Ferrari SF71H onboard camera fan, Singapore, 2018

FIA has no objections to Ferrari’s camera shroud

RaceFans Round-up

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In the round-up: FIA race director Charlie Whiting says the sport’s governing body isn’t concerned the onboard camera shroud Ferrari used in Singapore may be in breach of the regulations.

What they say

Whiting says Ferrari’s device is intended to cool parts of the car and camera.

As long as it doesn’t block the camera view we don’t mind. FOM don’t mind that they’re cooling the OCU which is the unit on top where the camera is. If it’s OK with them, it’s OK by us if it doesn’t block their camera view.

The new one, I went to go and see it at Ferrari it wasn’t even on the cars, this was about an hour after a free practice session. Apparently they put it into the airbox and the primary thing is to blow cold air into the airbox and to various other places which are fed by those big ducts. They’ve got some secondary ducts it would seem that blow a bit of air onto the OCU but as I said [we’re] not concerned.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Comment of the day

Are there really not enough seats to go around in F1?

There’s only 20 cars on the grid, and that very nearly became 18 a few weeks ago.

F1 is skating on very thin and very expensive ice. It is increasingly dependent on two or three super-powerful teams and one or two super-rich individuals and a few others to make up the numbers. The FIA have places for twenty six cars, so currently F1 is operating at just 77% capacity and that’s not good enough for the ‘pinnacle of motorsport’.

It’s not just Ocon, there are drivers who were unable to gain a seat at all but who might have been successful if they had been able to show their potential via a full grid. Definitely not enough seats.
@NickWyatt

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On this day in F1

  • 45 years ago today Peter Revson won a bizarre Canadian Grand Prix following a shambolic debut for the Safety Car. It also proved to be the final race for Tyrrell pair Jackie Stewart and Francois Cevert

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37 comments on “FIA has no objections to Ferrari’s camera shroud”

  1. As long as it doesn’t block the camera view we (FIA) don’t mind. FOM don’t mind that they’re cooling the OCU 

    It’s just like with tyre supplier issues, it should be the other way around: FOM should care about camera and FIA about technical regs.

  2. As per the Q4 rumor…

    Dear F1,
    Qualifying is not broken.
    Please do not try to fix it.
    That is all.
    Thank you,
    Pretty Much All Concerned F1 Fans

    1. Yep, leave qualifying alone.

      1. The last time they tried to change qualifying now seems like a vague nightmare.

        1. Hahahaha yes I’d totally forgotten about that!

    2. 100% agree.
      Betcha they’ll put up a poll on Fan Voice about changing qualifying that won’t include the option “leave it as is”!

    3. +100! The last attempt to change qualy was a joke and a disaster!

    4. +1 Qualy is usually more entertaining than the races these last few years.

    5. On the other hand: the live timing app was fine and now it’s broken. Can you please return to the previous version?

    6. It’s pretty much the most broken thing in an F1 weekend. Adding another Q is only going to make it worse though.

      Under the current format, the practice sessions are more interesting than qualifyling. It needs to be changed but not by adding another segment. Just get rid of Q2 and Q3 and it’s almost good.

  3. If they do add another phase in quaky I hope it’s something like a super pole where every driver gets to do one lap alone. That way we see all the drivers doing their lap, something I really loved in the 2003-2005 qualy format

    1. Like it

    2. …and in the same car. One grand prix, everyone does their super pole in the Mercedes. Next grand prix, everyone drives the Williams… I know it’s a mad idea that will never happen – but it would be great!!

  4. Why rehashing old quotes in the daily round up?

  5. I don’t think we need quali changes.

    But if we do some then get more in team fights.
    e.g. q1 all drivers try to beat their team mate.
    Q2 losing team mates quali for p11-20.
    Q3 winning team mates qualify for pole.

    1. @coldfly That would’ve meant a few boring years had those been in use in 2014 to 2016… Wasn’t it easy enough for Mercedes to win the championships?

      1. Why?
        It would be a lot more interesting as the 2nd Mercedes would start from 11th. Nico would have to fight a lot harder to win in 2016.

    2. Vandoorne does not approve. ;-)

      1. He’s guaranteed to go to Q2 ;)
        @phylyp

        1. You’re always the silver lining, aren’t you? :-)
          @coldfly

        2. This made me laugh. Hard.

    3. @coldfly The qualy format you suggested might be a tad unfair to the midfield drivers and the backmarkers, though, especially on tracks where it’s hard to overtake. Imagine if Stroll beats Sirotkin by a thousandth of a second in team mate battle and makes it through to top 10 (although the times they set would comfortably put them 19th and 20th on the absolute timesheet). Now Stroll will qualify 10th no matter what lap he does, and Sirotkin, no matter how hard he tries, will still qualify 20th. On a track like Monaco, Stroll might as well finish 10th, while Sirotkin will probably finish last of the classified runners. Although the difference won’t be this large generally, it still seems like quite harsh a penalty for being just 0.001 slower than your teammate in qualy, in that it significantly lowers your chances of being able to beat them in the race.

      Anyway, in this scenario, at least my boy Stroll scores points in Monaco in a hypothetical championship in which he is still driving a Williams, and then picks up multiple dates (who’re impressed at his abundant talent) from the yacht parties.

  6. Total waste of time to even ponder about adding another phase. There’s nothing wrong with the current format as has been stated many times, so just leave it as it is. Haven’t they learned anything from the errors made with the early-2016 experiment?
    ”If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

  7. As long as it doesn’t block the camera view we don’t mind. FOM don’t mind that they’re cooling the OCU which is the unit on top where the camera is. If it’s OK with them, it’s OK by us if it doesn’t block their camera view.

    I thought it does… block the camera? You know, when it’s on the car and all?

    1. From the image above it shows that it does not (fully) block the camera lens, @rpiian.
      It’s probably cleverly designed so the ducts obstruct the view of the steering wheel (and engine bay to the back).

      1. @coldfly Ah, so which piece of black plastic is that, the snap on block looking thing on the top right? Or the periscope looking protrusion on the lower right? I thought it was on the centerline of the car. I do suppose that would be pretty clever, it is F1 and all!

        1. @rpiian The periscope looking thing is one of Ferrari’s own cameras (A Go-Pro unit) which teams are allowed to run (Along with some other additional sensors) during Friday practice. It’s mounted on the FOM camera position on the side of the air box, Raised upwards like a periscope to look past the Halo.

          The reason it has become an issue is that with F1TV the cameras aren’t always switched off while cars are in the pits so viewers watching on the platform (Which may include other teams) sometimes get to see shots of the wheel display & telemetry monitors or mechanics working on/disassembling the rear of the car. Ferrari say that earlier in the year the camera feed wasn’t switched off in the garage & the rear T-cam view was shown as they were removing the gearbox which gave those who saw it a good look at things they would rather people not have seen.

          As to what this new solution blocks:
          https://screenshotscdn.firefoxusercontent.com/images/731e429c-f545-419f-91aa-31e39800ff77.png

          And the ice bag they were using previously:
          https://screenshotscdn.firefoxusercontent.com/images/3bb68865-10a6-4368-a541-a3ee1a29c257.png

          1. @stefmeister Nice screenshots! Yea I’ve been following the debacle loosely, just didn’t know where the FOM cameras were actually mounted. I think the whole thing is hilarious, and I can see how it could be frustrating for Ferrari.

          2. Thanks for the screenshot from a fan outside the F1TV Pro area, @stefmeister.
            It still would be exciting for fans to be able to see the steering wheel, and monitor which the drivers can see when in the pit.
            Engine bay or gearbox mounts I’m less interested in.

  8. Thank you for selecting me for COTD, sorry it wasn’t a particularly cheerful comment.
    I’ve been a fan or F1 for almost as long as I can remember; I was certainly a fan long before I was eight years old. Over the years I’ve been frustrated and exasperated by the mainstream media’s almost total ignorance of F1 at times, interspersed with periods of coverage- mainly the BBC and ITV years.
    But now, F1 seems to be hiding itself away behind paywalls of one kind or another and the decreasing television audiences are driving sponsor money away from the teams. This and the absurdly high cost of the cars has caused many of the ‘smaller’ teams to fail, and entry into F1 is no longer an attractive prospect.
    Having just twenty cars on the grid is the result.

  9. Vettel should ask Jean Todt and Ross Brawn about their experiences in teamwork at Ferrari and Formula 1 politics.

  10. FIA – “We need to cut costs so racing is more affordable.”

    Ferrari – “We are using an ice bag to cool the OCU. It works great and costs nothing.”

    FIA – “You can’t do that.”

    (Ferrari spends untold tens of thousands of Euros to build a bespoke and complicated blower/cooling system, cooling other parts of the car as well.)

    FIA – “We have no problem with that.”

  11. This Ferrari camera issue really sums up how F1 can create high costs out of nothing. A rag/towel over the camera? Can’t do that! You have to design and build a special shroud to do the same thing.

  12. I hope we talk about Mick Schumacher in the next round up. He’s shaping up to be the real deal. He might turn out to be the driver we all want him to be.

  13. Q4?

    I thought that was more commonly known as “the race”?

    Joking aside, all they could really do is make Q3 the top 10, and Q4 the top five… but given the current power separation, that practically guarantees that the top 5 will be Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes. You’ll also need Yet Another set of tires, or risk reducing practice and qualifying running time even more as the teams are forced to conserve tires.

    By paring down the number of cars competing for pole, you eliminate the chances of a surprise qualifying event.

Comments are closed.