Mass damper controversy - what we missed
You might remember that Renault’s “mass damper” system was banned by FIA during the year (what’s a mass damper?)
At the time the discussions on our forum and the reports from F1 news sites indicated that there would be little performance penalty, and while the rumour mill was claiming it was all just another episode of FIA favouritism, we dismissed it as costing only a tenth or two of a second off of performance.
Pat Symonds was interviewed by Autosport, and gives some interesting insights into the procedures that Renault followed to attempt to get the decision overturned. What most interested me was his comments about the team spending two weeks, that could have been better employed, preparing documents and reports to justify their components to the FIA. Whilst we were focussed on the removal of the device, the real impact for Renault was the two week distraction of precious engineering team resources at what was a critical juncture in the season.
4 comments December 5th, 2006
