F1 Fuel Appeal Date Set
Published
By Mr. C.
According to IHT blogger Brad Spurgeon, the International Court of Appeal will meet in Paris on Thursday 15th November, to discuss the stewards descision not to exclude the cars of BMW and Williams from the Brazilian Grand Prix.
No one else appears to have confirmed this as yet, more to follow...
Pitpass also have the news, but close their article with this interesting observation:
Sadly, once again, the FIA - which continuously claims impartiality and lack of bias - has chosen to favour certain (favourable, non critical) media outlets rather than officially announcing the appeal date on its own website.
I assume that Pitpass are alluding to the situation Brad discussed in his original post:
Max Mosley spoke to a small group of the French press today after the FIA’s general assembly.
That is an odd way to make an announcement, but especially when it's about an event as important as this one. Not a smart move Max, especially given that the FIA already get to control which journalists get paddock access.
Remind me, was it "Four legs good, two legs better"? I forget.
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Are we the only sane people left in the universe? How is it possible for anyone to watch Max and his FIA operate and conclude that nothing is wrong?
in fairness pitpass are miffed too.
only they're probably more concerned that they got left out, rather than the imminent demise of our beloved sport.
Actually, I wasn't personally so much miffed at not being invited myself - since I lived in Paris - as I was very, very surprised. How can an issue of this importance be treated in this way? We all expect the FIA to do what it usually does, which is to issue a press statement about the appeal. That is what any professional organization would do, and what I believe the FIA usually does. It is indeed very odd that an announcement of this kind has to "leak" to the international media - be it newspapers, web sites or blogs. I was in fact the first of the English language press or sites to hear - or publish - this news - Autosport had a more complete story, but it came out half an hour after mine (compare GMT to Paris time). Although I was kind of pleased about that at first, I realized afterwards how absurd the situation was. I heard about it purely through the good graces of a French journalist. But that doesn't make sense - which is why I contacted the FIA to have it confirmed. The wire services still have not reported this story!
brad, after reading your post (maybe 10mins after you'd published it), i was happily sat here refreshing other F1 news sites, planning to write a "has everyone gone on holiday early?" style blog entry. until i realised no-one else actually knew.
the only possible justification for such a balls-up would be some kind admin error whereby Max thought the release had been sent but a breakdown in communication meant it hadn't.
if that wasn't the case, it's sets a pretty worrying precedent (and president) for the future.
Oh, excellent last sentence, Sidey!
I'm afraid that my sense of it is that this was not a mistake.... But you may now have provided the FIA with an excellent way of changing its mind, should it wish to.
damnit!
although, when the FIA made the press-release faux pas back in september, their immediate response was to pretend it never happened, then never make reference to it again.
i'm betting on a wall of silence this time too.
Yes, you probably got that right too.
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