Conspiracy theory - Engine Development

[DaveKillens]

I don't put much weight to Alonso's comments. In the interview, he begins by being deliberately vague. And in fact, nowhere is he definitely specific. If Alonso stated that, for instance, that on such a such date Mercedes implimented a specific number of improvements, then it would sound believable. But instead he leads us to believe that "Every three or four races there is a little step in the engine". WTF?
As far as the situation that certain teams are "improving" their engines while others have not since the engine freeze... well, that's what F1 is all about. If some teams have found loopholes or some means to obtain more power than their competitors, then I have no problem with that. Ferrari are famous for seeking out and using such loopholes. And I stand up and applaud them for it. If a team makes it their policy to safely stand on the side of never pushing the rules, then they will be last on the grid.
Don't blame the teams, blame the FIA's vague rules and their enforcement methods.

[Belatti]

Dave I agree on your comment, but wanted to point out something:

If Alonso makes a speceific comment about some engine development, he (and Renault) will be suspected to "spy" their rivals because: how did they knew they where doing it?

It could be like McMer and the Ferrari movable floor story.

[DaveKillens]

That's very true, and I stand corrected.

[riff_raff]

Of course, it's only cheating if you get caught.

With the amount of money involved in F1, everyone involved has a huge incentive to cheat, errr....I mean stretch the rules. The bigger the stakes, the greater the payoff if you cheat and don't get caught. F1 is just like Wall Street or the Tour de France- everyone cheats, the cheaters make huge profits, a small percentage of the cheaters get caught, and the punishment for getting caught is a slap on the wrist. You made $10 million in illegal profits and ended up paying $1 million in fines with no jail time or criminal record. A nice tidy profit for breaking the rules.

[alexbarwell]

With Alonso's various allegations maybe this adds to why ferrari seemed to stop talking driver seats with him - no place for a quealer...Any clues if the engine freeze was predominately relating to the main castings/mouldings namely heads/block with allowed tweaks for water/oil ways, combustion chambers, inlets, pumps, bearings, but the main lumps that can take a lot of design effort being fixed. What do the power curves look like near the rev limit? does a control come in to cap it, or are things designed such that the power rolls off suddenly at the top end.

[WhiteBlue]

The Ferrari V8 fitted to Felipe Massa's car at Spa-Francorchamps last weekend was on Thursday passed by the FIA following a routine check during Monza scrutineering as part of the engine freeze.

FIA officials compared the sealed 2.4 litre unit with the engine submitted for homologation by the Italian team earlier this year and found no anomalies, reports said.

the whole issue shows that it is almost impossible to stop rich manufacturer teams creating loop holes to slip through.

one of the few successfull ways to keep privateers in the race is customer chassis. If Red Bull Technology could sell their chassis to all private teams Force India, Toro Rosso, Red Bull and Williams could all be driving at the top occasionally and having race winners. just look where Williams and Force India are compared to Toro Rosso and the effect is claer.