9 replies to this topic

[Bruce]

Villeneuve gets a 25 second penalty following the Canadian GP - presumably for taking RS out.....

Geez, I'll bet he was upset, eh? 25 seconds taken off his brilliant race finish?;) What, that must have dropped him from 16th to 18th!

Really, if the FIA is going to be taken seriously they must provide their penalties with teeth. I don't know that JV's move deserved any punishment that DOES have teeth (ie something that would carry into the next race) but to give a driver who has just made a stupid move and turfed his car out of the race a 25 second penalty that he cannot serve and will be taken off his incomplete race is something of a farce.

Though I was not happy to see DC penalised, at least the penalty DID have real consequences that might discourage repetitions of similar future behaviour... this "punishment" for JV (where in my opinion no punishment was merited) smacks of the ridiculous penalty that MS was given after his move in Jerez... no punishment at all.

Nice to see that JV apologised to RS and that RS was big enough to say "JV apologised immediately afterward and for me that ends the matter" or words to that effect. I begin to like RS more and more....

[Bex37]

Yeh, and also Diniz got a 25s penalty for his effort on De la Rosa. How is this for a poor attitude:

Pedro Diniz: "In the incident with De la Rosa, he had made a mistake and I was side by side with him. I just took my normal racing line, and he kept going. I think he would have been wiser to have backed off."

Is that a case of Pedro admitting that he purposely ran Pedro off the track and then basically saying that he would have done it again given the same circumstances ("he would have been wiser to have backed off")!!!!!

As far as the penalty given to MS at Jerez being "no punishment at all", let me ask you this. Would the 25s penalty that JV got at Canada have the same affect as removing his 5 DWC points? My answer would be that JV and BAR would be extremely pissed off if JV lost those points. And that is after only 8 races, not the entire season like in MS's case. You see, accumulation of world championship points, be it driver's or constructor's, is the aim for every team and driver. The two punishments are worlds apart. Just shows how unfair the FIA ruling for Jerez 97 was.

Based on current events, MS should have only received a 25 s penalty for that Jerez race only. He would have kept his second place in the DWC. I may be alone in this opinion, but loss of a second place in a DWC is a huge pill to swallow.

[Clatter]

I think your very alone in that opinion.

You either win the WDC or you lose it, 2nd place counts for nothing. No one remembers or cares who came 2nd, 3rd etc.

As a punishment it was meaningless. Deliberatly trying to run someone off the track should result in an immediate ban for at least 3 races if not more.

[RedFever]

Bruce is actually starting to like....SChumacher!!!!!! eh, eh, eh ;)

[Bruce]

No! I'm not RedF! I swear it was a typo!!!;)

Bex, the reason that I thought that MS's penalty at Jerez was a little lame was the context - prior to the 1997 race, with 1994 fresh in their minds, the FIA promised "Draconian" measures (looking pointedly at JV and MS) should anyone decide to settle the WDC with a crash....

MS's punishment was hardly Draconian... 2nd place in the WDC? who cares? If the FIA had stripped him of his race wins that year, it would have had more teeth, but I still think that to punish good past performances for a current mistake is silly. Why strip MS of anything which he earned fair and square?

I expected the FIA to ban MS from the first race or two of the next season... given the result of the race at Jerez, this would have been the harshest possible punishment - after all, he lost the 97 WDC on his own terms, and now he would have had his 98 WDC made more difficult...

The FIA argued that carrying the punishment into the 98 season would not have acted as a deterrent, as this would mean a driver could presumably risk everything at the final race of the season and not have to worry about punishment being inflicted until the next season... also, the suggestion was that had MS's move knocked JV out and given MS the WDC, the FIA would have stripped him of first place in the WDC, gifting it to JV - something that, given the amount that the FIA vacillates, is hardly a sure bet...

Thus, in the context of the FIA's warning, I think that MS's punishment was almost non-existant - and JV's at Montreal was certainly so - So why "punish" someone if the punishment has NO effect, and is NO deterrent?

In the case of Montreal, my suspicion is that the FIA wanted to make sure that DC's was not the only penalty handed out in the race - by giving P de la R and JV 25 sec penalties, the FIA is able to say, "look, DC was not the only one punished... we're being tough on everyone..." the reason for my thinking this is that I cannot remember a similar punishment being meted out on drivers for "offences" like JV's and de la Rosa's - so why were they meted out in this last race?

[The RedBaron]

I have to agree with Bruce on this one- Schumacher should have got a 2/3 race ban and served it out at the beginning of the 98 season. It would have sent a clear signal to all drivers for the future

[baddog]

I also agree with bruce.. a 2 race ban or such would have seemed fair. What I objected to was the people calling for him to be banned for anything from a year to life.. a short ban would have been proportional

Shaun

[Williams]

Such a penalty might have been "fair", but it wasn't going to happen. To have handed such a penalty to arugably the only driver capable of taken the WDC fight to McLaren, destroying all chances of a competetive season of F1 would have been insane. The financial consequences of such a penalty would have been far more damaging to the sport (for the 1998 season), than to MS.

The moral consequences, of course, are a different matter, but those have not been considered since before the days of Senna and Prost.

[Chris G.]

I sure am glad no one (in this post) said DC's penalty was unfair. Japan98 is proof that Ferrari/MS haters should like that rule (I know, warmup vs. start, but the same factors and risks come into play).

[Clatter]

DC's penalty was correct and I really think he is out of order for complaining about it. If anything he got off lightly as he should have been at the back of the grid.

I was surprised thou that they did not abort the start of the parade lap as they surely must have seen that there were people still on the track and it was dangerous to allow the cars to set off.