The Official Hungarian Grand Prix Thread

It was with some amazement that we learned of the grounds on which the bargeboards had been found kosher, after all, for now we were told that they had failed to conform, not by the 10mm originally measured by the FIA’s Technical Delegate at Sepang, but by an amount within the 5mm tolerance permitted by the regulations.



Was the FIA saying that its representative in Malaysia had not had at his disposal the means to take sufficiently accurate measurements?



More importantly, where had this ‘5mm tolerance’ come from? As a leading designer told me, it was mentioned nowhere in the regulations, save the one dealing with the car’s flat bottom. “It’s virtually impossible to build a completely flat ‘flat bottom’,” he said, “which is why that tolerance is allowed. But with regard to any other specified dimensions – including bargeboards – there is no mention of any tolerance at all. Our understanding has always been that if we have, say, a rear wing that’s .001 of a centimetre too high, we’re out.



“Now, however, it appears that this tolerance appertains across the board, and if that’s the case, we need clarification of the point, because quite obviously we’ve been building and racing our cars too conservatively, so as to be absolutely certain of not being the tiniest fraction outside the rules…”