Ferrari get angry...

[sportsman]

... as so often the situation may come down to:

• If it is a 'fair' court, then who has the best lawyer
• If it is a weighted die, then who is judge and prosecutor

Certainly true.It depends very much where the final decision is made.If Ferrari accept the WMSC decision whatever that may be, then thats the end of it.
If Ferrari take it to the civil courts it will finally end there.

 

[teabagyokel]

It always gives us something to talk about when races and seasons are debated in court. By the way, does this count as Alonso's courtroom hat-trick?

 

[Jen]

This is an interesting viewpoint.I happened to be having lunch wih a lawyer today about a different matter and after we had finished with that we got to chatting.
He turned out to be a DTM fan, he is German so no suprise there.He is obviously aware of the Ferrari hearing and knows the details as we do.
I asked him, as a lawyer what is your opinion of the likely outcome of the hearing.His answer suprised me to say the least.

He said legally Ferrari have no case to answer.They never issued a direct order to Massa to allow Alonso to pass him.All Ferrari did was advise Massa that Alonso was faster.It makes no difference in court if this is a coded transmission or not.It was not a direct team order.The tone of voice of Smedley and his subsequent apology have no bearing on the legality of the message.
To say I was stunned is an understatement.That was nothing to what he said next.
The only person who broke any rules was Massa.He was guilty of breaking the rules of article 151c by carrying out an act predujicial to competition

I found this bloody preposterous and told him so.But although he agreed that it was riduculous that is the legal situation as he sees it as lawyer.

I suspect your lawyer friend is spot on.

The trick is never to confuse the law and justice - sadly they are completely different things.

 

[Wombcat]

This is an interesting viewpoint.I happened to be having lunch wih a lawyer today about a different matter and after we had finished with that we got to chatting.
He turned out to be a DTM fan, he is German so no suprise there.He is obviously aware of the Ferrari hearing and knows the details as we do.
I asked him, as a lawyer what is your opinion of the likely outcome of the hearing.His answer suprised me to say the least.

He said legally Ferrari have no case to answer.They never issued a direct order to Massa to allow Alonso to pass him.All Ferrari did was advise Massa that Alonso was faster.It makes no difference in court if this is a coded transmission or not.It was not a direct team order.The tone of voice of Smedley and his subsequent apology have no bearing on the legality of the message.
To say I was stunned is an understatement.That was nothing to what he said next.
The only person who broke any rules was Massa.He was guilty of breaking the rules of article 151c by carrying out an act predujicial to competition

I found this bloody preposterous and told him so.But although he agreed that it was riduculous that is the legal situation as he sees it as lawyer.

I think he is right. Although it's pretty obvious that Ferrari issued a teamorder, there is no definite proof (from a legal viewpoint) that they did. Informing your driving that the other driver is no teamorder. Even saying you're sorry is no teamorder.

That's the problem with the banning of teamorders. Teams will code their message, and there's no way of proving that they did order them.

It's even possible that before the race they sit down with each other and tell them what to do. They tell Massa that if the situation arises where he is first and Alonso behind him is second, he will have to let Alonso pass him. And during the race they can just say "so far everything is going according to plan." Which would be code for "hey, you got to move over in about 4 or 5 laps." That would be a team order, but you'd have a hard time proving it.
If I led the team, I'd discuss these situations beforehand, and it would be perfectly clear for everyone what to do. Ferrari just screwed up and did it in a way that everyone knows what's going on, but stil there is no real proof.