Ricciardo expects Red Bull to “keep everyone happy”

2014 Malaysian Grand Prix

Posted on

| Written by

Daniel Ricciardo expects Red Bull will try to avoid a repeat of the controversy which overshadowed their start to the season in Australia.

Ricciardo was stripped of his second place finish in the race after his car was found to have repeatedly exceeded the 100kg/hour maximum fuel flow rate.

The stewards ruled Red Bull ignored instructions to use the FIA’s fuel flow model instead of their own to ensure the fuel flow sensor on Ricciardo’s was giving a correct reading for the fuel consumption rate.

The fuel flow model was applied because Red Bull observed inaccuracies in the measurements given by the fuel flow sensor during practice. Red Bull’s appeal is due to be heard after the Malaysian and Bahrain Grand Prix, raising questions over they might handle the same scenario again in the meantime.

“Obviously the team will do what they I have to to, I guess, keep everyone happy,” Ricciardo told reporters ahead of the Malaysian Grand Prix.

Ricciardo added he did not feel let down by the team’s handling of the situation: “No one had the intention for that to happen.”

“I got a lot of positive feedback, let’s say, from the team nonetheless. They gave me a lot of pats on my back.

“You know, the outcome – put it this way – I still took a lot more positives from Melbourne than that little negative Sunday night. I still see it as definitely a successful weekend.”

2014 Malaysian Grand Prix

Browse all 2014 Malaysian Grand Prix articles

Image © Red Bull/Getty

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

24 comments on “Ricciardo expects Red Bull to “keep everyone happy””

  1. If Christian Horner is adamant that they have not broken the rules and he is confident they can prove this, then I assume they will stand by their beliefs and continue to operate their measurement of fuel in the same manner they did in Australia for the next races until it goes to appeal. Thus sacrificing RB’s, SV’s and DR’s potential race results/points from now until the outcome of the appeal to just prove a point. If they continue with this until the appeal hearing, then I will respect their stance, but if they don’t carry on using their own measurements during races until the appeal, it will only prove that they tried to pull a fast one past the FIA and all the other competitors by just testing the water. We’ll see what kind of integrity this team has in Malaysia, either they continue to believe in their quest and to even sacrifice a championship this year to prove their point about the sensors, or they will revert to the FIA measurement in Malaysia and demonstrate they are full of hot air and just posturing, coupled with blatant cheating to gain an advantage!!

    1. If that does happen, I wonder whether they will be black flagged during the race instead of investigated afterwards? It’s one thing to have points taken away which might be reinstated on appeal, but quite another to not have the points in the first place.

    2. I guess the first thing is, that RBR will be hoping to have more reliable sensor readings and not have to solve the issue in the first place Elisabetta.

      1. I imagine they have bought and tested a bunch of sensors and will run with one they are happy with.

        1. Horner claimed that several teams (presumably the bigger ones) had bought hundreds of them and tested them to find the most favorable to race with. If that’s true it really underlines what a joke these meters are and why this is an issue the FIA needs to fix sooner rather than later.

          1. So they talk about cost cutting, yet it is becoming a money race with these sensors.

    3. I’m hoping that some kinda of agreement or clarification will be made before the race so we don’t have any more disputed results. The outcome of this year will be debated hotly enough if the double points bonanza has an effect on the championship, no need to complicate it further by arguing whether Redbull should keep their early season points!

      But in any case, Redbull changing their fuel measurement strategy before the race is not an admission of guilt. Their disqualification and ongoing discussions have changed the situation, and unless approved by the FIA beforehand i think it would be foolish to ignore them again and expect a different outcome than in Melbourne (if they continue to undermine the FIA it could even hurt their existing case).

      1. “I’m hoping that some kinda of agreement or clarification will be made before the race so we don’t have any more disputed results.”

        There was a clarifaction (directive) about this very thing before the season even started. Redbull took advantage of the fact that it wasnt a written rule but only a guide.

      2. It would be interesting to see if other teams having a similar bad sensor reading will take the path that Red Bull have gone down.

        1. Doubt it since the teams obeyed the FIA warnings last time, and will not be assuming that RBR is going to win their appeal. But if RBR wins their appeal, then after that perhaps all teams and the FiA will then be able to go by what will have been agreed to by FIA as more accurate readings, as proved by RBR in their hearing.

          1. Hopefully they can find a better or more accurate way to calibrate the existing meters quickly so that everyone is satisfied they’re competing on a level playing field. Until the calibrations are consistent across all of these FIA homologated flow meters I think there will be grumblings up and down the pit lane.

          2. I understand Force India and possibly Ferrari and Mercedes were told to turn down their fuel. Red Bull have opened the door to “your sensor is broken I know what my car is doing, I’m not going to be disadvantaged by you”. The more teams that create a fuss the quicker this issue will be resolved. All of the teams know how much fuel they are using because fuel = weight, weight affects lap times. So regardless of the Reb Bull appeal this issue is not over.

    4. From Sky article on Ricciardo’s second place by Pete Gill – “However, it’s understood that, mindful of the potential pitfalls, the team will err on the side of caution this weekend and follow the readings of a FIA-supplied sensor to determine their fuel-flow rate throughout.”

    5. I doubt CH will take that sort of gamble. Until their hearing, I believe there’s 2 more dates on the calender (Including this weekend); that’s an valuable points haul to throw away. I don’t believe abiding by the FIA’s flow/sensor restrictions is an admittance of any wrongdoing, rather an attempt to evade any more penalties

  2. I hope he doesn’t become world champion, for his sake. If he does, his face is going to break with the force of his smile. He is really a cheerful lad isn’t he ?

  3. Apologies if I’m being an airhead (or if this has been discussed to death / answered elsewhere) but I can’t get my head around why fuel flow rates are regulated in F1. Efficiency is the motivation behind almost every aspect of the sport so why not just give the cars a set amount of fuel at the start of a race (which equates roughly to 100kg/h) and let them use it as efficiently as possible? Why is it a problem if at moments in the race the engine map squirts fuel in at a rate of 200kg/h if this means the fuel flow will have to be much lower for periods to get the car to the end of the race? If everyone has only the same amount of fuel to use for the race surely the only advantage will be to those who most efficiently use the available energy to stay in front of everyone else? And that wouldn’t be a bad thing, would it?

    1. The fuel flow limit is a means to limit peak power of the ICE and to encourage the efficiency the formula was designed around.
      Without a fuel flow limit, qualifying could see some very high engine outputs, which while spectacular creats a whole bunch of safety problems. Not to mention the window the poor pirellis would have to operate under would be even wider.
      The other point of limiting peak power of the ICE is to encourage development in the ERS system instead. They dont want a 1000 hp V6 with a 20 hp ERS.

      1. Thanks Theoddkiwi, that makes sense. I see Mr Horner has made a relatively similar claim in the last day or two – as is probably to be expected from him considering the appeal etc. FIA also raised the danger of speed differences between cars if one was lifting off at the end of a straight to save fuel. Another reasonable position I feel.

        As the engine maps already differ from qually to race (and during a race) I might argue that you could regulate fuel flow rate over qually and have a free-for-all for the race but the safety issue of varying speeds I think puts paid to this.

        Anyway, thanks for responding. It was diving me to distraction…

  4. Yeah, I think, as hinted above by both DR and some posters of comments, it would be at RBR’s peril to do the same thing they did in Australia. They already know what the penalty will be and must assume that they will lose their appeal.

    They had months to argue with the FIA about the wording of this or any other rule for that matter. You play with fire if you decide during a race weekend to make your own rule book…and it’s not like they were even trying to sneak something past FIA and got caught…they were being observed as were all teams, and they still blatantly ignored that.

    Part of me wonders if their performance will drop dramatically if they are held to the same fuel flow rates, even if irregular, as everyone else. Otherwise surely they could not have expected to ignore the FIA during the race weekend without consequence. Were they that desperate to operate at their own flow rates? Had they obeyed the FIA would they have barely gotten any points anyway due to poor performance, so threw caution to the wind?

    1. @robbie, and from the stewards point of view, even if they believed RBR were correct in their calculations could they allow this to happen, potentially with every team, every race or was it better for them to take decisive action and get the investigation and ruling that will no doubt come out of the appeal,

      1. @hohum It certainly took them a lot of deliberation to come to the conclusion to dsq DR. So it appears it was not just a simple cut-and-dry decision based on RBR ignoring the FIA during the race. If it was, one would think they would have needed only minutes to decide to dsq DR, not hours. As in, the last lap has been run, RBR never did heed their warnings…automatic dsq.

        I certainly don’t blame RBR for appealing, but at the same time I have to believe FIA has some pretty solid info beyond RBR just ignoring them during the weekend, to come to the conclusion they have. Will be fascinating to hear the results of the appeal, which RBR will have instigated knowing everything the stewards based their dsq decision on, which is no doubt way more than we know.

  5. I Recon that if they go to the appeal, and if the’re secure about that decision they shoul back it up by running the same was they runned last GP, if not i can’t see how they would ever win the appeal.

    1. That’s silly, the sensor used in Australia was known to be faulty, RBRs argument was over the correction (fudge?) factor the FIA applied, they have had ample time to obtain a correctly calibrated working sensor.

Comments are closed.