#F1 Radio Special – #SingaporeGP

· by · in F1 Features. ·

Brought to you by TheJudge13 contributor Mattpt55 – a special look at the mind behind the ban on radio traffic

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darknes of this world, against spirituall wickednes in high places – 1611 King James Bible

“There is some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.” – Warren Buffet

Detail, Press Briefing Charlie Whiting Saturday 20.09.14

Charlie Sez:

11CW1

If it’s quite straightforward, then why the controversy. Oh wait, it’s OK to tell them to change settings, but then it’s not OK if it’s just one part of the track. How could that possibly cause confusion

Charlie Sez:

11CW2

You mean after the Team Principals finished shredding what was left of your intellectual dignity. The teams have been evolving the engineer-driver symbiosis for almost a decade and suddenly it’s too much and has to be changed immediately. And then you couldn’t possibly predict that it wouldn’t be fair *before* you released this directive?!!

Charlie Sez:

11CW3

 

“Things have to be done”?!!! Do we all notice the passive voice here? Again I repeat, this has been evolving for a long time and the FIA demand these insanely complex machines for their own purposes and suddenly the teams are no longer allowed to run them in an optimum way, because, whim? More to the point, by refusing to allow software to automate this process in the name of the very same regulation and demanding the drivers punch the buttons themselves, YOU have created this very situation. If you claim to want what you say you do, then why oh why, for F#$%#’s sake did you just not ban all this explicitly starting with ABS and traction control.

Charlie Sez:

11CW4

This not being a court of law I’ll take that for a yes.

Charlie Sez:

11CW5

Way to kick the can down the road and absolve yourself of all resposibility. Plus, couldn’t you at least have some idea of the actual penalties available to stewards on hand before the briefing? And we all can’t wait until it takes 2 hours to go through the radio traffic to decide if the winner actually won. Way to improve the F@#$@ing show!

Charlie Sez:

11CW6

“It’s going to be very hard to make it simpler” sounds like the perfect motto for you and your band of fools. Also sounds as if you wouldn’t know a coded message if it slapped you in the face. Here’s a hint, Colonel Mustard in the Library with a Candlestick. Simplicity is easy to achieve unless you have the intellectual capacity of a sackful of hammers. It also helps to understand the actual subject at hand. Just WTF do you do all day? Sit around and drink cocktails while laughing in a self-congratulatory manner at all the people who actually have to be good at what they do? Jesus, Someone call Boullier quick. Even he’s better at this kind of dodge.

Charlie Sez:

11

 

It’s recorded so it’s OK if we can’t do our jobs because we can go back and fix it after TV points it out. I’m out of words for the stunning combination of arrogance stupidity and privilege currently being displayed.

And BTW you can run parts that would get you tossed for the rest of the season in FP and that’s OK but if you tell your driver to try a different setting or line that’s cheating and they’ll be penalized???!!!! Holy lack of consistency Batman, skipped the logic courses in college did you?

Charlie Sez:

11CW7

Ummm… World Feed including radio is FOM Broadcast.  So not really a matter of chance, is it? Do you really know this little about how F1 runs or do you really think we are all that stupid? Either way, not good. Fullness of time good for the lulz though.

Charlie Sez:

11CW8

So no longer tacit, an admission that you can’t possibly write a coherent set of regulations. “Capture anything not listed”???!!! You might as well have written I will punish you for violating unwritten rules that only I know, but can’t tell you. For the love of all that’s holy, how can you expect the teams to comply with this utter farce of a ruling. It’s not a catch-all, its a carte-blanche to do whatever you want whenever you feel like it. the utter frivolity of your words makes a mockery of all those whose hard work enables your parasitic lifestyle. May the curse of a thousand leeches be visited upon you and your kin for ten-fold generations.

Charlie Sez:

11CW11

The utter debasement of the sport is completely exposed. So you can’t really catch coded messages, you don’t have a real plan, and almost everything you want to ban is available to drivers contextually. You’re seriously going to have to have a meeting to decide if “Hammer TIme” is really a coded message? The answer to this epic fail is another meeting? How clueless are you really? Does someone tie your shoes for you? Is there anything left that you might actually do for yourself? Or have you been reduced to such an utter state of symbiosis that such acts are beyond you. Smile, wave, push a few buttons and talk authoritatively, even if you know longer understand the words wheezing past your dry, papery lips. Do as you’re told, ask no questions and count on the walls of the paddock to protect you until you are released from service.

Well here’s a message for you, we, the fans, can see the pathetic shadow behind the curtain. And since I have not a hope in hell of ever being accredited I feel I can speak a certain brand of truth that my spiritual brethren chained by golden handcuffs to the paddock cannot. Even if such a ban were a good idea in the middle of a season (it’s not), the ham handed implementation of said stupid idea ought to have you thrown into a locked cell to be beaten with rubber truncheons and have your toes gnawed on by massively poisonous gila monsters. In truth, there is no punishment that can atone for the atrocity you have committed here. In a single stroke, you have cost the teams untold buckets of cash, made it impossible for them to run their teams optimally and robbed the fans of technical knowledge that they cannot unknow. Your time, like that of the dinosaurs, has passed and the sooner your wizened visage no longer darkens the screen of our TV’s the better. If there really was any justice, this latest embarrassment should be the nail in your thoroughly unremarkable career. The excuse “Bernie told me to do it” will no longer wash in this day and age and it is time to clear your desk and have security escort you to the lobby. Good luck in your future career and make sure you leave the stapler.

98 responses to “#F1 Radio Special – #SingaporeGP”

  1. If you had the Sky feed, you would’ve seen how badly this idea is.

    There was a message broadcast to Perez in which he was given what was deemed to be driving instructions whilst he was on track. Croft and Brundel quickly jumped on it and started to question the legality of the message. Later Croft received a text message from FI’s pitwall, informing him that the message was givent to Perez whilst he was in the garage and not on track. Later the samething happened with Kamui.

    CW said the 8 guys monitoring the radio traffic will also be looking out for “coded messages” as well. Unless they’ve got an enigma machine available, how exactly can they prove that the message had some other meaning than what it was initially meant to be.

    • Superb demolition job by Matt.

      C Whiting has been past his sell by date for some time, but this latest debacle is beyond parody.

      As an aside, why does it take nearly 20 minutes to clear a broken front wing under a safety car ?
      Ridiculous.

      • Because then the end of the race is exciting. Also, because proper equipment doesn’t travel with the show. I believe NASCAR has some good ideas with track dryers and the like, kind of odd that the most technologically advanced form of motorsports features marshals picking up carbon fibre pieces by hand.

    • haha Fortis wins the internet for first-ever use that I’ve encountered of reference to an Enigma machine to make a very funny spot of dry humor. well done.

  2. I have to agree with the overall sentiment by Matt, this is really ridiculous and not properly thought out – and is being seen to be ridiculous and not properly thought out too – which makes it even worse.

    If the driver is meant to drive the car alone and unaided then I suppose we should anticipate a rule preventing him from getting out of the car in the pits and just talking to his engineer without using the radio at all. I guess the FIA will need to employ another 8 guys to stand around in the pits and ensure no one talks to the drivers, or gives any hand signals.

    • Roger, you should join in with F1Fanatic Live (Autosport might have something similar).. sometimes the comments flow so fast, you can miss action in the race! If watching on a stream, then the 1 minute delay might also give spoilers away, so in that case it’s best to be 1 minute behind on the comments feed as well.

  27. Nico on german telly. Only gears worked.nothing else. And in the pit they stopped working too. But they don’t know the real problem yet. Probably something really small.😂 😉

        • Hahaha…..

          You’re a joke. There was nothing in the man’s comment that required it to be looked at suspiciously.

          You yourself have questioned why Merc are paying him such vast wages if he’s getting beat by Nico. So why is now a problem when Nikki acknowledge why they’re paying him the money they’re paying him?

          HAMMERTIME!!!!!!!! I know see him win always eats at your core, so this will be especially hard for you to digest now.

        • what you are insinuating sounds preposterous to me. it sounds like you torture yourself with the conspiracy theories because you have a dislike for Hamilton. All drivers have ups and downs during a season and there will be more to come.

          Shame for Nico but good job by the top 3 drivers today.

          • Same thing was said to me post Monza. It’s always preposterous immediately. Incidentally I merely find the comment curious. Why is Niki, at this stage, feeling some strange pressure that slips in a moment of vindicated elation. Just an interesting comment. That’s all.

        • Yes. That’s just you. There have been a lot of haters here. So instead of going the hamilton way, this is the first time this year I can say something real positive of vettel. Speaking of performance. And i bet the good hippo thinks the same. 😉

  48. Maybe making too much of off-the-cuff comments again, but Lewis thanking the team for giving him a car he could *fight* with leans toward delusional. His only fight this year has been with Nico and reliability.

    • @RogerD

      Please avoid such spamming of the comments section in an unrelated article. All these messages makes it impossible to have a coherent discussion of the radio ban.

  49. I missed the race this morning here in the states as i was enjoying Tequila and steak (sirloin) last evening. But, i’m curious to know if anyone ran afoul of the stupid mid-season rule enforcement implemented this week?

    I really am fascinated by the use of Gila monster in an F1 thread, quite fascinated indeed. Keep up the good work. (smiling)

    • No, though there were a couple of messages that seemed as if they would have qualified for even the revised rules.

      Glad you liked the gila monsters. Points if you can guess who I was attempting to channel. Hint: not a Euro Journalist

      • OK, 1st thought is Eddie Jordan but your hint says it can’t be him, so i’m stumped. Vijay Mallya seems to be poisonous at the moment but he’s no journalist. The head of the F1 snake, Mr. E, is European so it can’t be him either…………. Matchett and Hobbs? No way. So, yeah, i’m stumped.

        • @matlock49g why the esteemed Dr. Hunter S. Thompson of course. Minus the brain damage, of course. Well, the worst of it, anyway.

          Naturally most don’t think of him as a sportswriter, much less a journalist but he was both. In fact, his early stuff on South America was stunning and even some of his later works, particularly the Ali essays, just mesmerising. I would love to be able to write half as well. But I do have a knack for the comedic descriptives he loved to use and that’s what I drew on here.

          • I’m not familiar with his work, unfortunately. My loss. Another blog i read regularly occasionally references Hunter S. Thompson. I think today’s exchange with you Matt will be the catalyst for me to become familiar with his work, thanx.

          • @matlock49g I hope you enjoy the trip.Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is probably his best known work, but Hell’s Angels is the one that started his peculiar career. There is also the Great Shark Hunt, which contains a mix of long and short form essays, some serious, some not so much. It can be a bit of an acquired taste, but worth the effort. An iconic voice, if I can engage in a bit of hagiography.

  50. Matt clearly went berserk on this one. We ought to call the hippos to cool him down.. 🙂

    As for the matter at hand I’m still torn.. In truth I think it’s a good idea to stamp down on “brake 10m later in T8” or “accelerate immediately after T1” or “Engineers, driving advice please!” types of messages. These guys, payed in the millions and elevated to superhero status, really should be driving their damn cars alone. If they can’t do it, they really shouldn’t be there.

    Now Charles’ actual implementation is indeed cockhanded, and just like the FRIC ban stinks of Bernard from a mile off. WTF would they do it mid-season? Makes no sense whatsoever. These changes in interpretation mid-season really should be explicitly banned by the Sleeping Beauty.

    And for how you police it, and how you penalize, the senile Charlie Brown should have thought longer and harder. And it’s tricky. BUT, even if you have some slips here and there in the policing (but nothing systematic), then I reckon it would be an overall improvement. These damned drivers should really be driving their cars without Massa-style coaching from the pits.

    • Oh, one more thing. Since with the 20.1 reinterpretation, banning telemetry is now on the cards, I hereby propose the following:

      From next season drivers will no longer have access to speedometers, current gear indicators and Rev/RPM indicators. These are all elements deemed to help drivers, and thus in direct contravention of Article 20.1. Drivers should pilot their machinery based on feeling alone, completely unaided. They should keep track mentally of their exact gears during the entire duration of the race, and detect the approximate speed of their missile from the wind passing by their heads. This shall be enforced in the pitlane and during SC periods, too.

      Should I start an official petition for the FIA?

    • Hee Hee, glad you enjoyed it. I think the issue is a separate one, but the fact that they can’t write a clear rule means that they’ve gotten it wrong. The real issue is the cars can’t really be driven without an engineer, they are so complex. They could clearly design a car that could, but this is just the end of a long game that has been played since traction control and ABS were banned. Essentially, it’s probably already too late for 2015 if you’re serious.

  51. Matt, I suppose you enjoyed your screed. Since Bernie and his minions’ flavor of the month is about making F1 entertaining enough, I suppose you are also on the right wavelength. This radio ban clearly was foisted upon FIA by FOM, reacting to the motorsport pundit class’ (e.g.: Autosport, & co) alarm over the fact that a season of great racing hasn’t made the world’s sporting public fall hopelessly in love with “their” sport . The idea that the public somehow will lose respect for radio-coached drivers they are only dimly aware of anyway is best understood as a perfect example of F1’s failure of honest introspection, and this whole “the public is laughing at us!- when they’re not ignoring us!” frenzy on the part of F1 fans, and professional F1 fans especially makes us all out to be a bunch of obtuse narcissists.

    Regarding poor Mr. Whiting’s role in all of this, finding a better way to enforce article 20 was always going to be a thankless job, and we may all know it was probably never necessary, but F1’s major stakeholders are always going to get what they want, even when they don’t know what that is.

    I found Charlies remarks on the subject to be perfectly reasonable, given the remit, The fact that people like you want to make Shakespearean drama out of something that will ultimately prove inconsequential to the sport is the real problem. If the sport isn’t interesting enough without hyperbolic melodrama and grassy-knoll conspiracy mongering, Ann Coulter has a new book for you to pass Sunday mornings with.

    Christopher Osborne

  52. Actually, not much conspiracy. After taking a brief look at the proposed rules, it became obvious how badly written they were. But the larger issue stands, CW is supposed to be enforcing rules for the FIA and instead he is enforcing the whims of FOM. And that is a real problem for the sport, and has been ever since this three headed monster emerged with the sale of the commercial rights.

    And actually, I was going more for Shakespearean humor, though I believe the underlying focus, as you graciously admit, to be correct. Whiting is past his sell by date, and unlike you, I found myself amazed at the cluelessness of his response, as did the team principals when they met with him the previous day, resulting in the updated rules. Which are still buggy, full of holes and impossible to police.

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