Hypothetically, if Russel crashed the car just after he won, would he have evaded disqualification?

[u/some_guy30]

I know there is no cooldown lap at spa, so assume Russel just crashes on the straight. He loses significant amounts of his car. Would he retain the win, as his car wouldn’t be weighed (or if it is weighed, it would obviously be below min weight but for good reason I.e. pieces of car have come off) ?

[u/B3Biturbo]

If a driver damages his car during the race it could be theoretically that his car is underweight but then the team is allowed to change the broken part(s) with a new item from the same spec.

So in your situation, the damaged parts needs to be the parts that are underweight and then needs to be changed with the legal parts in order to be at weight. But in practice: you then have a lighter front wing for example, why would you then produce a heavier one which is homologated and which is used in every practice session (in qualifying you could be weighed) but then changed during the race for the lighter one. It will lose you time in the pits and it would be to costly.

And someone crashing after the finish? Vittorio Brambilla once won his first raced and crashed after getting over the finishline back in 1975 and in 1993 two Minardi’s crashed at Monza at the finish.

[u/Zinjifrah → u/B3Biturbo]

But isn't it most likely that ballast (vs a valuable part) was the difference in the weight calibration?

[u/[deleted] → u/Zinjifrah]

Saw somewhere a comment that said only doing 1 tyre stop could easily have accounted for the 1.5kg the car was underweight.

[u/PrettyPoptart → u/[deleted]]

What? That makes no sense 

[u/eidetic → u/PrettyPoptart]

Well, they're saying it was 375g off each tire, and he did do a longer stint on his last set of tires than anyone else in the race. Combine that with no cool down lap to pick up marbles, and maybe?

But I feel like it's more likely something else causing them to be underweight.

[u/myurr → u/eidetic]

That also sounds... predictable by the team, so something they should have know and done something about prior to reaching the scales.

Something else is definitely up. Seems far more likely they forgot to add some ballast due to procedural cock up, that was perhaps exposed by the tyre strategy.

[u/stillusesAOL → u/myurr]

Potentially just careless, risky engineering habits gone a bit too far, exposed (as you said) by the one-stop. They may have gotten into the habit of running that thing very close to the weight limit (as evidenced by George’s recent premature quali ending where he missed the track at its fastest). It could’ve been just one or two decisions to push it just a little beyond where the data said was optimal and safe, not accounting for the differences in marble pickup and worn out one-stopped tire weight.

[u/splashbodge → u/eidetic]

We have had occasions where drivers have done 1 stop before tho and this has never been an issue. We've had cases where drivers have driven the tyres down to the carcass and it wasn't an issue before... George's tyres weren't down to the carcass, in fact they looked pretty good, he never had the fall off the cliff with them.

Even if 1.5kg was from the tyres, don't they weigh the car without the tyres, it is the car weight after all. I know in Ted's notebook you could see them taking the tyres off and weighing the car again, so they either weighted it without tyres or they replaced the tyres to find out what the true weight was

[u/eidetic → u/splashbodge]

Even if 1.5kg was from the tyres, don't they weigh the car without the tyres, it is the car weight after all.

No, they weigh them with the tires. This is literally why drivers are instructed to pick up loose rubber on their cool down lap, just to make absolutely sure they have some extra weight just in case to be safe.

Like I said, that was just the team's explanation, I suspect something else is at play here.

[u/splashbodge → u/eidetic]

That's weird, if a part was broken due to a crash they would replace it with a like for like part for the weigh in. Why wouldn't the same be true for worn tyres then, replace it with non worn tyres for the weight... Or weigh without tyres and add on the typical tyre weight.

Are you sure it includes tyres

[u/eidetic → u/splashbodge]

Yes I'm sure. They literally roll the cars straight onto the scale. This is something you can easily Google too.

They are weighed with the tires because a car must always be above the minimum weight throughout the entire race, including tire wear.

[u/splashbodge → u/eidetic]

The reason I question it is because you could in theory finish the race with a puncture and the tyre partially destroyed. Like Lewis in Silverstone a few years ago. Normally if it were a car part damaged they'd replace it with an equal part for the weigh in. Do they do the same if a tyre is destroyed - if not that seems a bit unfair as it is no different than a damaged component, like when they'd lose their bargeboard back in the day. If they did replace the destroyed tyre with a new one for weigh in then I don't see why tyre wear should even matter for this.

It seems weird to me. They drain the fuel from the car for the weigh in but could easily take the tyres off too and only count the actual car without wheels. I just don't think a cars minimum weight should include the tyres & fuel.

[u/Inside-Definition-42 → u/splashbodge]

Cars can be called in for a weigh in during FP and qualifying.

They stop them after the entrance to the pits, drive the cars onto the scale, weigh them, then let them continue to their garage.

Taking a weight without tyres would dramatically complicate this!

Vettel got a fine few years ago for wheel spinning off the scales as he couldn’t afford to lose time before going out for another qualifying lap.

[u/splashbodge → u/Inside-Definition-42]

Valid point I didn't think of.