gums

This thread deteriorated a long time ago...

Ray S

So you're saying this is your first season watching F1?

Give it some time and you'll find that team orders (or favoritism as you call it) have always been a part of F1. Officially banned in 2002 they still go on today.

Is this really news to you?

WHB Porsche

Agreed. I'd party with Kimi any time.

A.Wayne

8 yrs old ..... Pete is still in Daycare mister , lighten up ...............

A.Wayne

Before schumacher ! enlighten me , I'm sure Gilles would be alive today if so..

chris walrod

...

A.Wayne

Looks like Pete and Micheal must be sending Damon hate mail ........



By Pablo Elizalde Tuesday, May 18th 2010, 08:58 GMT

Damon HillDamon Hill has questioned the former drivers' role of assisting the FIA stewards in making decisions during grand prix weekends.

A former F1 driver has been joining the stewards' panel at each race this year, with the likes of Alain Prost, Alex Wurz or Hill himself having been part of the new FIA scheme.

Hill, who joined the stewards for the Monaco Grand Prix, had to judge the incident involving his former rival Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso on the final lap of the race.

Schumacher was eventually penalised and dropped from sixth to 12th position.

Hill, however, believes the former drivers should not be the ones interpreting the rules like on Sunday, and he thinks they should just provide support to the stewards.

"It was a fascinating experience but I wonder whether it is right that drivers are put in the position of interpreting the regulations," Hill was quoted as saying by The Times.

"I imagined I would be there as a consultant providing driver insight to the stewards, who would then make the decisions. My expertise is as a driver rather than a lawmaker or interpreter of regulations."

The former world champion also revealed that he had received hate mail over the decision to punish Schumacher, but he feels he was totally impartial about it.

"Partly, of course, my discomfort was because I was called to make a ruling on an incident involving Michael. I acted entirely properly but I have already received some stinging e-mails accusing me of prejudice."


Don't worry Damon you have my full support .. he deserved it ....

Larry Herman

I'm sure that he feels much better now.

BlueRiver86

Down boy..

It seemed to me that the point of your original MS vs. FA post was to indicate that FA has always been helped by the team and FA hasn't. My point is you can't use favoritism as a crutch when they have both benefitted from it in equal measure.

gums

You know, it's not always about favoritism, this whole concept is misguided. It's often just a question of limited resources (meaning components and such) and trying to win. You put your best foot forward. What else can you do?

BlueRiver86

I'm not arguing against the tactic. It's what we do too..

Ray S

Ahh, I'm sorry if the point of my post wasn't clear. I'd agree that both have benefitted from favorable team strategy in the past.

My point is that with a vastly inferior car to the front runners Michael is not doing too badly, especially considering the car is not set-up to his liking. Wayno seems to have forgotten his record of achievement and believe that Alonso has somehow eclipsed Shumi. However, when you look at there respective records it is apparent that little miss sunshine has not even come close to the level of domination that Michael has had in his career.

Ray S

Why am I not at all surprised that you are clueless to the history of team orders in Formula 1. In the early years they were commonplace and even expected. In fact it used to be legal for a number 2 driver to give up his car to the number 1 if his car was damaged.

Here's an example (watch around 3:15 on the video)



There are plenty of other examples out there if you take the time to look and learn.

Perhaps you should spend a little less time verbally washing Alonso's ***** and a little more time learning about the sport.

BlueRiver86

gotcha

enduro911

This season the FIA has been rather lenient with doling out penalties and I was really enjoying it - didn't see any real need to slap anyone on the knuckles with the ruler just yet. Lewis even had multiple offenses, and yet nothing was serious enough to warrant their attention. Now the Schumacher incident.

- driver encounters an odd set of circumstances and may not know the rule off hand. team doesn't bother to tell the driver otherwise because they aren't expecting the move
- this is the driver/team's first offense this year.
- no more potential damage could have occured here than in previous instances earlier this season where no penalties were given out

To me it just doesn't add up. I know Damon Hill was the steward and we all know what the Brawn/Schumacher has done in the past, but there are diplomatic ways of laying down the line early on in this combo's return to the sport. I don't think going nuclear in the first incident is a good way of disguising it either. What would have been wrong with a warning and potentially heavy penalities at a later point? This is the first poor job of the FIA this year. What a shame.