Ferrari guilty of team order violation, will attend disciplinary hearing
Ferrari has been found guilty of breaking the team order rules at the July 25th Germany Grand Prix and in addition to the $100,000 fine they received immediately following the race, Ferrari has been scheduled to attend a disciplinary hearing in September.
The hearing is scheduled for Wednesday September 8th and will take place in Paris. The information was released Monday evening by the FIA. The meeting will be chaired by Nick Craw, the World Motor Sport Council deputy president of sport.
Ferrari received the fine after driver Felipe Massa followed a coded message to let teammate and former World champion Fernando Alonso pass him in the final stages of the race to win. Massa had led for 49 of the 67 laps before Alonso took over upon the instructions of Rob Smedley,
“Fernando is faster than you. Can you confirm you understand?”
Overall, Alonso has been the better driver this season, and the team wanted their number one driver to have a better shot at winning another World Championship. Ferrari stated the incident was “a driver decision”, though apologized to Massa following the race which indicates they were in fact aware of the decision.
Ferrari could be excluded from the championship, a decision that would shake the racing community and send a strong message to other teams that this rule is one not to be tampered with. It is unlikely the team will suffer such a fate however.
In 2002, Formula One introduced a rule that a team could not give orders to their drivers that would affect the outcome of the race.The rule was instated after Ferrari’s Rubens Barrichello provided then team-mate Michael Schumacher with a win only meters away from the finish line. Barrichello’s actions were based on getting Schumacher a better position in the driver’s championship. The rule split Formula one circles in half, those who supported it and those who despised it.
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