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Well, they must be, having been found by the FIA to have had breached Article 151(c) of the International Sporting Code, which prohibits "any fraudulent conduct or any act prejudicial to the interests of any competition or to the interests of motor sport generally",, yet, as I predicted, not been penalised. The reason given is that they had gained absolutely no benefit from this; apparently it's different receiving a one-off lump of information from someone who leaves one team to join another compared to having a live "source" in place. Click here for the full judgment. The same day the FIA announced that McLaren must wait until four weeks before the start of next season to find out whether or not they can use their '08 car . The design has been examined by FIA officials to see if it incorporates any Ferrari ideas, but the FIA has elected to wait until February 18th before making any judgment to allow McLaren, Ferrari and the other competitors in the FIA Formula One World Championship to be afforded the opportunity to make considered representations on the report . Does this mean that details of the MP4-23 will be disclosed to other teams, if so,what and when? Whatever happens it'll be too late for Macca to do anything about it if they are found guilty of using Ferrari ideas. The FIA have also announced they are to sue The Sunday Times for libel because they "ran an article (written by Martin Brundle) claiming that the FIA was engaged in a witch-hunt against the McLaren-Mercedes team". Brundle has since responded. They then rounded off a busy week by announcing a forthcoming limitation on aero development. It includes restricting teams to one wind tunnel, banning straighline aero testing and even limiting the number of people working in CFD! I'm not sure whether this smacks of a police or nanny state. However it's clear that by framing the regulations ever tighter, there is only one optimum solution and effort must be directed into finding smaller and smaller things which make an advantage; hence the immense detail complexity of F1 cars and the fact that they all look the same. The days of radically different, but equally effective approaches to F1 design are sadly long gone. Good job they are still allowed different paint jobs! Back on-track, the boys have been out testing again - with a return to slicks! All the drivers have reveled in them and the sooner they come back the better. I can't believe we've had to put up with those ludicrous grooved things for a decade. The slicks did rather confuse things with them being used to set the fastest times on three of the four days. The exception was on Wednesday when Lewis Hamilton was quickest on 'grooves' on his return to the cockpit. It was the first time he'd driven an F1 car without driver aids and said that it was "good fun". He has of course recent relevant experience from GP2. Massa and Raikkonen were third and fourth for Ferrari with Felipe just a gnat's in front. Thursday was interesting because it saw Michael Schumacher return to the cockpit once again. He was eighth quickest on slicks, half a second down on Massa who was again third. More disappointing was the fact that Hamilton was there and second, this being the first time that he and Schuey have been on-track at the same time, however we have no information on Michael's set-up or programme, but maybe we got a clue from the next day. On Friday, the fourth and final day Sebastian Vettel topped the time sheets with his slick-shod Toro Rosso-Ferrari. Fellow young guns Kubica and Rosberg were second and third, but fourth was....Schuey, on slicks, but running 2009 downforce levels which are estimated to be 30% less than this year! He is clearly still at the top of his powers but says he has no interest in coming back to racing. We must hope that he doesn't change his mind and join Ross at Honda. Mind you, he could always do a reverse Surtees and go off and do MotoGP.... As one Schumacher was enhancing his reputation, the other was diminishing
his. Ralf,. having been booted out of Toyota, did not have the sense to
go quietly. He expressed an interest in McLaren, although surprisingly
it was not reciprocated and he ended up testing for Force India (neé
Jordan/MFI/Spyker) on Thursday. He was bog last, later announcing that
he was "not interested" in the drive. Go away and count your
money Ralf and think yourself lucky.
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