I can break it down for you pretty quickly. Here’s the main threads of fall-out thus far from the FIA’s decision not to punish Ferrari any further over the German Grand Prix incident and to acknowledge it will look into the ban on “team orders.” (I.e. they are going to overturn that ban.)
We’ve got the following:
- Fernando Alonso got grilled today about it and said, flat-out, he would still be a fair and worthy champion if he were to win the drivers’ title. He must be getting sick of being the guy at the center of these various incidents/scandals.
- Christian Horner says the “precedent” has been set about use of team orders. In other words, Mark Webber had better make himself Red Bull’s clear favorite this weekend, or he might be getting impossible to misunderstand calls over his radio.
- The drivers want the now extremely gray area surrounding team orders clarified ASAP. Yeah, keep dreaming guys.
I guess the worst thing that could happen to Formula 1 at this point would be for something similar to occur at Monza, especially if it clearly took away from the on-track action.
Honestly, even though I know to an extent nothing has changed, it does feel like anything is possible. Do teams have carte blanche now? And what about during later races? If moving one driver by another will seriously effect title outcomes, can’t we expect jockeying all up and down the grid? If you’re Force India, for instance, and in the last race Vitantonio Liuzzi is ahead of Adrian Sutil, and that one position would mean Sutil staying ahead of Michael Schumacher in the final standings, isn’t that worth a $100,000 penalty?
That’s probably what the problem is. The FIA got all caught up in previous incidents of team orders and was wishy-washy on those precedents. But as Horner said, the precedent is now there: It’s $100,000 fine and that is it.
Can I say, “Well done, FIA,” again?
