Will always writes good stuff and is a great commentator
The teams will pretty much always look after their own agenda rather than what’s best for the show.
Take the incident of the FIA allowing Merc to change Hamilton’s brake discs in parc ferme for safety reasons, pretty much all of the Team Principals argued against it – Mattiacci was a breath of fresh air though and I take it Claire Williams backed his position too.
Q: (Péter Farkas – Autó-Motor).
Question to all of you. Obviously it is very surprising to learn that the FIA has allowed a change of brake material in parc ferme. Have you got a clear explanation from the FIA yet, why did they let them do it and, do you think it’s acceptable? And do you think there is a danger that things you start to ask to change brake materials and even something else in parc ferme before the race after that.
Christian Horner:
Look, from our perspective it was very interesting to see the way the FIA dealt with it. Theoretically it is a change in car specification and the interesting thing for us to observe was how the FIA dealt with it, the precedent it sets going forward. So should that circumstance occur again, the precedent is now extremely clear and I’m sure there will be further discussion on it and where does that stop? Obviously we’d like to change the engine in parc ferme but that’s not quite allowed. I’m sure there’ll be further discussion. It was intriguing to see the decisions that were made.
Q:
Eric?
Eric Boullier:
Well our position is quite similar to Christian’s one. It was a little bit of a surprise to see they could change their brakes obviously. And even if some specs were similar, the rule on parc ferme are very strict. So, as Christian says, it is a serious precedent and we’ll see how it develops in the future.
Q:
Marco?
Marco Mattiacci:
From me it’s a different perspective from my colleagues – even though I understand where they’re coming from. I think in Formula One where everybody is debating about the show, to see a driver from the 20 spot arrive to the podium, for me is a great thing to sell to people and honestly, to pull the trigger, because changing the brakes that are the same spec, probably they don’t have a great impact on the performance, honestly to go to ruin the day for Hamilton was not my principle about racing, so I don’t see the need. It is clear we need consistency in the approach of the FIA but I think we have seen a great race from a guy and we didn’t feel it was the case to ruin that show.
Q:
Claire?
Claire Williams:
I don’t think I have anything to add to that.
Q:
Vijay?
Vijay Mallya:
My concern is the precedent that it sets. The FIA rules basically say that if a component is similar in mass, inertia and function, I guess that’s the definition under which the change of brakes was allowed. Going forward, under parc ferme conditions, one could also argue that the rear wing settings could be changed because the same mass, inertia and function are retained. So long as this is not used as an unhealthy precedent going forward for changes under parc ferme conditions, that is the way I would look at it.
Q:
Monisha?
Monisha Kaltenborn:
Well, the FIA took probably a surprising decision here but I think more important is to see that they realise that they need to clarify the matter. I’m a bit less concerned about the precedent being set here because if you look at the cases that have gone through the FIA, different courts or tribunals, you very rarely see a certain consistency there because you can’t bring up cases from the past but every case is looked at individually, so I’m not that concerned. I tend to agree with Marco, that it just shows you no matter what would have happened, have you also given a penalty, still a driver can come up, right in front, and I think that’s the remarkable part about it and shows the dominance of the team.
