and they were going to enforce the regulations as of this race.

It is the first and probably last time anyone outside motorsport paddocks cared about the contents of Appendix III of the FIA Standard 8856-2000. Specifically, the label confirming the suit complies with this high safety standard "must be embroidered onto the outermost layer of the outer garment". Ironically, using a different method to indicate compliance means that the FIA no longer considers those overalls compliant due to not indicating their status correctly.

By not using thread, some were saving a little weight. Ferrari, Mercedes and Force India's drivers all went to scrutineering in Germany with overalls not in compliance with the regulations in this respect. It is unclear how many teams would not have been in compliance had overalls intended for Saturday and Sunday been checked as well (drivers often use a different overall each day for freshness and weight reasons).

It may seem a nit-picky regulation, but it ensures the compliance sign is clear throughout the life of the overall. Thread is harder-wearing than even the best screen-printing, even though in the case of a F1 overall the wear difference is not really tested. The surprise is that it took so long for the overall manufacturers to come into compliance and for the FIA to notice there was a problem. I find it hard to believe that this is the first time all year someone has turned up with a screen-printed compliance logo. Maybe it just proves different scrutineers focus on different potential problems.

It's high time the engine/gearbox feature got brought back for 2011, now that people have started changing them.

Engines

1 engine (15):

Both Red Bulls - both Aus/Mal

Both Renaults - both Aus/Mal

Both Mercedes - both Aus/Mal

Both Williamses - both Aus/Mal

Both Force Indias - both Aus/Mal

Both Lotuses - both Aus/Mal

Both Hispanias - both Aus/Mal

Glock  - both Aus/Mal

2 engines (9):

Both McLarens - both 1) Aus/Mal Fri 2) Mal Sat-Sun

Both Ferraris - both 1) Aus/Mal Fri 2) Mal Sat-Sun

Both Saubers - both 1) Aus/Mal Fri 2) Mal Sat-Sun

Both Toro Rossos -  both 1) Aus/Mal Fri 2) Mal Sat-Sun

d'Ambrosio -  both 1) Aus/Mal Fri 2) Mal Sat-Sun 

Gearbox

Fresh gearbox (9):

Petrov (2), both Williamses (both 3), Pérez (2), Alguersuari (2), Trulli (2), both Hispanias (both 3) and d'Ambrosio (2).

Not-so-fresh gearbox (4):

Both Mercedes (both 2), Kovalainen (2) and Glock (2).

Quite unfresh gearbox (11):

Both Red Bulls (1), both McLarens (1), both Ferraris (1), Heidfeld (1), both Force Indias (1), Kobayashi (1) and Buemi (1).

Very unfresh gearbox (0):

Nobody, seeing as there's only been 2 races so far ;)

A discussion in Sidepodcast yesterday led to the invention of a new variant of the old classic Monopoly - F1 Monopoly: Deal or No Deal Edition. 

It's just like Monopoly until you land on a Tax space or on someone else's property. Then the owner (or the banker, if it's a tax) makes you an offer. You can either accept the offer or take a card from the pile. The amount on the card is the amount you pay.

Also, instead of houses and hotels, you can buy multiple "boxes" to go on your properties.

And of course it's all themed. Purple for the FIA, light blue for Red Bull, red for Ferrari, light grey for McLaren, dark grey for Mercedes, gold for Renault, green for Force India, dark blue for Williams and white for Sauber. There are also 5 tracks that can be collected in the same way as the stations on the original Monopoly.

Hopefully it will get you through the few hours remaining until the F1 season restarts. Just 2 more things to say:

1) You have until 3 am GMT on March 26 (or the start of Free Practise 3, which is scheduled to start at that time) to put in your entries for the Pre-Season competition. Don't forget delivery to anywhere in the world is included in the prize.

2) It's my birthday on March 26. My fingers are crossed that Force India gives me a good qualifying session for a present.

This weekend, Viva F1 has organised the third Blogger's Swap Shop. It is a fantastic idea where 15 motorsports bloggers write for each other's blogs. An entry from me will appear at The Formula 1 & Motorsports Archive today. La Canta Magnifico Blog is honoured to host a guest entry by Maverick of Viva F1 (please ignore the entry by-line as I haven't figured out how to get it to change yet).

Formula One has more than its fair share of rules. There's not even a single rule book - please refer to the International Sporting code, F1 Sporting Regulations and F1 Technical Regulations as well as all the attached appendices while not forgetting the Rules of the FIA International Court of Appeal [and the Concorde Agreement - ed]. Undoubtedly the vaguest of all the rules, and quite deliberately so, is Article 151c which concerns "any fraudulent conduct or any act prejudicial to the interests of any competition or to the interests of motor sport generally." In other words, ‘bringing the sport into disrepute’.

The ‘disrepute clause’ gives rise to concerns not only about its ill-defined and wide-reaching nature but also about its potential for abuse. So vague is the clause, who is to define what is and what isn't against the interests of the sport? Furthermore, having lost the case, while there is scope to challenge the decision in the Court of Appeal how can you possibly argue that it didn't bring the sport into disrepute? It's an immeasurable concept. Taking a case even further, with notable exceptions, the courts are generally reluctant to intervene in the internal disputes of voluntary associations and not inclined to review the decisions of tribunals.

Last month, the FIA scrapped the team orders rule but with the caveat that "any actions liable to bring the sport into disrepute are dealt with under Article 151c of the International Sporting Code and any other relevant provisions". So are team orders banned? Ferrari's decision to manipulate Michael Schumacher past Rubens Barrichello on the last lap of the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix induced boos from the watching spectators and widespread condemnation from the media. It ultimately led to the banning of team orders, but how would it be dealt with today? It clearly sounds like a case of bringing the 'sport into into disrepute' but at the time, the WMSC "recognised the long-standing and traditional right of a team to decree the finishing order of its drivers in what it believes to be the best interest of its attempt to win both world championships" and hence took no action. Does tradition trump public opinion?

Moving onto 2010 and Hockenheim and this time it was Felipe Massa who was giving way for Fernando Alonso. The stewards acted by issuing the maximum fine allowed to them but the WMSC chose to not extend the penalty, instead going as far as recommending that the ban on team orders be abolished, which it subsequently was. However, what about bringing the sport into disrepute? There was uproar amongst groups of fans and the media, so was there a case for turning to Article 151c? The trouble is that while large parts of the media were unhappy (the Brazilian castigation of Massa being particularly venomous) it certainly wasn't the case everywhere. The Italian media sided with Ferrari, the Spanish media sided with Alonso and the German media, seemingly conditioned by the Schumacher-years, coolly seemed to think that it was business as usual - which in reality it probably was.

Another example from 2010, which might have resulted in Article 151c being brandished in anger, was Ferrari's and Alonso's claims that the European Grand Prix was fixed. If this was football there would have been repercussions - earlier this week, Liverpool's Ryan Babel picked up a £10,000 fine for retweeting a link to a mocked-up picture of referee Howard Webb in a Manchester United shirt after Liverpool lost 1-0 to their rivals. The stewards may have done a poor job that weekend but for drivers and teams at the centre of it all to suggest bias at the FIA could easily be seen as damaging to Formula One.

On the other hand, others may suggest that it was the actual stewarding that was damaging - which begs the question of whether the FIA themselves should be able to be found guilty of ‘bringing the sport into disrepute’? While many fans have been suggesting that for years, the nearest anyone on the inside has come to suggesting such a thing in recent years is in 2008, when Mark Webber accused Max Mosley of damaging the sport following allegations about his private life.

In the end, the Hockenheim result is forgotten largely thanks to a combination of a close-fought Championship and the fact that Alonso didn't take the title thanks to those points gained in Germany. How might the issue have rumbled on down the years if 'Alonso's title' had been questioned by some? Of course, one whole problem with the question of ‘bringing the sport into disrepute’ is that public exposure is central to the accusation and yet, by simply pursuing an issue, the FIA can generate even more publicity for a case, causing further damage. Yet, does it all really matter?

Formula One thrives on controversy, the politics is as much a part of the drama as the racing - an ongoing soap opera. Admittedly, the politics occasionally takes too much precedence over what is happening on the track (Max Mosley and FOTA's wranglings at the end of his reign being a prime example). Yet has any of it really damaged F1's reputation? Renault were found guilty of manipulating a race but fans never stayed away from the subsequent Singapore Grand Prix. McLaren were found guilty of stealing Ferrari information but Formula One is still seen as a glamorous sport. In short, the concept of the ‘disrepute clause’ seems like a misnomer as far as Formula One is concerned. Perhaps it comes down to that image of glamour - a bit of palace intrigue is expected to be part and parcel of the show?

But then maybe Bernie Ecclestone already knows that - a man who could probably earn himself three or four disrepute charges a year.

I really should write blog entries more often. I promised myself I'd write when Force India made its mind up who it was having, but I should have known from past experience that Vijay Mallya and his lieutenants have more patience than me!

One question I was asked in response to my previous entry on The Ecology of Wind Tunnels v Track Testing was from Robf1ction:

Could we scrap both and make the weekends 4 days long?

This struck me as an interesting thought, so I attempted to do some sums. From the previous entry, I dragged over the following:

• 8.280 kg per night to travel to a hotel
• 1.376 kg per component
• 11854.683 components used per day.

To make a four-day weekend work, it will be necessary for the teams to stay a night longer at each race. Assuming that the example used for Spanish testing is a sensible average for distance between track and hotel, we can use the same 8.280 kg figure for each race - 45 is the maximum number of people a team can have in the paddock. There are 20 races in the 2011 schedule, so:

8.280 kg x 20 = 165.6 kg

The other two figures are to provide a component cost for the extra days. Since the fourth day is designed to substitute both wind tunnel and track testing, I will assume it will be run to the same sort of schedule as a test. This is done by multiplying the carbon cost of a component with the number of components used in a day and then multiply the result by the number of races/extra days:

1.376 kg x 11854.683 = 16312.044 kg or 16.312 tonnes

16312.044 * 20 = 326240.87616 kg or 326.241 tonnes.

Now 326.214 tonnes may sound a lot. However, the question was whether it would be worth doing this instead of track and wind tunnel testing. So let's grab the relevant figures and compare:

1 year of wind tunnel testing = 182.706 tonnes

4-day "local" track test = 16.341 tonnes

4-day "long-range" track test =  69.201 tonnes

All these figures are lower than the figure for the 4-day weekend. However, seeing the amount of each that could be fitted into the carbon needed to do 4-day weekends would indicate whether this represents a better path than the one robf1ction proposed or a mere illusion:

326.214 / 182.706 = 1.785 years (representing 24/7 running of one 60% tunnel, a 2-shift pattern on another and 7 days in a 100% tunnel - more than current limits but not as much as big teams used to do a decade ago)

326.214 / 16.341 = 19.963 "local" 4-day tests (this would nearly, but not quite, be one after every race. Would suit Ferrari, but probably not Sauber due to them having no suitably "local" track)

326.214 / 69.201 = 4.714 "long-range" 4-day tests. No contest, having 4-day weekends is better in terms of car mileage efficiency than carting cars to Spain for standalone testing. Unless it's Hispania, of course (being based in Spain, a test there would be "local" for them)

From a carbon perspective, a 4-day weekend scheme is better for F1 than testing abroad. Of that there is no question. It is about equal to a 4-day "local" testing method, except that mandating "local" testing would lead to large and intractable inequalities in the field due to varying access to a "local" circuit.

It is debatable whether the wind tunnel is more efficient than a 4-day weekend; a wind tunnel with no testing at all would be less use to a team than one under the current scheme (where straight-line testing can help triangulate the data). I'd go so far as to say it would struggle to be effective. If it could be made effective, it would be more ecologically sound than the 4-day weekend, but there is a compromise that would allow the best of both.

Right now, we are awaiting four "long-range" winter tests. What if these were replaced with 4-day weekends? Place a 4-day non-championship race in the winter to a) give the teams a little testing to sort out major issues b) stop everyone from getting too bored and c) let one of the Spanish circuits be moved to prevent race event fatigue in Spain.

Back-to-back races wouldn't have 4-day weekends because the 3 days left to travel between races would be asking for cargo or people not to be in place when everything gets going again and also risks people getting over-stressed from having to spend so much time in "work" mode without a proper break. There are 4 such weekends in 2011 (meaning 8 races wouldn't have a fourth day for testing).

It would be an extra 16 race weekend days but 16 test days would be lost, so the carbon used in components would be neutralised. A small amount of extra carbon would be used for the race:

Race fuel carbon usage: (62.5* - 16.221**) / 170 = 0.2722294 tonnes or 272.229 kg

Hotel carbon usage: 8.280 kg

Total: 272.229 + 8.280 = 380.509 kg

I would compare this to the amount of carbon used in the four winter tests and the alternative paths previously explored, but given that they were all in tonnes and this one's in kilogrammes, only pedants and mathematically-minded people are likely to care. I think we can live with the extra race producing a fraction of the carbon of a local test. It would certainly be more carbon-conserving than the modes of testing currently in use.

Thank you for the great idea, robf1ction. Hopefully one day the F1 team bosses will agree to this sort of thing and thank you too :)