Sweet Victory

If the good old saying "sweet victory" were anything to go by, this weekend has been an exceptionally sweet one. Any victory is well-taken, but none more so than a championship victory. I have experienced, in different ways, three of these so-called victories this weekend alone.

It all started early yesterday morning with the South African ACM Intercollegiate Programming Contest regional contest. Out of 66 teams nation-wide, UCT claimed the top spot for the sixth year running. And this is destined to continue for the years to come, as even though this will be this year's winning team's last contest, we have many more teams coming through eagerly vying for that taste of glory.

To put it briefly for you, UCT swiped all four top places from the rest of the country! And if that weren't bad enough, due in part to our excellent record in the past we managed to gather a record 22 teams from UCT to participate. This formed a third of the national teams! The full results are available here, with the top four teams being:

1. teh_solverers
• Timothy Stranex
• Migael Strydom
  
• Tamara von Glehn
  
2. Bacon & Eggs
• Bertus Labuschagne
• Ian Tunbridge
• Ingrid von Glehn
  
3. ʇ|nɐɟƃ3s
• Charles Bradshaw
  
• Max Rabkin
• Keegan Carruthers-Smith
4. Bit Chow Down
• Christian Geist
  
• Dave Jacka
  
• Ashley Reid

I'm in the process of writing up a lengthy post on the contest, but with the latest victory that just cropped up I couldn't resist combining all three.

The sight of victory:


The second victory happened over in Paris, where we repeated what we last did on that memorable day back in 1995. While this victory will never be just as glorious as the first, it will always be remembered as a huge success. I tend to put a lot of the success on the shoulders of Jake White, which is why I feel it is a huge upset that he is leaving and mostly due to the poor management in this country's sport.

If you don't watch rugby at all you will be a bit lost. The South African rugby team took the William Webb Ellis trophy along with the rugby world cup champions role away from defending champions in the final, beating them 15-6 in fairly convincing style. The streets were wild apparently, although I was sane enough to remain indoors.

The sight of victory:


These two above were fairly expected results. UCT has dominated the ACM ICPC for the past six years and South Africa had already creamed The Pommies 36-0 in a group match just five weeks ago. This last one, however, required half a miracle to achieve. The odds were so low that I personally had written it off.

Before the final race of the Formula 1 season this evening, Kimi Raikonnen was seven points behind championship leader Lewis Hamilton, with a maximum ten points up for grabs. Hamilton's teammate, Fernando Alonso, was even closer with just a four point margin. The odds against Kimi winning the championship in the final race were awfully low.

However, a combination of mechanical faults, driver error and poor choice of strategy pushed Hamilton all the way back into 7th giving him only two points. With him out the way, Kimi and Massa ran away with an awesome 1-2 Ferrari victory leaving Alonso trailing 57 seconds behind in 3rd. So it couldn't have ended any tighter. Kimi ends the season on 110 points, with Hamilton and Alonso tying on 109 points each! Simply amazing!

The sight of victory:

F1 Debacle

Thanks to Alapan for pointing out that the full transcripts from the two hearings have been released. I still cannot get over how often the mistake is made where they redact the confidential parts, but still leave the text in the document in such a way that one can simply do a copy-paste and view all the confidential information. Yes, they this!!

You can get the transcripts here:

• 26 July hearing
• 13 September hearing

Some quotes from the redacted bits:

The whole philosophy of our car was to move the weight forward. We had managed to take some weight from the gearbox.

“They have a double-rear master cylinder with a spring, which initially delays rear braking, then increases it gradually”

He was paid around 300 000 to 400 000 pounds per annum. Is that correct?

Since I didn't get a real opportunity to discuss the ruling I'll use this post to do so.

The driver's got with no direct punishment. They will still be allowed to race in the same McLaren's for the remainder of the season and they won't be docked any points. Now I'm not 100% clued up on the situation, but the cars haven't gone through a thorough inspection and could be making use of Ferrari's IP this whole debacle is about. They will only be inspected just before the 2008 season begins. Yes, they were told they would get off free if they provided evidence, and they did, but I still feel strong against this part of the ruling since they could be driving essentially illegal cars.

The banning of McLaren from the 2007 season is going to be a massive impact to them. Not only is it an embarrassment, but I've heard the sponsors have already started backfiring. The constructors' championship is very often considered more important to the team as a whole than the drivers' and now McLaren won't even be placed. The $100 million fine is enormous! The previous record was $5 million to the Turkish organisers for doing something wrong on the podium. While you may say they have a massive budget, this is going to make a huge impact on their development next year.

I think they should never have offered the drivers full indemnity in exchange for evidence. I'm not in the position to comment on the possibility of getting hold of sufficient evidence to prove their guilt without such an offer, but just think about how much they are getting away with. I'm a Ferrari fan so I will be biased, but I think this is unacceptable. Everyone has the opportunity to cast judgment and that is mine - agree with it or not.

WMSC Judgment

Since my post on the rumour that McLaren had been disqualified, the true sanctions have been confirmed. In short, McLaren will be stripped of all constructors' points from the 2007 season and fined $100 million. While they will still continue to participate in the remainder of the 2007 season, they will not score any constructors' points nor will they attend any podium celebrations. The drivers, however, will remain completely unaffected - they will keep all remaining points.

The full report is available here. It contains some very intriguing information that has come out of the hearings. Some extracts:

3.5 On 21 March 2007 at 09.57 Mr. de la Rosa wrote to Coughlan in the following terms:
“Hi Mike, do you know the Red Car’s Weight Distribution? It would be important for us to know so that we could try it in the simulator. Thanks in advance, Pedro.
p.s. I will be in the simulator tomorrow.”

3.6 In his evidence given to the WMSC, Mr. de la Rosa confirmed that Coughlan replied by text message with precise details of Ferrari’s weight distribution.

3.9 Mr. de la Rosa replied on 25 March 2007 13.02 stating the following:
“All the information from Ferrari is very reliable. It comes from Nigel Stepney, their former chief mechanic – I don’t know what post he holds now. He’s the same person who told us in Australia that Kimi was stopping in lap 18. He’s very friendly with Mike Coughlan, our Chief Designer, and he told him that.”

3.12 In the same e-mail exchange of 25 March 2007, Mr. de la Rosa states that tests had been carried out on a flexible rear wing which Mr. de la Rosa says is “a copy of the system we think Ferrari uses”. The Ferrari car’s precise aero balance at 250 kph is also identified.

3.13 Mr de la Rosa’s e-mail to Mr. Alonso on 25 March 2007 at 01.43 identified a gas that Ferrari uses to inflate its tyres to reduce the internal temperature and blistering. The e-mail concludes with a statement (in relation to the gas) that “we’ll have to try it, it’s easy!”.

3.14 Mr Alonso replied at 12.31 that it is “very important” that McLaren test the gas that Ferrari uses in its tyres as “they have something different from the rest”, and “not only this year. there is something else and this may be the key; let’s hope we can test it during this test, and that we can make it a priority!”.

3.15 Mr. de la Rosa replied on 25 March 2007 13.02 stating the following: I agree 100% that we must test the [tyre gas] thing very soon.

3.18 On 12 April 2007 at 12.25 Mr. de la Rosa wrote to Mr. Coughlan and asked “ can you explain me as much as you can, Ferrari’s braking system with the [reference to detailed technical information]? Are they adjusting from inside the cockpit...?”

Having read the report I feel Ferrari had every reason to push for the investigation. I'm actually a little surprised at just how light they got off on this knowing all this newly released information. I'm glad the WMSC released it though as it (hopefully) shows all those Ferrari haters out there that McLaren were justly punished.

I can go on for ages, but I'm tired and the SACO tomorrow morning means early morning, but stay posted for my rant on this debacle if you're interested. :-P

McLaren Disqualified!!

UPDATE below!

This has yet to be confirmed, but if true may turn out to be an historic moment in the history of Formula One for years to come. This brief report indicates that McLaren have been disqualified from the 2007 and 2008 world championships.


In case you haven't been following the story, McLaren somehow got hold of some of Ferrari's IP earlier this year. This has bloomed into one massive case against McLaren. In July the FIA found them guilty, but they handed out no punishment since there was insufficient evidence that they had used that IP. At the time I was rather shocked that the FIA failed to punish McLaren in any way since this was a serious charge that they were proved guilty for.

Then there was another hearing in Paris today and this is where the unconfirmed reports of McLaren's disqualification are coming from. I am now shocked even more so, since I was in no way expecting such a massive punishment. However, when one sits down and thinks about it for a moment and considers what they did, perhaps it was the only decision the FIA could have made.

This is going to have an enormous impact on F1. McLaren were, until now, holding healthy leads in both the driver's and constructor's championships. Now it seems that while the drivers may well be allowed to migrate to another team, they will be docked all current points. That is, not to mention the negative impact due to the loss of the top team will be to the sport.

I'll be waiting for the official report before I start having my heart attack, but this sure came unexpected to me!

UPDATE: It appears the punishment that has been confirmed is that McLaren will be stripped of their constructors' championship points and fined a record $100m, but that the drivers will keep their points. Read here.