Firstly, reading back thru this nausea, I realize I'm coming off as something of an FIA apologist - I really don't mean to and they're certainly a long way from perfect. What I refuse to buy in to is the conspiracy theories. Are some of their actions "arbitrary" - I guess it seems that way on occasion. Was Sean Paytons season long ban arbitrary? There's many other examples, in pretty much all sports, of the rules makers making decisions which we fans either don't like or understand. That's the nature of the game(s). But, only very, very, rarely are such decisions made with less than honorable intentions. [Oh, how much easier life was when we could simply blame Mad Max! ] While true, and I think I said it at the time, I honestly believe they were taking the piss - They knew they'd found a "loophole" and wanted to show folk that the rules are open to interpretation. Such unintended loopholes are why we have the Charlie rule. They didn't (couldn't) ban the EBD as there was no article which addressed the whole thing. Had he invoked the Charlie rule I think they'd have appealed it, and Charlie hates losing appeals. The mass damper is a touchy one - I have argued that although it wasn't in the airflow it was certainly a "moveable aero aid" and therefore illegal. I do also suspect that Mad Max's evil fingers *may* have been involved, and if true, that's not only wrong but an isolated exception IMO. And the EBD wasn't outlawed until the off season. I suspect this will be too come next year. Agreed! eek: ) on the first part. What I'm not buying is the implication that Charlie has some kind of hidden agenda. IMO he tries to be fair and interpret the rules for the good of all. Not to influence the championship. Cheers, Ian
I´m not going to argue about this, as nobody has any real evidence; and actually I´m not the greatest conspiracy theorist around here (for example, I don´t believe that the 2007 season finale was scripted, or almost not all of it). I do believe that FIA´s controversial decisions are quite often very "opportune" to spice the championship or to just piss someone who refused to sign a concorde agreement. Although as someone said: don´t blame evilness when you can blame just sheer stupidity.
True. But sometimes they just are trying to keep a doubtful manufacturer happy, like when they allowed Toyota to use the double deck diffuser after they´ve threatened to leave. The others who used that "loop hole" were a struggling Honda (which left F1 anyways) and Williams (a team which owed money to Bernie). OK, I know that you don´t agree. Do as you want, I´ll keep the tin hat on.
I totally agree with you. Particularly as we are now starting to hear the first questions being raised about MB's stay in F1 when there are little results to show for. The part I don't get is why the FIA banned Lotus' design: Here is a small team that could really use a break.
