You can't run a gearbox without gears, the casing, seals, bearings, oil. They are all specified parts of the gearbox.
And if he had an oil problem it would have been BECAUSE OF A LEAK. Which even by your terrible definitions and understanding of engineering must be a problem with the gearbox.
indirect [in-duh-rekt, -dahy-] Origin in·di·rect [in-duh-rekt, -dahy-] adjective 1. not in a direct course or path; deviating from a straight line; roundabout: an indirect course in sailing. 2. coming or resulting otherwise than directly or immediately, as effects or consequences: an indirect advantage. 3. not direct in action or procedure: His methods are indirect but not dishonest. 4. not straightforward; devious; deceitful: He is known as a shady, indirect fellow. 5. not direct in bearing, application, force, etc.: indirect evidence.
That doesn't help really. The gearbox problem was a direct result of a problem with the gearbox assembly which, in working specification, includes oil. The oil was being lost, probably as a result of a problem with another part of the gearbox (a seal?). There is no indirect relationship.
That's true, however it doesn't follow that to be a component, something must be mechanically attached, ball-bearings for example are not mechanically attached, but I would LOL at you if you tried to insist that they are not components.
I would have thought that anything concrete (as opposed to abstract) within the gearbox housing that is taken into consideration during the design stage of the gearbox and has an influence on the design and specifications of other components would be considered a component of the design.
I expect that F1 designers and engineers treat oil like any other component. It will have to work in a defined way within specified tolerances for viscosity, temperature resistance, operational lifetime etc.
Are you serious? Are you really trying to make the claim that a theory has more credibility purely because a lot of people, (99% of which have no "inside" information btw), believe it?
This has got to be the stupidest conspiracy theory I've heard in a long time. Why?
Well
a) Red Bull have always been open with their "team orders" in the past.
b) Webber was never going to secure 2nd place in the championship as long as either Alonso or Button were still on the track.
c) Vettel is not the kind of driver to come second if he has even the slightest chance of winning. If this season hasn't been proof of that then god knows what it would take to prove it.
Given that b) is an extremely unlikely scenario alone then it makes zero sense for RedBull to conspire to let Webber to win.
The only plausible reason I can think of why they might want to do such a thing would to make Webber feel happy. Why they would want to do that god only knows, he's already signed up for next year and afaik doesn't bring a huge amount of sponsership to the team anyway.
How is this even an discussion?
There is absolutely no way Vettel had a Gearbox problem, this was a hidden team order that neither Vettel or the gearbox knew about.
And when he asked what the gap to Alonso was, it gave it all away.
I hate to add even more oil to the fire, but could you explain this please?
Let's assume for a moment that RB really wanted for Webber to have his victory in this season and take 3rd place in the driver's championship. Let's also assume that they didn't want to loose their faces by "Seb, you need to maintain the gap" kind of instructions so they came up with this staged gearbox problem... My question is, why would they do it so stupidly?
A logical course of action would be to let Vettel drive his usual start-to-finish sprint, pull away from Webber or whoever would be behind him and wait with the gearbox failure until the last 10-15 laps. They'd then tell Vettel there's a massive problem with the gearbox and remind him every lap that he has to slow down more and more, just enough to let Webber catch him in the last lap or so.
Pretending a gearbox problem from the very beginning of the race is rather short-sighted. What if Webber crashed out in the middle of the race? What if he wasn't able to keep up the pace? What if Button drove a more aggressive strategy? Any of these possibilities would leave RB out with only one competitive car which would either have to be magically fixed or they'd have to forgo the 1st place in favor of Button.
If you want to conspire a result secretly, so even the drivers are unaware, then you would fake a problem at the last stop. They had a good 15 second gap they could have dropped him into. Webber has a 10-12 second lead. Job done.
Logically if rbr did that to vettel (taking a win away from him) it would be total trust destroyer. How can you as vettel trust your team anymore after an incident like that that if the team told you false technical information that stole a win from you. I don't think rbr would be that stupid. I don't think they did it. Not to vettel.
I think rbr have been really poor with their driver management over the last 2 years. They consistantly keep saying one thing but keep doing another thing. To me the rbr driver management is all about cloak and dagger games. They always do things like they have "an agenda". Usually the agenda is to maximise Vettel's performance.
After the singapore/piquet/alonso incident the chances of everything being possible are quite higher in f1 nowadays. Personally I think there was nothing in brazil. I just don't see them doing something so cruel to vettel. That's not just stealing a win from him but breaking down the trust between the team and the driver. If vettel finds out that rbr was lying what will he do everytime the team get a radio message to him during race. If it is about low fuel, tire heat, brakes, gearbox or engine. Cheat me once, shame on you. Cheat me twice, shame on me.
