At an extraordinary meeting of the World Motor Sport Council held in Paris on 29 April 2009, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes admitted five charges of breaching article 151c of the International Sporting Code relating to events at the Australian and Malaysian Grands Prix.
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Its a fine mess you've got yourself into McLaren. I cant imagine what they were thinking. LH had already given a interview were he said he had let Trulli past. Dumb dumb dumb
The FOZ wrote:
I don't know about you, but in a sport as popular as F1, it's pretty much a given that someone will always have a better camera angle, recording, or perspective than the Stewards. Now, in this particular instance, the camera shot was phenomenally telling, and wouldn't always be.
But to shut the door on the potential of future evidence is foolishness. They made their decision based upon all they knew at the time. At the time. At a later time, they knew more, so they reviewed their decision with what they knew at THAT time.
If you were in that position, had to make a decision based upon the best information available at a certain moment, and then found out that better information was available, wouldn't you want to revisit the decision?
Keep apologizing for the disgraceful job the FIA did. It really gives me a laugh when people get trapped into defending the impossible. The FIA always has the radio transcripts, or access to them as they control it before the media broadcasts it live. They also always have the in car camera feeds and full access to all television feeds and records. That they ruled based upon "the information had at the time" matters not because they had not done a professional and thorough investigation of all that they had access to before they went off half-cocked and made a rash ruling.
OK, LH, Ryan etc. lied..... punish them accordingly. But don't let the FIA off the hook for royally f'ing up the whole matter. They get paid handsomely to tend to these matters and they simply didn't do even a grade school level job of it. If they did even a half ass job of it they would be aware of what LH told the media before the stewards got to him. If they did even a half ass job they would have seen the in-car feed from JT's Toyota when he repassed LH and LH was pulled over off-line. They would have seen LH's in-car feed when he passed JT at turn 15. They wouldn't have ruled against JT and Toyota and mixed up the results the way they did which forced them to amend their mistake. Where is the penalty for their mistake?
And now that it is all out in the open, and we know beyond all doubt that the FIA was derelict at their duties and unprofessionally hasty in their actions, why haven't they apologized and been made to grovel as LH has. Let's trot Max and the Aussie stewards out in front of the cameras and ask them the tough questions. Lets put the heat on them and make them openly admit to their glaring incompetence. Lets have some equity in assigning the blame for the whole mess.
Last edited by gcdugas on 04 Apr 2009, 02:25, edited 1 time in total.
Innovation over refinement is the prefered path to performance. -- Get rid of the dopey regs in F1
All this wouldn't happen if the FIA did their job competently. That case should have been settled during the commercial break . All teams and drivers lie, its just a matter of who gets caught. Toyota lied with their bendy wings too.
Sort of like breaking the speed limit and being asked if you were speeding. Would you admit to speeding? Many of us here would choose to lie, just to save a couple dollars on a speeding ticket, imagine if that's a couple million ?
1.) Does the FIA consider an investigation complete when all the radio records, all the in-car camera footage, and all the TV camera footage have not been reviewed?
2.) Does the FIA get paid to perform these duties?
3.) Does the FIA consider itself a professionally run organization?
4.) Does the FIA plan to retain these same stewards for next year's Aussie GP? Why, why not?
5.) Can the FIA stewards be punished if they fail to do their job correctly?
6.) Can the FIA stewards be fined? And to whom would such a fine be paid? The aggrieved parties being the Aussie promoter, who has to do "damage control" PR smoothing out efforts for next year's GP, and Toyota who had their name dragged through the mud for illegal passing?
7.) Lewis Hamilton has publicly apologized, will there be a public apology coming from the FIA stewards to Jarno Trulli and Toyota?
8.) Can the teams, in this case Toyota, seek redress against the FIA for hardship suffered?
9.) Are you pleased with the job the Aussie stewards did last week?
10.) If the teams do things that "bring the sport into disrepute", they will face a stiff penalty. What is the penalty if the FIA does something that "brings the sport into disrepute"? To whom is any fine paid? One would think that FOM and CVC have seen their product portrayed in a poor light and seen its value diminished. Can they pursue legal action against the FIA for gross incompetence?
11.) Can the Aussie FIA stewards be dragged before the World Motorsport Council? Will they?
12.) Just how incompetent does the FIA have to be before they actually publicly admit to screwing something up?
13.) In view of the fact that the FIA stewards ruled against Jarno Trulli and Toyota before they considered all the facts that they had available to them in radio records, in-car footage, team conversations with FIA Race Director Charlie Whiting, public statements made by the teams to the press that Mac let JT regain the position, numerous other TV camera angles etc., would you, Max Mosley, describe such a ruling as "hasty" at best and "incompetent" at worst?
14.) Do any of the Aussie stewards hold other positions of responsibility within the FIA?
15.) Would you please publicly name all the FIA officials involved, list the description of their duties, and rate the job that you think they did with descriptive reasons for each person rated?
16.) Is this the level of performance that we can expect from the FIA in the future?
17.) Would you, Max Mosley, have us believe that you have never "been economical with the truth", shaded the meaning of words, twisted a statement, or misrepresented the meaning of a past statement?
18.) F1 touts itself as the "pinnacle of motorsports", would you claim that the FIA is the "pinnacle of motorsports management"? Why? Why not?
19.) As one who speaks the English language, could you clearly define these three words in a truthful manner? The first word is "movable" The second word is "aerodynamic". The third word is "device". Answer truthfully now.
20.) Does the FIA think that it's sh!t doesn't stink?
Last edited by gcdugas on 04 Apr 2009, 03:45, edited 1 time in total.
Innovation over refinement is the prefered path to performance. -- Get rid of the dopey regs in F1
Spencifer_Murphy wrote:Yeh its really pathetic admitting to the world that you did something wrong
All he admitted was that David fooled him, and he innocently believed him and that he was sorry. It was a team's decision, but they put all the blame on Ryan. That stinks more than anything that happened in F1 for years! I'm really sorry about McLaren. They were a great team.
Spencifer_Murphy wrote:Yeh its really pathetic admitting to the world that you did something wrong
All he admitted was that David fooled him, and he innocently believed him and that he was sorry. It was a team's decision, but they put all the blame on Ryan. That stinks more than anything that happened in F1 for years! I'm really sorry about McLaren. They were a great team.
McLaren still are a great team mate, and will continue to be a great team. These things happen sometimes in motor racing, this is not the first time, it wont be the last time either. I don't think it is completley justified that McLaren (yet again) is made to look like the bad guys in this situation, I agree that whatever they did was stupid, but it is completley inexcusable that the Stewards came to a decision without ingestigating all evidence that was available to them. That the Stewards disqualified Hamilton for fibbing and misleading them is very silly too, a driver or team should never be in a position to mislead the Stewards anyhow.
Unfourtunatley the FIA does not answer to anyone but themselves. Perhaps there may be some sort of internal investigation into the Australian GP Stewards happening, but I think that most people would agree that any solution (if any at all) will be dealt by the FIA themselves, and no one will hear about it, it wont be some kind of tabloid. The FIA in no way would see Toyota as the riteous ones to crucify the Stewards who screwed this mess up in the first place.
lkocev wrote:McLaren still are a great team mate, and will continue to be a great team. These things happen sometimes in motor racing, this is not the first time, it wont be the last time either.
What I dislike most is that they failed to take responsibility as a team, and picked a scapegoat insted.
@ gcdugas - Toyota came up with their public appology instantly after the DQ for the flex-wing issues was announced. This is offtopic though.
Last year at this time you were involved in a sordid sex scandal with disputed N@z! overtones. You retained the Quest Investigative Service run by Lord Stevens. If he conducted the investigation into who set you up with the same degree of thoroughness that the FIA stewards ran their Aussie 2009 GP inquiry, would you pay Lord Stevens? Does the F1 watching public deserve any less than you expect from those acting on your behalf?
Innovation over refinement is the prefered path to performance. -- Get rid of the dopey regs in F1
@ gcdugas what are you trying to prove? It'd be hard to find a person out here that thinks Mosle should stay as the FIA president. But that's offtopic again.
What is disgusting is to see a man with 35 years of loyal service to the same team, being humiliated in public, only because of the need to satisfy someone's never ending hunger for showing off his political power.
"I spent most of my money on wine and women...I wasted the rest"
McLaren being caught lying through the actions of Ryan and Hamilton is one thing; if it turns out that they have properly scapegoated Ryan and lied again about who knew about what was going on, I would fear for the consequences on their behalf. The FIA is not going to like that at all. The Times does in fact have an admission of sorts on this issue but it would be improper to report it here at this stage.