BENETTON'S LAUNCH CONTROL! The Story of the 'Option 13' 1994 Cheating Scandal 

Kinda. If U pay attention, the "1 UP" Mario's sound comes up 😁

No, it was up down left right up down left right a b c start 💥

@@elnoodel666 who said "fatality mode"...? 😆

A B A C A B B

isnt that a mortal kombat fatality?

Tom Walkinshaw.....

Briatore is not technical guy. He is a high level business development type guy. But the people that did it certainly worked for him.

Someone please refresh my mind as to who came up with the idea ? The phrase "No honour among theives" comes to mind...

@@michaelbarton4787 It is believe to be Alan Permane but he didn't know Renault were going to use his idea until the whole thing happened

Need there be any further discussing. They were cheating on many levels.

Hurrumphs in Odo.

When the name came up i immediatly thought of my favorit DS9 character :D

You'd shoot a man in the back? We'll it is the safest way.

Love a good DS9 reference in my motorsport videos! 😂

Sisko in In the Pale Moonlight would agree.

Hate to be this guy but *Jochen

Last time I checked, it was Jochen Rindt. Not Johan mate 😅

Johan Rindt was probably some obscure race driver in the 20's 😅

@@nikolasmolin5749 better to be that guy than the butchering the name guy

Johan is a guy I've probably met.

Off the topic but important to figure out for us the people where we are and what we actually live in. I bet not many people know in comparison as to the world population that NASA and the world Governments are all Satanists!!! I know thats a huge statement but unfortunately its TRUE! Take the word SATAN wonder why when they do a count down they SAY T - MINUS 30 SECONDS AND COUNTING YEAH??? WELL THIS IS WHY THEY ARE SAYING IT MINUS THE T FROM SATAN AND YOU ARE LEFT WITH THE WORD NASA, THE RED FORK TONGUE IN THERE LOGO IS THE SNAKES TOUNGUE PEOPLE YIP THEY ARE TELLING US THEY ARE SHOWING US IN PLAIN SITE BUT WE THE PEOPLE CANT SEE IT BUT WE ARE SEEING A LOT MORE NOW! ANYONE EVER ANALYSED THE ALFA ROMEO LOGO???? IF YOU TAKE A CLOSE LOOK AT IT THERE IS A SNAKE EATING A MAN ON THE LOGO NO DOUBT SATANIC IF YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT SATANISM THEN ITS PRETTY OBVIOUS IF YOU DONT DO SOME RESEARCH AND REALIZE WHAT THEY ARE TELLING US! END DAYS ARE HERE THE VACCINE IS THE STING OF THE SCORPION ACCEPT IT AND YOU ARE ACCEPTING THE MARK OF THE BEAST DESIGNED TO LOWER YOUR FREQUENCY IF IT DOESNT KILL YOU, DISCONNECT YOU FROM GOD AND I HAVE NO DOUBT THERE IS A MICROCHIP IN THERE WHICH WILL BE ACTIVATED AFTER THE COMING CATACLISM TO BRING ON THERE ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT WITH A CASHLESS SOCIETY WITHOUT THE CHIP BEING IN YOUR BODY YOU WONT BE ABLE TO BUY OR SELL! THE DARKNESS IS MOVING IN AT A RAPID RATE THIS IS A WARNING TO US THE PEOPLE CATCH A WAKE UP AND STOP BEING DISTRACTED WE ARE BEING HUNTED FOR OUR SOULS!! BY SATAN, ONCE YOU TAKE THE VACCINE YOU ARE GIVING UP YOUR SOUL TO THE DARKNESS!

@@seanthompson258 Off topic? No! XD

@@seanthompson258 weak troll

@@seanthompson258 Didn't ask mate

Prime example of people changing what they say to appease people.. give me likes duuurrr

had an incident like this with some F1 lads a while ago. Some dude was hardlining the 'pink Mercedes' bullshit about it literally being the Mercedes... Some dudes, am I right?

Everything he said was true, especially the lies.

@@seanthompson258 go to sleep, you're drunk

I watched that it was the driver 61 video on flavio

You say that cause you aren't the one who lose money when another team cheat

The Toyota restrictor plate was genius and they still couldn’t win 🤣

Not just Smokey Yuenick- Look up some of the work Junior Johnson did in the NASCAR scene. They would do something super illegal on the exterior to hide any of the little cheats they did so the officials wouldn't notice them, then raise hell when they called out the blatant stuff to throw them off the scent. Junior Johnson was the reason NASCAR adopted the choreographed pitstop too, because he would run out into the pits during the pitstop and work on the car himself 😂 Nowadays the inspections have gotten so advanced it seems like all the car owners and crew chiefs are running out of ways to innovate the sport

@@GenuineRage this is why i love listening to dale jr download. some of the things the guys were doin way back is amazing.

The stuff the NASCAR guys did was nuts. Connecting the gas tank to the chassis so it would hold gallons and gallons of extra gas. Inflating basketballs in the tanks so that when tested they could hold the right amount of gas, then deflating them after inspection. Filling the chassis with ball bearings to make minimum weight and dropping them on the way to the green flag. Drivers used to sneak shots of NOS during qualifying laps. There’s a legend that Smokey Yunich is the reason for over half the NASCAR rule book.

Or. Were they clip boards 🤔

80's tech already pioneered carbon fiber (at the time, bleeding edge tech only used in aviation), ABS, active suspension, semi-automatic gearboxes...the cars were already at insane levels of technology relative to the car industry at the time. I wouldn't be surprised if the laptops they were using then were ahead of the curve as tech companies also were integral to the telemetry which was also really starting to gain ground at the time. No time travel...just a lot of money and nerds who love racing.

Off the topic but important to figure out for us the people where we are and what we actually live in. I bet not many people know in comparison as to the world population that NASA and the world Governments are all Satanists!!! I know thats a huge statement but unfortunately its TRUE! Take the word SATAN wonder why when they do a count down they SAY T - MINUS 30 SECONDS AND COUNTING YEAH??? WELL THIS IS WHY THEY ARE SAYING IT MINUS THE T FROM SATAN AND YOU ARE LEFT WITH THE WORD NASA, THE RED FORK TONGUE IN THERE LOGO IS THE SNAKES TOUNGUE PEOPLE YIP THEY ARE TELLING US THEY ARE SHOWING US IN PLAIN SITE BUT WE THE PEOPLE CANT SEE IT BUT WE ARE SEEING A LOT MORE NOW! ANYONE EVER ANALYSED THE ALFA ROMEO LOGO???? IF YOU TAKE A CLOSE LOOK AT IT THERE IS A SNAKE EATING A MAN ON THE LOGO NO DOUBT SATANIC IF YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT SATANISM THEN ITS PRETTY OBVIOUS IF YOU DONT DO SOME RESEARCH AND REALIZE WHAT THEY ARE TELLING US! END DAYS ARE HERE THE VACCINE IS THE STING OF THE SCORPION ACCEPT IT AND YOU ARE ACCEPTING THE MARK OF THE BEAST DESIGNED TO LOWER YOUR FREQUENCY IF IT DOESNT KILL YOU, DISCONNECT YOU FROM GOD AND I HAVE NO DOUBT THERE IS A MICROCHIP IN THERE WHICH WILL BE ACTIVATED AFTER THE COMING CATACLISM TO BRING ON THERE ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT WITH A CASHLESS SOCIETY WITHOUT THE CHIP BEING IN YOUR BODY YOU WONT BE ABLE TO BUY OR SELL! THE DARKNESS IS MOVING IN AT A RAPID RATE THIS IS A WARNING TO US THE PEOPLE CATCH A WAKE UP AND STOP BEING DISTRACTED WE ARE BEING HUNTED FOR OUR SOULS!! BY SATAN, ONCE YOU TAKE THE VACCINE YOU ARE GIVING UP YOUR SOUL TO THE DARKNESS!

I'm no racing driver and traction control is very distinct sounding, like a hundred taps on the break pedal in a second ^^

But the FIA found no traction control. And people had the same complaints about senna when he was better in the turbo cars.

@@dylanzrim3635 if you watched the video or know the story, Benetton took waaaaay too much time to handle the on board computers, and even then some launch control code was left behind and was still accesible. I imagine they wiped as much as they could

@@mafiousbj What Senna was hearing was the Blown Diffuser. Regarding traction control, Gary Anderson has said that probably all engine manufacturers had some sort of traction control embedded in their software somewhere. What people don't realize is that traction control back then was incredibly basic, just a few lines of code.

It’s common sense that Bennetton were cheating. Won 7 of the first 8 races, then they handed over their data. And subsequently went on to win only 2 of the next 9 races

Come on, he's not a bad guy, him and Mussolini would have made great pals! LOL

But there's only been one driver who could, at any given time, reasonably be suspected of cheating. "The Michael".

It is when they have other things they can get done instead.

​@@AidanMillward Complying with one of the most important new regulations of the year seems like something that should be pretty high on list of things to get done?

Off the topic but important to figure out for us the people where we are and what we actually live in. I bet not many people know in comparison as to the world population that NASA and the world Governments are all Satanists!!! I know thats a huge statement but unfortunately its TRUE! Take the word SATAN wonder why when they do a count down they SAY T - MINUS 30 SECONDS AND COUNTING YEAH??? WELL THIS IS WHY THEY ARE SAYING IT MINUS THE T FROM SATAN AND YOU ARE LEFT WITH THE WORD NASA, THE RED FORK TONGUE IN THERE LOGO IS THE SNAKES TOUNGUE PEOPLE YIP THEY ARE TELLING US THEY ARE SHOWING US IN PLAIN SITE BUT WE THE PEOPLE CANT SEE IT BUT WE ARE SEEING A LOT MORE NOW! ANYONE EVER ANALYSED THE ALFA ROMEO LOGO???? IF YOU TAKE A CLOSE LOOK AT IT THERE IS A SNAKE EATING A MAN ON THE LOGO NO DOUBT SATANIC IF YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT SATANISM THEN ITS PRETTY OBVIOUS IF YOU DONT DO SOME RESEARCH AND REALIZE WHAT THEY ARE TELLING US! END DAYS ARE HERE THE VACCINE IS THE STING OF THE SCORPION ACCEPT IT AND YOU ARE ACCEPTING THE MARK OF THE BEAST DESIGNED TO LOWER YOUR FREQUENCY IF IT DOESNT KILL YOU, DISCONNECT YOU FROM GOD AND I HAVE NO DOUBT THERE IS A MICROCHIP IN THERE WHICH WILL BE ACTIVATED AFTER THE COMING CATACLISM TO BRING ON THERE ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT WITH A CASHLESS SOCIETY WITHOUT THE CHIP BEING IN YOUR BODY YOU WONT BE ABLE TO BUY OR SELL! THE DARKNESS IS MOVING IN AT A RAPID RATE THIS IS A WARNING TO US THE PEOPLE CATCH A WAKE UP AND STOP BEING DISTRACTED WE ARE BEING HUNTED FOR OUR SOULS!! BY SATAN, ONCE YOU TAKE THE VACCINE YOU ARE GIVING UP YOUR SOUL TO THE DARKNESS!

Have to agree. It was not that much effort, every team was keeping this stuff around 'just in case'. Just in case they needed to cheat at some point. It would not have slowed development down, cleaning up code as you go is normal practice.

@@AidanMillward Errrrr, no. We all know it’s no excuse at all, especially with a hidden menu.

The shop is opposite Quark’s

@@AidanMillward didn't know you were a DS9 fan!

@@BOABModels I’m watching every episode through on Netflix.

Its on the main concourse mate, near the toilets, watch out for drunk klingons

@@TonySpike Near the Promenade?

Blundell was underrated.

They should of left those chicanes out. As if another has that problem they won't have a straight to slow down or speed up just barieres to smack

​@@joebone3151Main problem is how little run-off there is at the end if you've got cars approaching at that speed. Parabolica at Monza was approached at ~220 mph by F1 cars in the mid-2000s. It has a larger run-off than the Mulsanne corner and a much higher entry speed, as it's not a basically right-angle, 60 mph corner. Cars approaching at 230, 240+, then slowing to that speed is just too dangerous - especially with multi-class racing. The chicanes on the Mulsanne are relatively quick corners, so the problem of cars slowing with big speed differences is minimised.

Moreno basically drove everything.

Just because it may or may not have had launch control, doesn't meant it always worked as advertised? Either that or they didn't use it every time to try not to be too obvious maybe?

Almost like he was counting on launch control to work, and it didn't...

@@RunDub Yes, that could be true, although one would think that even after a few GPs, after a few failures they would of got a possible working launch control system to be fully reliable, or certainly more reliable. Especially with all the testing time available back then, away from the GPs. Thus one would expect as the season progressed, that the system would develop and the amount of launch failures would decline. What actually happened doesn’t seem to support that. To continue to rely on a faulty launch control system, to the point it’s loosing you significant ground at the start of a good percentage of GPs, throughout the whole season, seems a strange decision / risk to take.

European GP....

@@nickmaclachlan5178 a F1 car using launch control does not have wheel spin like the B194 sometimes had. You can easily see this in 93 and later in 2001. So its pretty obvious that Benetton did not have a "classic" launch control. Indeed the truth is they used a very clever system, which used air pressure in the airbox, rpm,.ambient air pressure and gear to determine the velocity of the car, and "tune" the traction of the car/available torque/power of the engine by spark cutting. As the track conditions sometimes change during a session or a race, sometimes even within minutes(high pressure region coming, track getting "more rubbered in"), as did the grip of the track, this system sometimes was working better and sometimes was useless. It was a very clever system invented by Benetton to "tune" the traction of the car. But it was not a "classic" traction control working with wheel sensors etc. Some now may say - but it affected the traction of the car so it was traction control- if you argue like that, than every team emulated traction control sooner or later, because they all had ways to improve traction and emulate some kind of traction control. Benetton only was the first team to find the best way to emulate some kind of traction control. All the teams worked on something like that. Benetton just did better job in that regard and were able to make such a system work.

Many cars used systems like this. When they found out something was going on the FIA changed the starting lights delay at some race and drivers from different teams made a false start as a result.

@@pcdispatch I believe that race was the 1999 European GP

I dumped it when Pressing Issues started. Now to get a house that has that old school bar vibe and a smoke machine for the full mood 🤣

@@AidanMillward just don’t get rid of the guy that likes to do his lawn right as you start filming lol

The fact that he used his super model girlfriend as a drug mule adds another poison to the mix 🤔

Flav cheating? Oh puuulleeaase as if! LOL The man was as bent as a nine bob note

Consider this. FB wasn't good at cheating. He was bad. Everyone cheated. He just got caught. A lot.

Did Flav ever get caught with 780 pages of another team's intellectual property as Ron Dennis and his team did?

@@sergioleone3583 Intellectual property is lower down the list than ordering a driver to crash deliberately, imho.

I've done loads since that thing happened last year...

@@AidanMillward I'm glad! :D I need to catch up.

Yes. It's one of the reason so many hold him in such high regard. He *OBLITERATED* every one of his teammates in a way Verstappen could only dream. It wasn't until in-car testing was banned that Schumacher's advantage disappeared. Couple that with Schumacher's horrendous motion sickness which made him unable to handle simulators, and his years with Rosberg never quite lived up to what they really should have been.

@@flyingphoenix113 also, schumi never had a great team mate.

And Rubens was quicker on occasion.

@@canismajoris6733, Barichello had a ton of hype behind him before he joined the team, as did Massa. Ask Lewis if Massa was an easy rival.

@@flyingphoenix113 "What they really should have been" doesn't make any sense though considering he was retired, had had a neck injury and was racing in a very different era of F1 at that time alongside Rosberg, mainly brought in as a consultant with no aspirations or pressure to be a performing champion. If anything, Mercedes' current dominance is indication that Schumacher's time there was precisely what it should have been: development and consultation.

Or his honeys.... the man had some taste in tail

The Williams dependance on electronics meant that once it was removed, the analogue car was terrible. Senna discussed it with Prost, hence his prediction of "many accidents" Like many (modern) fighter jets, the avionics keeps it in the air, without it, it's a brick. Williams had to relearn so much that the electronics was able to overcome /disguise. But if you are interested in real racing, check out MOTOGP and SBK.

@@mrpempi - I recently read Adrian Newey's book, and the way he tells things, it wasn't as simple as that. Williams knew that active suspension was going to be banned, but despite that, they simply didn't have enough time to rework the aero and were forced to make educated guesses, quite a few of which turned out to be wrong - the team were driving themselves bananas trying to assess and correct those mistakes on-the-fly (often with Damon pulling double-duty as test and #2 race driver). Ayrton's instinctive sense as to how to push any car to the limits was - and probably still is - unique and unmatched, and even despite the technical issues with the FW16 (of which he was painfully aware), he was absolutely convinced that there was something hinky going on with Benetton - apparently even going as far as to listen out for the engine noise coming from Schumacher's car on the grid.

Schumacher wasn't faster. Senna took an inferior car and put it on pole three races in a row. At Brazil the only reason Senna lost the lead was due to the illegal fuel rig that you have acknowledged. I do believe Senna was having to push the car over the limits whereas Michael could just focus on race Pace. Just remember there was never a single race where Michael Schumacher got pole position while Senna was alive

Phasing them out would have probably worked better in hindsight.

@@AidanMillward absolutely would have but we got the season we did.

Williams already had the best car before they added electronic aids (they only lost the championships in 1991 due to unreliability and blunders), so avoiding a Williams-Senna total domination wasn't a compelling argument for the ban anyway. It really was because they were worried about safety, and the 1993 season proved them right: Senna and Andretti had several crashes because of active suspension behaving weirdly on kerbs, Zanardi crashed heavily at Spa, Berger slid across the track exiting the pits at Estoril, all because of failures of electronic aids.

@@Olivyay oh I know, 1991 was Mansell's to lose (which unsurprisingly he did) and in 1993 Prost was having a lot of trouble adapting not for the sabbatical of the previous year but because he couldn't 'feel' the car due to so many driver aids. However the question remains: when is it that FIA actually decided to ban? I really don't remember that but the way it went after - cars basically the same but stripped out of driver aids - makes me think it was a last minute thing. And then it could have been because Senna was going to Williams added to the retirement of all the other legends..

@@caincha IIRC at first they wanted to ban all aids during the season itself but the teams protested and they accepted to postpone it to the following season. I think it was around the Canadian GP but not sure anymore.

@@Olivyay Canadian GP 1993? Google says it was in June, halfway the season so Senna had already signed with Williams or was well known he would sign soon. That is pretty much how I remember time wise - not calendar wise (if that makes sense) - so Senna signing with Williams could have indeed been what settled the issue of banning driver aids for good.

@MrLewisBate I lived through 1994 but yeah seems it's you who didn't see the video mentioning launch control and the irregular refueling 🙄

Why would Benetton cheat with 1 car only? No logic in that.

There was a huge delta between Schumacher and Johnny Herbert too, and Schumacher/brundle, Schumacher/patrese Newey had to cancel the Ferrari 2000-2001 cheating chapter in his book when they allowed traction control again and newey accused Ferrari of cheating, people said Schumacher would look like an average driver Well Schumacher increased his dominance and newey cars suddenly didn’t look as good lol, Hakkinen quickly retiring

I read about benetton using a blown diffuser effect during 94 and looking back it can only have been from Autosport. I can remember being amazed at the ingenuity, but I've subsequently found out that Renault used exhaust blowing during their turbo era way before... I think it was 83 or 84 or both...

It seems like Facts are not so interessting like Conspiracys. Benneton drive until mid 1993 without anything, while other Cars had already since 2 years TC and AS. Maybe Benneton and Schumacher was abel to move the Car fast without all those Gimmicks, because they never had them actually, beside of 7 Races in 1993. Also like you sayed, Schumacher won not only one Start in the beiginnig of 1994, wich is basicly not possible with a TC. With a TC, he sholud destroy every Start of the first 3 Races. Because a TC accelerate on the 100% Limit of the Car.

That’s just to take the pressure off. It was just a bluff. Singapore rings a bell, same sly guy . Till today he won’t talk about it. If he was so innocent then why didn’t he keep protesting his innocence. Nah ScH cheated and don’t deserve F1 title. I will never believe anything else forever.

@@gregrat6192 whatever the truth, Schumacher certainly made up for it the following year with a dominating display driving the less than perfect B195.

Me thinks that when a driver thinks Launch control has been enabled but he messed up the correct sequence and it would actually not be engaged, he would mess up his start. So not really proof that Launch control was not used. I think MS just got it wrong a few races. There could have been plenty of differences between MS's car and Jos his car as far as updated components are concerned. I suspect Jos his car would have had the same software but he was never informed of the sequence or a laptop was never hooked up to enable it for him.

@@TheBMW2000 I think if launch control had been used and engaged correctly (as you theorise) then it would have been a lot more obvious with Schumacher making a number of incredible starts. If the system was so difficult to engage correctly which lead to Schumacher suffering worse starts than he would normally then running the illegal system was actually a hindrance to his season.

@@alastairjones0 perhaps they got it wrong first race of the season, then didn't use it for a couple, then got it right and then later after FIA found the code did away with it all together. We'll never know I guess untill Briatore writes his memoirs. But I like your thinking

The FIA used USD for everything up until a few years ago when it switched to Euros, so no conversions were done.

“I'm not a tailor. At least, not today.”

@anonymous one he wouldn’t need to do it mid corner. It would be constantly activated. Launch control just another name for a traction control program. Simple eh.

lol

@anonymous one jeez a one you are a naive chap eh.