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2006: Arguable FIA interference

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The 2006 season has been above all a year to remember doubtful interference by the FIA, the governing body of the sport. After a pretty peaceful start of the year, the race directors woke up at Monaco after Schumi deliberately parked his car on the circuit during qualifying. The German was, surprisingly, punished for his actions. Later on, it looked like payback time after the mass dampers were disallowed at Renault after a possible Ferrari complaint. All the way through the season, marshalls were also handing out penalties during qualifying for (un)deliberate blocking, the most blatant being for Alonso at Monza. And even then, the teams were prohibited the use of flexible wings early in the season while Ferrari was allowed to run the aerodynamic carbon rings in the rear wheels. While some teams were obviously experiencing hard times and are thinking through their 2007 strategies, the FIA have a lot more to reflect on.

Comments

By mx_tifoso on 03-01-2007 at 01:59

I\'m guessing only Ferrari and M.Schumacher committed errors during the 2006 season right? Its nice of you to only point out these teams errors and not other teams as well
Since i joined this forum i noticed that almost, key word almost, everyone favours a team that is not Ferrari, or a race driver that is not Michael Schumacher

P.S. I personally am a fan of this team and driver

By Steven on 03-01-2007 at 12:38

Well... it\'s not about Ferrari here, I\'m pointing out some possible errors of judgement that the FIA have made.

The carbon rings are a very good idea indeed, but to allow it as a \"brake aid\" while it reduces brake cooling is something to smile about.

If may be clear that the FIA\'s misjudgement has sometimes made things difficult to understand and that for one is not really good for F1.

By DaveKillens on 03-01-2007 at 16:27

It is the task of each team to push the boundaries of the rules, to seek out any advantage over their competitors. Then, it becomes incumbent upon the rulesmakers and enforcers to ensure fairness and some semblance of equality between teams.
What happened at Monaco was one driver\'s responsibility, he bears the total burden of accountability for his actions. Michael Schumacher was penalized, and has to carry that for the rest of his life. That is no reflection of his team, who are mainly hard working people with integrity. The people at Ferrari have every reason to be proud of all their hard work, from the unknown parts assemblers and mechanics to the chaps who sit all day staring at computer monitors, going over CAD displays.
What is questionable are the actions of the people supposed to keep a level playing field, the FIA. They have displayed incredible inconsistencies. One day they have no problem with a questionable part such as the carbon ring, then the next day they decide to ban the mass damper. That is the great problem, the organizers and rules makers giving the general impression of inconsistency and possible bias.

By Jason on 08-01-2007 at 11:53

I always wanted Max Mosley and Michael retire, I get only 50% of my dream when Schumi decided to retire In Monza.

PS: I had enough of the FIA. :evil:

By mx_tifoso on 10-01-2007 at 01:04

Maybe you should run the FIA Jason, have you ever thought about that ? give it a try

By m3_lover on 10-01-2007 at 05:15

PWNED!!!!!!

By West on 10-01-2007 at 06:32

Austria 2002 ruined my image of Ferrari. I was a ignorant fanboy supporter (like a ton of people) until I saw a clip of this on the web. It didn\'t help to see Jerez 1997 either.

Ferrari has been the center of controversy whether they were guilty or not. When Ferrari ran those flex- wings at the beginning of the year, the FIA just told them, relatively lightly, to take them off. Compare that to the FIA threatening to take away Renault\'s points for the season if they didn\'t remove the mass-damper system. And to ban it as an \"aerodynamic device\" of all things. More ammo for conspiracy theorists.

I supported Renault and Alonso before they won their championships, let alone Alonso\'s first victory.

By allan on 11-01-2007 at 04:52

well dear west, not only ferrari used the \"flexy\" wings.. if u look at any other onboard camera, u would see the wings moving at the same manner, if not more! and dave, fo the first time i would disagree with u... i don\'t wanna open another discussion, and at first i believed michael did the monaco thing on purpose, but after reviewing the videos hundreds and hundreds of times, i knew he didnt...
i wouldn\'t expect the next season to be any better... why? u\'ll see.. FERRARI ARE CHEATING... THEY ARE PLAYING WITH THE ENGINE... FLEXABLE WINGS.. and all this bs, especailly from Renault won\'t stop... remember my words :wink:

By mx_tifoso on 11-01-2007 at 16:47

It will never stop, you know why ? because its RACING !
so get over it people, every team will always \"play\" with the engine, earodynamics, its the only way to advance and possible win,
And all of you talking cr*p about Ferrari, stop with the jealousy and the hate, you\'re not getting anywhere with it
And about Ferrari/flexywing and Renault/massdampers,
the one with the most effect was the mass damper, when they officially made the flex wings illegal,it didnt effect the teams as much as when the mass dampers where taken away from Renault, renault had a huge drop in performance and didnt win for many races,until Japan, thats why the FIA took different approaches towards both teams and problems

By Principessa on 11-01-2007 at 17:41

As during the season, there are a lot of opinions on this topic! I\'m not going to express mine here again...I\'m totally focussing on the new season that is almost kicking off! Of course we first have the launches to look forward too! ...and we\'ll just have to wait and see with which clever things they come up this season :wink:

By Sawtooth-spike on 11-01-2007 at 17:45

Can i Just point out as Tomba Did,

This is not about who did what. Its about How the FIA delt with Issues. No need to draw battle lines.

The Main FIA Mess up in my Eyes was Alonso\'s penalty for blocking Massa, Which was totaly un called for as he was no where near him. Did max or Burnie even say it was the wrong call?

By mx_tifoso on 11-01-2007 at 19:42

Maybe at normal street speeds the distance that seperated Alonso and Massa would take a while to cover,but as we all know in Formula 1 speeds are much higher thus covering distances much much quicker,so the fact that Alonso was penalized for blocking Massa may have been of good and decent judgment by the FIA,Alonso may have been going at a much lower speed than Massa and would have obstructed him and possibly caused an avoidable accident,I dont remember exactly how the scenario was, was Alonso coming out of the pits or barely getting up to speed and Massa was on a flying-lap ? wasnt if something similar to that ?

And I\'m not drawing battle lines,I\'m simply stating the problems that we all see and talk about,such as the flex-wings and the mass dampers, they generated much controversy and made many people doubt the judgement of the FIA,which is pretty much the topic of this discussion

And yes, we should concentrate more on the up coming season, as the new cars are barely coming out and there is much anticipation towards the new drivers and the driver-team changes

By Ignis Fatuus on 12-01-2007 at 08:53

Mosley said he wouldn\'t penalise Alonso. Also they changed the (unwritten part of the) rule few days after the penalty so something like that won\'t happen again. That means they knew they made a mistake.

But this should be about F1 Technology. :wink:

By zidane13 on 12-01-2007 at 16:17

with engine freeze for 3 years, do you all think that this rule will be become unfair to the other less unreliable team? then this obviously give more advantage to \'you know who\' (ferrari - yes my friend!). then, this new season, that i heard that they\'ll allowing permissable mass dampers... ferarri the 1st to try this mass dampers. why this thing able to happen when the last season the FIA\'s was threatening to the Renault Team that they would deduct the championship points?
and the monza incident (when alonso was dropped to 7th place on starting grid) due to aerodynamic impedance, i really furiously mad! i think fia should have more clarity and cannot affort to expose more controversy...

By teecof1fan on 02-04-2007 at 06:00

i agree with the comments about the FIA...it doesnt seem like they are very consistent with their penalties (looking at hungary and italy last year, and even jarno trulli dragging his still-attached rear jack stand down the pit lane at australia this year) i sometimes wonder if the FIA even uses a system, definition, or precedent when handing out these judgements heheh. but about the engine homologation, i dont think itll hurt the smaller teams. i think all the engines are so closely matched this year first of all, and second, smaller teams like red bull, str, williams, and spyker are using bigger teams\' engines like ferrari, renault, and toyota. i think its all the other aspects that put smaller, less well-funded teams at a disadvantage...by the way, mx_tifosi sounds a little bitter eh?

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