kb – surely we appeal for, against or to something or someone?

Appeal on it’s own is just wrong.

We quite often appeal decisions but I don’t speak you people’s dialect every day so I wouldn’t know for sure if that is standard English English legal usage…

The article actually goes on to say that the FIA are required to investigate whether there is an appeal or not.

If he passed under yellow, he should not be WDC.

Game over.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/104644

Good

I think it’s good too that Ferrari have the right to ask questions if they feel a rule has been broken.

it was always going to be a non entity because if Ferrari lodged its appeal, then RBR would simply have told the FIA to withdraw webber from the race results and a made up infringement that was not covered in the post race inspection (i.e. they changed his car setup on the start line before the race) and RBR would have taken a 10,000EU fine and still won the title.

it would have plunged F1 into yet another “shoot itself in the foot” controversy showing it was far more concerned about minor tiny rule following and post-race infringements that the sport itself.

personally there should be a simple rule change that would state if the stewards didnt see it or report it during the race, then it cannot be brought up otherwise.

Roady-tony – would you apply the same thinking to other sports eg goal-line technology, hawk-eye etc? (Genuine question BTW!)

But….
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/20541589
The beast lives on…………… 😆

The FIA confirmed to AUTOSPORT that no team had asked for a review of the incident.

Roady-tony – would you apply the same thinking to other sports eg goal-line technology, hawk-eye etc?

I would, if the refs or stewards etc. miss something and no one else brings it up immediately for clarification, that should be it.
It should always be about the spectacle and not decided in a court or committee room days or weeks later

Happy for Lance to keep his TdF wins then?

As an ex-rugby player (now doing a little coaching) my view is that the referee’s version of reality is final.

If he wishes to see a replay and the camera footage is available then fine, but either way referees never get decisions wrong – by definition, end of.

Citations are of course a different matter.

Happy for Lance to keep his TdF wins then?

Keep?
It’s about the moment IMO

Officially stripping him of his titles means very little, those that got pleasure from seeing him win can’t erase the memory of it.

although, I’m not sure an error on a race track is quite the same as setting off in the race to cheat your way to a win, that shows intent.

But yes, i’m happy if he keeps his wins, he can stick them right up his skinny arse as far as I’m concerned.

Happy for Lance to keep his TdF wins then?

Drugs are different than technical rule infringements. That is effectively fraud, this yellow flags thing is like a ref missing an off side or a forward pass. Small fry.

E.g. If it came out that RBR had been de-frauding the sport by filing false accounts that allowed them to exceed the budget cap then I would expect them to be retrospectively stipped of all of their titles gained during the period they cheated and banned from future races.

That would be analogous to Lance, not this. This would be analogous to Lance being shown to have had a push off a team car to get back to the peleton after a puncture, early in the race when the true impact after 3 weeks of racing is impossible to fathom.

Small fry.

Wouldn’t it change the result of the World Championship? Hardly small fry when we consider the money involved prestige.

Honestly, is this a serious story?

I thought that pass was investigated and concluded as being legal during the race, there should be no appeal allowed, the Investigation conducted at the time should stand, that was the FIA investigation and it’s been concluded, end of.

This sort of thing is Ferrari all over (IMO) though; terrible loosers, hardly averse to bending the rules themselves, they’ve clearly been spending the last couple of days cooking up this marginal case and are testing it the “Court of public/press opinion” before deciding on lodging it for real with the FIA to get them what?

A “title” that now comes loaded with accusations of sour grapes and poor sportsmanship? I’d Just let it go and start worrying about next year if I were them…

Perhaps Massa’s “faulty gearbox” at the previous round and the one place further up the grid Alsonso started as a result should be subjected to further scrutiny? Yeah OK they didn’t break any rules but it’s hardly in the spirit of the sport and makes a mockery of qualifying if that’s how teams are going to behave, it’d be easier cheaper and farer if they all just drew strawers Saturday afternoon to decide the order for Sunday…

I’d suggest a rule change for 2013 that stops teams fabricating mechanical faults in one of their cars in order to bump their other driver up the starting order…

Hows about they just take 3 points off Vettel and make them share the drivers title for 2012? feasable?

Still I do like a sport that divides opinion, at least F1 manages that…

Given the tenacity and sheer brilliance Alonso has shown this season, it would have been good for him to have snatched it.
It didn’t happen and that should be the end of it now.

Minor infringements go un-noticed all the time but do we really want the various teams going though hours of VT looking for a possible foul they can protest?
Not me

I thought that pass was investigated and concluded as being legal during the race

It wasn’t

Wouldn’t it change the result of the World Championship?

Would it have changed the result if he had be caught at the time. Impossible to tell but it is very likely he would have been able to fight back to 9th (with Webber subsequently dropping out to give him 8th).

Its small fry becuase it was a one off small infrignement at the time, missed by the “referee” with an uncertain impact on the result. Not a consistent deliberate breaking of rule as per LA.

A good analogy is the England Germany game at the last world cup. Frank Lampard had a goal disallowed despite it being clearly over the line. Had that goal been allowed the course of the game would have been different, you could argue England would not have been so crap as they wouldn’t be chasing the game, you could argue Germany were so superior they would have won anyway. So after the game what is an appropriate decision? There isn’t one.

So in the interests of sanity we accept that refs make mistakes, that this is part of the game. We try our hardest to stop the mistake happening the first place but when it does happen then we don’t try to do the impossible an impose a penalty that corrects the result.

(The 20s penalty is designed to be used when there isn’t enough time left in the race for the driver to serve a drive through. Not to retrospectively penalise for things not spotted at the time.)

This sort of thing is Ferrari all over (IMO) though; terrible loosers (sic)…

The FIA said no team had appealed or asked them to investigate. But don’t let that get in the way of your bias.

Given the tenacity and sheer brilliance Alonso has shown this season, it would have been good for him to have snatched it.
It didn’t happen and that should be the end of it now.

Minor infringements go un-noticed all the time but do we really want the various teams going though hours of VT looking for a possible foul they can protest?
Not me

+1
On the one hand there’s no point having the rules if you’re not going to apply them consistently, and the rules around yellow flags are there for a good reason. But on the other hand sport is about the spirit, not the letter of the rules, and it’s hard to argue that Vettel has gained any unfair advantage.

The result should stand, and my opinion of Alonso has dipped a little if he’s pushing this.

This sort of thing is Ferrari all over (IMO) though

You mean Ferrari the team who hadn’t lodged any appeal over this incident that had been brought to light by others after the event and which the FIA itself was duty bound to investigate. Oh yeah, their fingerprints are all over this one… 🙄

thegreatape –
Ferrari were penalised just because a little seal broke on Massa’s gearbox the other week, even though it probably just caught on something and they never even needed to do any work on it.

Ferrari werent penalised. Massa was penalised by Ferrari for out qualifying Alonso.

[/quote]Surely, after a title has been won, you can’t take it away based on evidence of cheating that only comes to light after the event?

Oh – I forgot. This is a cycling forum.

Theres a job at the UCI with your name on it for sure

I’m happy to admit to having a bit of an Anti-Ferrari bias it’s a sport and therefore is bound to engender a bit of tribalism…

F1 teams don’t leak the possibility of lodging an FIA appeal to the press unless they want to see what the PR fallout such a decision might be, otherwise they’d just bang the appeal in and be done with it.

I know there are plenty of challenges lodged by all teams throughout a season, but this has the feel there being a little bit of desperation about it.

As it had played out Sunday the story of 2012 was quite a good one; Alsono missed out by 3 points despite starting the season as a pig of a car, to Vettle who had what appeared to be a relatively easy ride in a strong car. That still left the question open as to who would have been the better driver if given more equally performing cars…

This affair just adds a footnote that starts to cast Ferrari in a poor light and takes the shine off of Alonso’s performance, He did bloody well considering.

This affair just adds a footnote that starts to cast Ferrari in a poor light and takes the shine off of Alonso’s performance, He did bloody well considering.

Destined to be always double-champion though.

True they weren’t just racing Vettell, they were also racing Newey.

Next year will be Hamo’s.

Destined to be always double-champion though.

True they weren’t just racing Vettell, they were also racing Newey.

Next year will be Hamo’s.

Far too early to say, unless you know something the rest of us don’t…

Clean slate now, and judge nothing until the first race of 2013, or at the least first practise session… (Testing won’t give much of a lead IMO)

Hamilton might do the business at Mercedes or it might be absolutly the worst move he could have made…
It’s a gamble, stick or twist it’s the same for all the drivers and teams…

Hamilton might do the business at Mercedes or it might be absolutly the worst move he could have made…

Its hardly a bad engine though is it? There have been far far worse moves than this….cough Damon.

Hamilton might do the business at Mercedes or it might be absolutly the worst move he could have made…

That should cover all the options. Good work.

I think unless there’s a big rule change, Mercedes are going to be on a back foot next year. Remains to see if Lewis can develop a car because even with Schumi onboard they developed a dog of a car.

The engine postponement might have made Lewis regret the move.

Sorry – if you think Hamilton can win anything next year you are either very optimistic or don’t know much about F1. Ditto with the idea that Alonso will remain on 2 WDC – Alonso was clearly the best driver this year and Ferrari aren’t ever going to slip out of the running.

Its hardly a bad engine though is it?

With the same Merc engines, McLaren were a second per lap faster than Mercededs in Brazil [Q3]

If you were to give LH 2/10ths for his ability, that leaves them 8/10ths to find

piece of piss 🙂

Brazil probably not the most fair comparison – Merc long since gave up the chase for 2012, and tbf they did win a race in 2012. But so did Williams.

Realistic goal for 2013 though would be to beat Lotus – still a massive ask and there are three massive teams another league ahead of them.

Fair enough but it is still a very short lap to be losing a second on

IMO Merc signing Hamilton was the cheapest 2/10ths they’ll find all year. I just hope he enjoys himself and doesn’t start blaming the ‘team’ at every opportunity, forgetting of course that he’s part of it.

Alonso was clearly the best driver this year and Ferrari aren’t ever going to slip out of the running.

So what wasn’t good enough then, the driver or the car?
It’s pretty obvious that the RB team had the best of both.

Er – for most of the season Alonso had TEN times more points than Massa – that’s some pretty good driving. The car improved steadily and was extremely reliable. So both were good enough really – they only missed it by a hair.

All done with now thankfully

It does look like Ferrari did indeed ask the FIA to look at it

“We received tens of thousands of queries relating to this matter from all over the world and it was incumbent on us to take the matter further, asking the Federation to look into an incident that could have cast a shadow over the championship in the eyes of all Formula 1 enthusiasts, not just Ferrari fans.”

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/104655