Yesterday, the World Motorsport Council decided not to give Ferrari further punishment after they were handed a $100,000 fine for using team orders during the German GP. Today, the FIA released the full decision.
Well, if they gonna ask him and he firmly stands on that it was his decision and he was free to do otherwise, what can WMSC do to team?xpensive wrote:Awkward. I think the final verdict might come out pretty surprising, while Massa will be just as desireble at Maranello as Nelson Piquet Jr with the Regie.
Nelson was mad at Flav and allied with MM. I don't see Felipe doing this, although, of course, things may change.xpensive wrote:Massa has said a lot to the media after the race, question is how damning this can be and how the radio-communication is interpreted.
Little Nelson again?
Alonso has a history of disciplinary action that was championship deciding. In Hungary 2007 he blocked Hamilton's last qualifying attempt in the pits. Many people at that time said that the stewards should not have been involved because it was between team mates. But the thing got highly public similar to Ferrari's German action and the FiA stewards decided to drop Alonso five places on the grid from first to sixth. He finished the race fourth. If he had not impeded Hamilton he would have most likely finished first or second. So the action cost him a minimum of three championship points. Those three points would seen him champion in 2007 instead of Kimi. In that case it was a steward's decision and not a WMSC decision but it shows that public pressure plays a big role when it comes to such decisions and that the championship can be influenced. Which ever way the FiA decides (do something or do nothing) it will be influencing the 2010 driver championship with the verdict because Ferrari already took that illegitimate influence at the race.timbo wrote:Or not. As in Renault's case 2007 and Macca's first hearing.WhiteBlue wrote:For an FiA licensee to be the subject of a WMSC disciplinary hearing is usually not good news.
Note that at ALL times even if punishment was imposed the measures chosen were never damaging to overall championship perspective.
Yes, how will they ever fill that seat again? Drivers will forever liken Ferrari with team orders, where before they so "fairly" supported both drivers equally?xpensive wrote:Massa is an F1 veteran by now and has threatend to quit if reduced to a number two if I understand things correctly.
At the same time he seems pissed off with Alonso rolling into Maranello with shitloads of Santander's EU-money.
What if he decides to make good of that threat/promise?
Still waiting for them to penalize the Merc team for unsafe release the way they did Alonso last year. Only difference I see is that Alonso's wheel came off in the middle of nowhere and Rosberg's was in a very crowded pit lane. Oh, and Max had a raging hard on for the Renault team at the time.WhiteBlue wrote:Alonso has a history of disciplinary action [...]
I thought the circumstances were different then. The team knew that the wheel wasn't fixed properly. They should have told Alonso to park the car which they did not. Recently young Henry Surtees had been killed and Massa been hit by a heave spring, so the danger of flying wheels was obvious. In Rosberg's case the wheel came off quickly and the team had no opportunity to tell him to stop.jon-mullen wrote:Still waiting for them to penalize the Merc team for unsafe release the way they did Alonso last year. Only difference I see is that Alonso's wheel came off in the middle of nowhere and Rosberg's was in a very crowded pit lane.
I would hate to sound callous or insensitive, but I feel the stewards should not hand down an abnormally harsh penalty as a way of setting an example. There is an inherently dangerous and absurb aspect to motorsports but I expect the supposedly just part of it to be consistent.WhiteBlue wrote:Recently young Henry Surtees had been killed and Massa been hit by a heave spring, so the danger of flying wheels was obvious.
Of course it isn't practical. That was the whole point of my post and I am sure Ferrari will use this argument which unfortunately is valid. There have been obvious team orders this year and in previous years from all teams. The only reason that Ferrari’s actions caused any controversy was the way it was done i.e. very obviously with no attempt to disguise what was happening. Smedley and Massa have done the right thing by making it obvious what was going on and not hiding it under pseudo-technical messages.WhiteBlue wrote:This is a very idealistic but also very impractical view. The justice of the FiA in F1 is primarily operating as a referee for race weekends. So before an issue gets recognized it has to come to the attention of race control. Very often the officers of the FiA sort things out in private and reject dodgy developments and sporting practices by warnings. The public will not even know about these things.andrew wrote:If the FIA or the WMSC are going to do this properly, they have to look at all teams as they are all as guilty as each other.
If race control deems it necessary to penalize something they can bring it to the attention of the stewards. A second source for action are the teams. If they make official complaints the organs of the FiA take action. One has to consider that the teams often deliberately do not file complaints. I believe that most teams think that team order is something they should have the right to decide according to their own policies. They do not necessarily have an interest to have that prerogative reduced by more legislation and prosecution. They will only take action if they see a competitor run away with a significant advantage in a case that also looks bad to the public. Red Bull's position in the team order in Germany is typical for that stance. They make their disapproval public and rely on the FiA stewards to find a solution. They reserve a protest for a final decision if all other actions fail.
How do those mechanisms work on all the other team orders that have happened since 2003? Basically 99% of all issues get ignored. All issues including those from 2009 are finally closed to FiA justice anyway. When the annual trophy ceremony is done in Monaco each year nothing can change the world championship results. They are set in stone. This is the reason why Piquet jr. revelations did not change the result of the 2008 Singapore race.
I hope I have shown that andrews POV isn't very practical. In a very political way the Ferrari scandal was caused by the prior events at Red Bull. Webber for reasons he only knows himself has played up the team order in Turkey and kicked off another scandal in Silverstone. I believe that his public stance has inspired Massa and Smedley to try something similar. Only that they stopped half way through the exercise and went back to the party line. But the rebellion was enough to get the media on the war path. All the hypocrisy which was fueled by the previous events broke loose and kicked off the scandal. In the end the FiA has to deal with it and they will have to follow precedents and have to uphold the sporting law. They will also have to see to it that no competitor is disadvantaged by illegitimate decisions.
Peeerlease Andrew,try not to be that naive.andrew wrote:I think the Ferrari team orders being obvious was down to Massa and Smedley. Not exactly what the team would want. Kind of a "you f*** with us, so we'll f*** with you" situation.
