Massa could have had a penalty from the start of the race!!! [Archive] - TheScuderia.net

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steelstallions

2nd September 2010, 07:08

http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/5815/youtubefelipemassaf.mp4

He must have been more than half a metre past the white line. It was lucky the stewards missed this.

Agron

2nd September 2010, 09:15

RC must have been too focused on Alonso's start to notice other cars XD

Good for us, it's not usual we have good luck with RC this year.

elekvault

2nd September 2010, 09:51

I can't see the picture from work, but I know what you're talking about. The commentator on Spanish TV broadcaster La Sexta said at the start that Massa was way ahead of his grid position and that it was a risk cause that was punishable, but luckily for him and Ferrari, that went unnoticed or maybe stewards thought it was not that important.

I think it's not fair to the other drivers anyway, it felt like Massa cheated a little bit (even though it probably was just a miscalculation).

racingbradley

2nd September 2010, 09:58

On this ocassion we can be glad there is a place for human error but hush the less they know about it the better. Maybe Massa's luck is turning!;-);-);-)

Ste

2nd September 2010, 10:08

Brundle picked that up. I'm surprised no penalty was given as well.

red5

2nd September 2010, 11:09

Ammm...more than a metre ahead.Massa should have been penalized [luckily it wasn't the case ;-)].He completely missed the start spot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kChqJVjp9U&feature=player_embedded

Tifosi

2nd September 2010, 11:10

It amazed me that Brundle didn't actually ring RC himself! ;-)

DIEK

2nd September 2010, 12:55

He will surely be busy on something more important ...

http://i53.tinypic.com/igdeoo.jpg

:roll:

Suzie

2nd September 2010, 13:34

I can't remember a driver getting a penalty for that before but maybe I'm wrong. I guess he didn't benefit from it; aside from Webber going backwards he didn't gain any positions at the start from what I can recall.

Stormsearcher

2nd September 2010, 15:58

On this ocassion we can be glad there is a place for human error but hush the less they know about it the better. Maybe Massa's luck is turning!;-);-);-)

For one.. am surprised, and glad that you are not talking about how its detrimental to the spirit of the sport and "for the fans" for a driver to get unfair advantage!!
Or maybe thats selective judgement?

Hermann

2nd September 2010, 16:00

For one.. am surprised, and glad that you are not talking about how its detrimental to the spirit of the sport and "for the fans" for a driver to get unfair advantage!!
Or maybe thats selective judgement?

It was Massa, not Fernando. Might make a difference for some.

Stormsearcher

2nd September 2010, 16:03

It was Massa, not Fernando. Might make a difference for some.

lol.. i know. ;-)

racingbradley

2nd September 2010, 18:32

It was Massa, not Fernando. Might make a difference for some.

Put it this way had it been Nando my post would have been lost in the rush of people defending his actions!!!!!!!:lol

Hermann

2nd September 2010, 19:31

Put it this way had it been Nando my post would have been lost in the rush of people defending his actions!!!!!!!:lol

Or in the bashing postings.....

red5

2nd September 2010, 19:42

Put it this way had it been Nando my post would have been lost in the rush of people defending his actions!!!!!!!:lol
Someone here defending Alonso? you must be crazy mate! :lol

racingbradley

2nd September 2010, 21:59

Or in the bashing postings.....

And there was I thinking most of the threads here atm are about how superior Alonso really is and how unlucky in Spa. ;-);-) I admit he was very unlucky.
I was just happy to see a thread started proving that we actually have two drivers at Ferrari.:-)

Suzie

2nd September 2010, 22:04

And there was I thinking most of the threads here atm are about how superior Alonso really is and how unlucky in Spa. ;-);-) I admit he was very unlucky.
I was just happy to see a thread started proving that we actually have two drivers at Ferrari.:-)

Yeah even if it's for bad reasons, it's still good to see a bit of focus on our Felipe ;-)

REDARMYSOJA

2nd September 2010, 22:25

From what I've seen, this is allowed. There is no real rule about it in the sporting regs. As long as they don't move and trip the transponder, there is no penalty. Webber supposedly did the same thing earlier this year, at Bahrain I believe.

REDARMYSOJA

2nd September 2010, 22:51

voiko

3rd September 2010, 04:17

Oh boy! It's investigation time.

Massa grid error prompts FIA probe (http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/86327)

FIA to examine how Massa was able to start ahead of himself in Spa (http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2010/09/fia-to-examine-how-massa-was-able-to-start-ahead-of-himself-in-spa/)

"...With rival teams unaware of Massa's error, so not complaining to the FIA, the matter was not looked at in any more detail before the Belgian GP results were made official on Sunday night - which means no further action on the incident could be taken..." = autosport

its ok we got away with it :P

Agron

3rd September 2010, 04:48

PF1 take on the situation:

http://www.planetf1.com/race-features/6347387/Winners-Losers-Belgian-GP

Felipe Massa, Ferrari, 4th
After a frantic GP with lots of on-track incident, cars spinning out of control, cars sliding into the gravel, slamming into each other, ripping off each others' front wings etc the footage I'd like to see is very mild in comparison. I'd like to see how Felipe Massa lined up for the grid. What could possibly have distracted him enough to put his car two metres beyond its correct slot? Or were the commentators mistaken when they said he was that far out?

Massa's career in F1 has stretched from a debut with Sauber in 2002; he has started 127 races, yet I don't remember him starting from outside of his gridbox before. The problem was that he'd qualified quite a bit in front of Fernando Alonso and there was rain in the air. Ferrari obviously couldn't be seen to be favouring Alonso in a very obvious way, so what better way to switch them round than to get Massa to make a mistake that would attract a penalty right from the start...? On a wet day, with rain imminent, the guy who came in second would probably drop back further because he'd be overtaken by slower midfield cars who were behind him, but the first of their team to have their tyres changed.

And with rain actually predicted for eight minutes after the start time of 2.00pm this scenario was a likelihood not a possibility. Or am I just being a great big cynical Hector?

As it was, Fernando was doing slightly better than most to negotiate Turn 19 when Rubens Barrichello decided to test the robustness of his chassis and anyway, the stewards turned a blind eye to Felipe's poor parking. But I'd still like to have seen the way Massa lined up his car.

Well, this puts all their previous criticism of Alonso and Ferrari in perspective.

Anni

3rd September 2010, 15:00

Ferrari obviously couldn't be seen to be favouring Alonso in a very obvious way, so what better way to switch them round than to get Massa to make a mistake that would attract a penalty right from the start...?

Those people on PF1 need therapie :roll

I am worried the RC will have a very close look on Massa in the upcoming races. They already forgot to punish him in Monaco for crossing the white line after pitting and now they didn´t see his "poor parking". I am glad Massa was lucky both times, but they will punish him for a tininess now, I fear.

Stormsearcher

3rd September 2010, 18:22

PF1 take on the situation:

http://www.planetf1.com/race-features/6347387/Winners-Losers-Belgian-GP

PF1 is seriously twisted. lol...

Katu

3rd September 2010, 19:34

Those people on PF1 need therapie :roll

I am worried the RC will have a very close look on Massa in the upcoming races. They already forgot to punish him in Monaco for crossing the white line after pitting and now they didn´t see his "poor parking". I am glad Massa was lucky both times, but they will punish him for a tininess now, I fear.

no, they won't punish him now, they'll wait if he's close to WDC or something, now it would look pointless

REDARMYSOJA

3rd September 2010, 20:35

"...With rival teams unaware of Massa's error, so not complaining to the FIA, the matter was not looked at in any more detail before the Belgian GP results were made official on Sunday night - which means no further action on the incident could be taken..." = autosport

its ok we got away with it :P

Hehe. Yeah.

Ant Raikkonen

4th September 2010, 07:06

I can't believe he got away with it, now it's too late to punish aswell :-D
Indeed, Brundle picked up on it as he lined up on the grid, so where was everyone else at the track looking? :Hmm :lol

Stormsearcher

4th September 2010, 20:45

so where was everyone else at the track looking? :Hmm :lol

lol.. several possibilities here-
1. they were looking lovingly at their beloved lewis second on the grid. Such a brave drive in a complete dog of a car. Recommendation for a knighthood is certainly on its way.
2. Waiting to see how mark muffs his start. (he obliged of course)
3. Hoping jenson doesnt do any rash moves at the start and jump lewis... afterall, he needs to conserve fuel. Its a long race.
4. Waiting to see if they can find something to pin on fernando and give him a penalty. Maybe obstructing lewis view in his side view mirror..??

Felipe of course, knew all this, so he cleverly sneaked a few meters ahead. ;-) heheh... glad he got away with it thou. Ferrari dont need more trouble.

racingbradley

4th September 2010, 20:56

lol.. several possibilities here-
1. they were looking lovingly at their beloved lewis second on the grid. Such a brave drive in a complete dog of a car. Recommendation for a knighthood is certainly on its way.
2. Waiting to see how mark muffs his start. (he obliged of course)
3. Hoping jenson doesnt do any rash moves at the start and jump lewis... afterall, he needs to conserve fuel. Its a long race.
4. Waiting to see if they can find something to pin on fernando and give him a penalty. Maybe obstructing lewis view in his side view mirror..??

Felipe of course, knew all this, so he cleverly sneaked a few meters ahead. ;-) heheh... glad he got away with it thou. Ferrari dont need more trouble.:clap:clap Great post

Losticus

5th September 2010, 11:58

PF1 take on the situation:

http://www.planetf1.com/race-features/6347387/Winners-Losers-Belgian-GP

" Ferrari obviously couldn't be seen to be favouring Alonso in a very obvious way, so what better way to switch them round than to get Massa to make a mistake that would attract a penalty right from the start...?"

Well, this puts all their previous criticism of Alonso and Ferrari in perspective.

PF1 has make a bussiness of Alonsophobia, and thats the reason many international Formula 1 fans are leaving their site. The frontpage and news are no longer readable by any human with at least a couple or neurones, and the forums are so biased towards McLaren and Hamilton, with moderation welcome, that no real debate exist.

KurtC

5th September 2010, 16:17

mad_ani

7th September 2010, 08:19

Massa: The Mystery of GridGate Deepens

Sorry to keep harping on about it, but this just keeps getting more and more mysterious. In my Winners and Losers column on Sunday I mentioned that the footage I'd really like to see after the Belgian GP was not a nose camera view of Jenson's sidepod exploding; what I really wanted to see was Felipe Massa carefully steering his Ferrari into the wrong position on the grid

Massa lined up for the start outside of his box - "two metres" Martin Brundle estimated, but whatever the actual distance it was certainly enough for him to see straight away from his BBC commentary position.

To his credit fellow commentator Jonathan Leggard immediately computed the situation and came up with the conclusion that most cynical fans would have drawn. Massa had qualified in front of his Ferrari team-mate and had to find a quick way of getting behind him. A drive-through penalty for lining up in the wrong place would do nicely.

With rain imminent and Massa likely to come in for tyres first, obliging his team-mate to be double-stacked, then that would really hamper World Championship challenger Fernando Alonso. When there was no action taken for Massa's poor parking, the immediate thought was that Race Director Charlie Whiting was turning a blind eye to the situation.

The assumption was that he had known immediately that Massa was out of place. When you look down a line of cars that are evenly spaced, the human eye immediately seizes on where there are differences. When you see the telephoto TV camera shot of the grid you can spot the cars that are angled slightly or displaced sideways.

Whiting as Race Director would have got the best view of the grid. We saw in China the footage of him spotting Fernando Alonso's jumped start and pointing at the Ferrari before any sensor had reported to him the official misdemeanour. Brundle saw it from his television commentary position. Massa was only back in P6, it wasn't like he was way back in 22nd.

But yesterday we got the news that - apparently - Whiting was unaware of Massa's marginally unfair advantage at the start. "The problem was not brought to the attention of the FIA race director by either the marshals nor the automatic jump start system in time to be able to apply the appropriate penalty for jump starts," said an FIA spokeswoman.

"As no further information or complaints were received before the publication of the official result on Sunday night, the classification of the Belgian Grand Prix will now remain unchanged. "The FIA are investigating the causes of the apparent failures in communication with race control in order to ensure a repetition is not possible."

I don't know about failures of communication, but I would have thought failures of eyesight might be investigated also. Take a look again at the TV pictures of the start and you can see Massa is tucked right in behind the rear wing of Sebastian Vettel.

However what's more interesting is the fact that there are no other marks on the grid to confuse Felipe as he parked his car at very low speed. There are no stray road markings, no old grid boxes, no support race grid boxes, just Felipe's P6 gridslot on its lonesome in the middle of a wide expanse of tarmac. And he missed it. And - apparently - Charlie Whiting missed it too. The BBC commentary team were able to compute that Massa was angling for a drive-through penalty within five seconds of him stopping his car, but it's taken five days for the FIA to come up with their statement.

The secret of good comedy? Timing.

Perhaps after the race the FIA have looked through the onboard camera footage from Massa and seen exactly how he approached his gridslot and divined that there's something a bit odd going on. It might also be a shot across the bows ahead of the German Grand Prix team orders investigation in Paris next week.

Ferrari have already dropped veiled hints through unofficial briefings to Gazetta dello Sport that they might be prepared to take legal action against the FIA if things don't go their way at the World Motorsport Council meeting. This could be the riposte from Jean Todt's side. The message being: 'protest a little too vigorously and we'll drag this incident into play'.

Why else would you release an FIA statement about the tiniest of GP incidents a few days before an important hearing? If the FIA released a statement EVERY time they tightened up small communication procedures we'd be awash with them. This all sounds like it's a bit of politicking in the old Max Mosley style.

But hey, let's see the Felipe Massa gridslot approach footage. It might not be an F1 car hurled into a smoky 720-degree spin at 150mph and taking off a front left tyre but it has a lot more consequences.

mad_ani

7th September 2010, 08:21

Agron

7th September 2010, 08:56

I guess Alonso's jumpstart means Massa was the nº1 driver for the first part of the season.

mad_ani

7th September 2010, 08:59

Sorry mate...this was not a jump start...but a driver error. Parking a car a whole 2 yards ahead is different from jumping a start:-)

bladeswing

7th September 2010, 09:15

Sorry mate...this was not a jump start...but a driver error. Parking a car a whole 2 yards ahead is different from jumping a start:-)

aw c'mon mate... u know what he meant :lol ....

no? :-??

killer

7th September 2010, 10:06

Why ddi Massa park his car 1.5 m in front of his grid slot..he is an experienced racer and has started many GP's in pouring rain, and yet he fails to get his gridbox correctly. Really lucky that he didnt get picked up by the stewards

Are you actually seriously considering that what the article or whatever it is you posted says is even remotely feasible? If Massa had really been asking for it, why didn't he just jump the start?

Was that from Davies? Sometimes giving monkeys machine guns makes more sense than giving some people keyboards.

Sempre_Ferrari

7th September 2010, 10:29

Sometimes giving monkeys machine guns makes more sense than giving some people keyboards.

+1 :clap

Ant Raikkonen

7th September 2010, 10:42

[QUOTE=killer;622868
Sometimes giving monkeys machine guns makes more sense than giving some people keyboards.[/QUOTE]

Indeed :lol

NJB13

7th September 2010, 11:04

Sometimes giving monkeys machine guns makes more sense than giving some people keyboards.

Love it

Sianellen

9th September 2010, 18:20

Massa 'too low in car' to see grid lines

By Edd Straw and Matt Beer Thursday, September 9th 2010, 16:39 GMT

Felipe Massa says his out-of-position start at the Belgian Grand Prix happened simply because his seating position did not give him good enough visibility to line his Ferrari up correctly.

The FIA recently acknowledged that Massa had been too far forward over his grid slot when the race started, and should have had a penalty, but said that as the incident had only been brought to its notice via videos in the week after the race, it was too late to apply a punishment.

"I'm maybe the lowest driver in the car, I'm very low in the car and maybe if I was a bit higher, it would be easier to see," Massa explained.

"Definitely I couldn't see the lines very well, so I was a little bit outside, and that was it."

The governing body is investigating why Massa's contravention was not picked up by either the observing marshals or the electronic systems designed to detect grid

Hermann

9th September 2010, 18:24

Now that i'd call an 'excuse'! Fernando could learn something from him.

siberianlady

9th September 2010, 21:07

If he can't see his grid spot properly how the hell can he drive the car if he can't see anything? Sorry but i find this concerning!

SilverSpeed

9th September 2010, 21:41

If he can't see his grid spot properly how the hell can he drive the car if he can't see anything? Sorry but i find this concerning!

I don't cause at the start you look at the front which is very hard but during the race you look into the horizon. Different angle so no worries.

siberianlady

9th September 2010, 21:55

Thanks for putting my mind at rest.:-)

mad_ani

9th September 2010, 23:33

NJB13

10th September 2010, 02:18

Intersting to hear that from Massa who has over a hundred race starts and has done 12-13 races this year in the same car...he says it was off by a bit.A bit is still 1-1.5m...the same amount by which Lewis Hamilton overtook SC and did not incur a penalty...:-)

Sorry mate, you can't get away with that one. Lewis could see the complete rear of the safety car from where he sat.
http://i695.photobucket.com/albums/vv319/spankyham/safetycar1.jpg
Absolutely no comparison. 1 meter something compared to 4 meters something! Plus Lewser had the full rear of the saftey car in front of his face.

mad_ani

10th September 2010, 02:39

Massa was travelling at much lower speed when he came up to his grid position. And he has done that more that 100 -150 times in his career(?) How could rookies park their cars correctly and a veteran like Massa just make this error???

NJB13

10th September 2010, 02:46

mad_ani

10th September 2010, 02:51

But that still doesnt answer my question. Its not a excuse for Lewis hamilton..It could have been any other driver. It would have been "legal" if the driver was ahead of the SC line :-)

NJB13

10th September 2010, 03:13

But that still doesnt answer my question. Its not a excuse for Lewis hamilton..It could have been any other driver. It would have been "legal" if the driver was ahead of the SC line :-)

If if if if ... if we had bacon we could have bacon and eggs for breakfast - if we had eggs.
He was even further away from the SC line. Mate there is no way anyone can justify or excuse what Lewser did. He was sooooo far behind the SC and further behind the line and it was a repeat offence. Couldn't be guiltier. And, this from a driver who is also a convicted "hoon" in Australia, has lost his license in France and is under investigation for speeding through a stop sign in Switzerland - all during the FiA's road safety campaign.

Sianellen

10th September 2010, 20:07

By Motorsport.com/GMM

A new transponder system and an wayward marshal are to blame for Felipe Massa's Spa head-start not being noticed in Belgium two weeks ago.

The Brazilian driver explained at Monza that he did not realise he had overshot his grid box because he sits so low in the cockpit of his Ferrari.

But why the FIA's technology, and observers at the side of the track, did not notice the error is currently the subject of an investigation.

Germany's Auto Motor und Sport reports that the automatic jump-start detection system in 2010 is new.

The transponder reacts more sensitively than the old one, meaning that false starts can be detected even when the driver is located too far to the left or the right of the centre of the starting box.

But the glitch in the system is that, because the sensors are so strong, the car and track transponders can locate one another even when – as in Massa's case – the car is positioned too far forwards.

Previously, the sensors would not locate one another, and Charlie Whiting would receive an alarm on the starter gantry that a driver is out of place.

But the back-up system is a human one, with marshals standing beside the track holding a sign with the driver's grid number.

"I looked at the marshal next to the grid, he put his sign down which to me is the signal that everything is right," Massa said.

Countryman Rubens Barrichello said he noticed on the grid that Massa was getting a head-start.

"I knew he had missed his box, but what do I do?" said the veteran.

siberianlady

10th September 2010, 20:58

Countryman Rubens Barrichello said he noticed on the grid that Massa was getting a head-start.

"I knew he had missed his box, but what do I do?" said the veteran.[/QUOTE]
Bash into his teammate? Lol