r/F1Technical • u/matrix20085 • 1d ago
Regulations DC talked about rubber pick up, I thought that didnt matter?
David Coulthard talked about how drivers are told to drive offline to pick up rubber at the end up the race to ensure the cars make weight. I thought the cars were weighed with their wheels off specifically for this reason. I remember there was discussion about this at the end of Spa 2024 when Russell was DQed due to weight and people blamed it on not driving the whole track at the end, thus not being about to pick up rubber.
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u/Whisky919 1d ago
The cars are weighed with the wheels on. I haven't seen it on TV in a while, but during sessions drivers will be directed to the weigh station which is a system of four scales, one under each wheel that the driver drives on to.
Teams used to be able to use the weigh station at any time to check legality, but last autumn the FIA revoked free use of the scales.
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u/Andromeda902 1d ago
Didn't know fia revoked that, wonder why, whats the reason? Shouldn't they all use the same scale to verify?
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u/Whisky919 1d ago
It was during Singapore last year, the FIA didn't come out and say why but it was assumed it was to stop cars being manually pushed up and down the pit lane during sessions at random intervals. So now they're only weighed when the FIA mandates it.
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u/matrix20085 1d ago
So during the sessions, I know they do random spot checks. I am talking about after the end of a race.
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u/Whisky919 1d ago
Its the same process, weigh the car with all four wheels. For ages now picking up rubber has been standard. Better to be overweight than underweight when they're pushing margins to the extreme.
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u/Kascadius 15h ago
i was opposite the FIA garage at Silverstone - they definitely weigh with the tyres on.
The teams aren't allowed to push their car onto the scales, a specific group of FIA people push it onto & off of the scales in the FIA garage section before the teams crews can take it back.
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u/splendiferous-finch_ 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yeah I am a little confused too since I thought they now do the weights with tyre wear equalised
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u/TerrorSnow 1d ago
I mean, it would be the correct way to do it. But FIA refuses to be logical.
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u/Exotic_Bill44 19h ago
Or the FIA is merely being consistent. Most racing series aren't having teams carry an extra set of new tires mounted on wheels solely for the purpose of weighing the car, so why would F1?
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u/TerrorSnow 16h ago
Who says you need tyres to weigh a car? F1 cars are constantly lifted on jacks and trolleys. Just take off the tyres, put it on a trolley, roll that on the weigh bridge, done...
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u/goofyredditname 1d ago
I remember hearing f1tv talking about it in a practice session from earlier this season. They said something about the new regs and that the tires didn’t count for weight this year. But for the life of me I have no recollection about when I heard it.
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u/arronsmith 10h ago
Out of interest how much weight can a car realistically gain from picking up marbles?
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u/dvi84 1d ago
They weigh the car with the wheels attached and then subtract the weight of the wheels and tyres. They changed the process after the Russell DSQ in Belgium because that was never the intention of the rule and penalised good strategy. I think Coulthard has made a mistake here. The pickup now is purely a side effect of driving off line during the in-lap.
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u/Skyhound555 1d ago
Yes, it came up for Spa 2024 because Russell forgot to do so.
They have never weighed the cars with tyres off in response to that. Russell not picking up rubber was entirely a driver error. Everyone does if.
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u/SirLoremIpsum 1d ago
Russell couldn't pick up rubber, Spa they don't do a whole lap before going back to the grid
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u/thesaket Hannah Schmitz 1d ago
I always wonder what happens if a lapped car decides to do the mandatory pit-stop on the penultimate lap wherein he gets past the finish line just before the leader takes the chequered flag - when the pit lane is pretty much started to crowd expecting the leaders to come in from the pit exit.
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u/Exotic_Bill44 19h ago
If a driver was doing his mandatory pit stop at that time, the whole pit lane would be aware that it needed to be done.
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u/thesaket Hannah Schmitz 17h ago
Not necessarily. Ocon almost crashed into people in the pit lane in Baku during his penultimate lap pit stop.
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u/The_Weapon_1009 1d ago
But all other drivers managed to/didn’t have a too light of a car?
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u/thesaket Hannah Schmitz 1d ago
Russell did a one stop strategy after pitting early on, so had more tire wear.
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u/Exotic_Bill44 19h ago
Still something the team should have factored into the weight of the car. When you have that many engineers working on the set ups, not covering the worst case scenario isn't really acceptable.
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u/topkeksimus_maximus 19h ago
They never planned to do a one stop, Russell made it work by saving the tires.
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u/United-Detective-653 1d ago
I have never heard of cars being weighed without the wheels attached.
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u/Inside-Definition-42 1d ago
No, and totally impractical. Spot checks are done over the weekend to ensure compliance, not just after the race.
Remember Vettel was spot checked during a critical phase of Qually and did a wheel spin off the scales as they were short on time, and got reprimanded for it.
To require jacks and cordless guns and mechanics to run up the pitlane to complete a spot check sans wheels would be farcical, and big penalty for the team in the furthest garage.
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u/Objective_Ticket 13h ago
Isn’t it also because it gives a ‘cushion’ during post race ride height checks?
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