Ferrari still think they can win the F1 championship

[Ian]

Oh dear! News is emerging this morning that Ferrari could lodge an appeal against Sebastian Vettel's position in last weekend' Brazilian Grand Prix citing an illegal pass by Vettel under yellow flags on lap 4 of the race.

I just find it incredulous that Ferrari will not stop at anything to clutch at victory - except do what they should do and make a decent F1 car. The use the second driver to help the main driver at any opportunity, both on the track and off the track (deliberately causing a grid penalty for Massa in order to help Alonso in Austin Texas, for example), and now days after the the championship is over they refuse to call it a day. If they are successful and Vettel is hit by a 20 second penalty he would be demoted to 8th position in the Brazilian finishing order, handing Alonso a 1 point advantage in the championship.

If there was an infringement it should have been noted and acted on in time during the race. Clearly, Vettel would have had more than a reasonable opportunity to catch up and achieve a championship-winning position as the alleged misdemeanour was as early as lap 4. Plus, there are at least two reasons why the alleged issue may not be an issue at all - an official waving a green flag prior to the pass and the stewards claiming the situation was not yellow flags but red/yellow. On top of that do we really want the championship decided in the courts? Hasn't Ferrari done enough to engineer their position off the track this year? With Vettel's 5 victories to Alonso's 3, would this be an honourable outcome if Vettel's championship were taken away? It would be shameful in my view.

Ian

[Ian]

Re: Ferrari still think they can win the F1 championship

Thank goodness that the FIA have moved swiftly to put this matter to rest and rejected Ferrari's query.

Ian

[devilgas]

Re: Ferrari still think they can win the F1 championship

i thought that vettel passed under yellows (sky's analysis showed it quite clearly) and didn't get punished. a complaint should've been lodged by ferrari then, and not days after the event.

between alonso and vettel, i thought alonso had the better season. he got the very best out of the ferrari, which meandered between 2nd & 3rd best all season. vettel benefited from a huge dose of good fortune throughout the year - how his car remained running on sunday was unfathomable.
hamilton should've walked it this year, however being punted out in the lead, punted out by maldonado and grosjean, car failing and mclaren screwing things up did for him, it was most definitely the season that wasn't.

[JSR]

Re: Ferrari still think they can win the F1 championship

A friend told me about this yesterday. I had no idea what move they were on about because nothing was mentioned during the race or the forum.

If they're clutching at straws like this, I'm surprised they don't revisit 2008 and question Glock conveniently having issues just at the right moment for Lewis to steal the championship from Massa. I'm sure there are grounds for a complaint -- not!

Ferrari just didn't give Alonso a good enough car this year.

[Ian]

Re: Ferrari still think they can win the F1 championship

A friend told me about this yesterday. I had no idea what move they were on about because nothing was mentioned during the race or the forum.

If they're clutching at straws like this, I'm surprised they don't revisit 2008 and question Glock conveniently having issues just at the right moment for Lewis to steal the championship from Massa. I'm sure there are grounds for a complaint -- not!

Ferrari just didn't give Alonso a good enough car this year.

Precisely.

And so resorting to unsporting strategies like forcing a grid penalty on Massa's car and aggressive team orders from early in the season to paper over their car shortcomings is really unforgivable in my book.

But it's interesting now that Jean Todt has left Ferrari and heads the FIA we don't seem to have quite so many favours to Ferrari any more... interesting that!

Ian