Formula One team bosses say the sport is stuck with late protests and even later rulings, despite the fact it leaves fans uncertain about the true results of races.
The protests and inquiries into the outcome of last weekend’s Australian GP have rumbled on all week, and will be subject to a further FIA Court of Appeal hearing on April 14.
It is just the latest example of an increasingly common tendency in F1 for the results to be changed long after the checkered flag falls, due to various protests and technical infringements.
”It is always a bit unfortunate when fans go away and there’s still debate going on about decisions, and I wish it were possible to walk away from a race that was black and white, but it’s a very complicated sport, particularly when you start to move into the technical side,” Brawn GP owner and team principal Ross Brawn said.
The final result of last weekend’s Australian Grand Prix remains up in the air, pending an appeal on April 14 over the diffuser design of race winner Brawn GP, as well as those of Williams and Toyota.
The results were adjusted again this week, when stewards reopened an inquiry into the Australian GP. Toyota’s Jarno Trulli was reinstated to third place and McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton disqualified for misleading stewards in an inquiry.
”I’ve been on the wrong side of protests and appeals, I’ve been on the right side of protests and appeals and it is a very, very complicated sport, and particularly with new regulations coming in.
Three teams took a (diffuser) interpretation which they’re very comfortable with and several other teams aren’t happy with that interpretation,” Brawn said.
”It has to be resolved, so the process is as good as it can be.”
Williams chief executive Adam Parr also said the lengthy legal process was unavoidable.
”You need eight days for the submissions from the appellants and eight days to respond, and anything less than that would be very difficult,” Parr said. ”It may look like a very long, drawn-out process but it’s dictated by the nature of the sport.”
However, McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh urged teams to look at ways of truncating the process, and giving greater certainty to fans over the legitimacy of race results.
”We have to try and get everyone to work together, the teams and the Federation [FIA], to ensure that we find ways to shorten that process because clearly we recognize that it’s not the best thing for the sport,” Whitmarsh said. ”The teams are as much a part of that as the Federation.”
”We’ve perhaps got to be more transparent, more clear in our dealings with the sporting body, so we shouldn’t be looking to any one party, we’re all part of this sport and we’ve got to look at how we can contribute to improving it.” — Sapa-AP