Formula One: Ferrari drivers summoned for team ordering hearing case
FIA has summoned both the Ferrari drivers, Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso, to appear before World Motor Sport Council (WMSC) this Wednesday.
Ferrari is facing the hearings of a case against them, for team ordering that they have been accused to practice at the German Grand Prix, held in the month of July.
The stewards of the race charged the team with a penalty of $100,000, while the case was directed to WMSC for further investigation. Now, both the drivers have been asked to come over for the proceeding of the case that is to take place on 8th of September in Paris at the Place de la Concorde.
At the German Grand Prix, while both the Ferrari drivers were leading the race, with Massa at front while Alonso following him, the former moved aside to let Alonso pass by him, thus bagging victory of the day. This action had been taken as one of the most evident practices of team ordering ever seen on track, thus breaching the FIA regulations very clearly.
It was further assured by recordings derived from the race as Massa was told by his race engineer Rob Smedley, in a coded message: "So Fernando is faster than you? Can you confirm you understand that message?"
It took only another few short laps before the racer slowed down and moved aside to hand the victory to his teammate, Alonso.
It was soon after the race that the German race stewards accused Ferrari for doing a forbidden act on the track and was imposed the fine.
As per the FIA regulations, team ordering is taken as a very big offense, as the law bans any such team strategy which could unlawfully affect or alter the team results.
The team had also been informed that they would be facing the World Motor Sport Council before they move for their next race to Italy, the team’s home race. There are even speculations that they could be handed a race ban or their German GP points could be held back for bringing disrepute to the sport.
As per the early reports, Rob Smedley, the race engineer of Felipe Massa and the team boss Stefano Domenicali were supposed to attend the hearing, however it had been recently reported by Spanish daily newspaper ‘AS’ that both the team drivers had also been summoned by FIA for the proceeding of the case.
Well, this is not the first time that the team had been accused for such a thing; rather they had always been famous for this. Previously in the year 2007, at the Brazilian Grand Prix, the same team got engaged in team ordering among its drivers of the season, Felipe Massa and Kimi Räikkönen. Then it was Räikkönen who was let to win by Massa, as the later was delayed at a pit stop to let the other move ahead. The very next year the team again carried the same strategy at the Chinese Grand Prix where Räikkönen, who had no hope for winning the title that year, gave up his front position for Massa.
The most famous example of the same was seen when Ferrari had the couple of Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello. Initially, the team followed ordering in 2002 at the Austrian Grand Prix, letting Schumacher win, for whom the championship of the year was waiting and later in 2005, once again at the United States Grand Prix a similar scene was witnessed when Barichello let Schumacher win, thus giving the driver and the team their only victory of the season.
Well, now one hopes that after so many incidents of breaching the same law from the same team, this case would either teach them a good lesson or would have the law amended.
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