Left field
The Reuters global sports blog
Team orders? That will be $100,000
Any Formula One team wishing to manipulate the outcome of a race in favour of one or other of their drivers at least now knows the going rate after this week’s hearing in Paris into the recent Ferrari furore.
Team orders? That will be $100,000 — at least until the end of the season, after which there may well be no charge at all.
In fact, there may not be any more charges this year either because we are now approaching the point in the season where drivers will be ruled out of contention and expected to support their team mates.
That will be strategy, of course.
And by next season the rule will have been re-written, or ‘clarified’.
Maybe, as McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh suggested, Ferrari should get their money back.
The same old Felipe Massa?
Felipe Massa won a lot of respect in Brazil a year ago when, having missed out on the Formula One championship by a single point after winning his home grand prix, he proved gracious in defeat.
“I know how to win, I know how to lose,” he said.
The Ferrari driver returns to Interlagos as a spectator and special guest this weekend after suffering life-threatening head injuries in Hungary in July.
He will not race again until next season, but is on the mend.
Some, however, are asking whether Massa is the man that he was. Not physically, since he has been given a clean bill of health, but in that he appears to have become far more outspoken in his absence.
He suggested early on that Jenson Button was buckling under the pressure of leading the championship — a fair enough point of view — and that he had been ‘robbed’ of the title himself last year by the Renault race-fixing scandal.
This is a very poor article, you clearly don’t know felipe massa at all. He has always been the cheeky little guy, and he never said button will not be champion he said if he carrys on driving in this way he will not be champion, which is 100% right.
With the singapore situation, you try loosing your dream because 3 idiots planned to disrupt the race, see how you would feel and what you would say.
The worst act of cheating in sport?
The back page of today’s Times carries an opinion piece that pulls no punches about Formula One’s race-fixing controversy.
“The worst act of cheating in the history of sport,” is the headline.
Not the worst act of cheating in F1, but the worst in any sport, in the opinion of columnist Simon Barnes.
What do you think about that assessment? Former Ferrari driver Eddie Irvine scoffs at that idea.
“Formula One has always been a war and in war all is fair,” he told the BBC. ”When I was in various teams you would do anything to win. Back in the day, it was normal. This is probably slightly on the wrong side of the cheating thing but in days past every team have done whatever they could to win — chat, bend the rules, break the rules, sabotage opponents. This is just the FIA going on a crusade.”
Looking back at examples of sporting fraud, the systematic doping carried out by the former East Germany really will for many stand out. That was state-funded and long-lasting. Athletes’ lives were put at risk while scores of others had their careers blighted by doped up rivals taking top honours.
Years of training, effort and commitment laid waste by cheats who were not found out until it was all too late for those competing against them.
Just added my own blog this month. I need some inspiration. Thx.
Fisichella is the right man for Ferrari
Giancarlo Fisichella and Ferrari would appear to be a marriage made in heaven, as well as good box office for Monza next week.
The little Roman gets to live out the dream he thought would never come true while Ferrari get a driver who is demonstrably quick as well as being a safe and completely loyal pair of hands.
Fisichella is already fired up after the race of his life in Belgium last weekend, where he started on pole and finished second for Force India.
Ferrari know he will be a team player, committed to the cause as both fan and patriot and his loyalty cemented by a testing contract for 2010.
As of Thursday, Fisichella is part of the Ferrari family.
If Michael Schumacher is not coming back, then the last Italian to win a grand prix is certainly far better box office than Luca Badoer — someone who has not scored a point in 51 starts.
Ferrari want a third car. Good or bad?
For 20 euros you can buy a Michael Schumacher ‘Comeback’ cap from the official Formula One merchandise stands at the Belgian Grand Prix.
The longed-for return will not happen this season, with the retired seven times world champion thwarted by a neck injury from replacing injured Brazilian Felipe Massa at Ferrari, but his manager Willi Weber never misses a trick.
Some 10,000 caps were produced in expectation of the German’s comeback at Valencia this month and, if Ferrari are allowed to run a third car next season, Weber may have to order some more.
Ferrari boss Stefano Domenicali has suggested that the 40-year-old could race a third car for the team next season.
“It is true we are pushing (for three cars instead of two). We feel it is for the benefit of Formula One and it is better to make sure the biggest teams have three cars because that’s what people want,” he adds.
“With all respect to the smaller teams, the value of Formula One is to have good drivers, great personalities, in good cars and with a great brand.”
Who will replace Felipe Massa? (Part Two)
Who will replace Felipe Massa at Ferrari?
The question was asked in the immediate aftermath of the Brazilian’s life-threatening crash in Hungary last month and is now being asked again.
Luca Badoer got the nod for Valencia at the weekend but unless the 38-year-old Italian stand-in pulls something big out of the hat in Belgium this weekend the tifosi will be clamouring to have him out of the car before Ferrari’s home race at Monza.
The world champions, Formula One’s oldest and most successful team, simply cannot afford the ‘brutta figura’, the damage to their image and prestige, of having one driver on the podium and the other finishing last after being outqualified by a rookie young enough to be his son.
Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo warned his team against becoming a laughing stock when they bungled a few pitstops earlier this year and that is as nothing compared to what they could be in for if Badoer fails to raise his game at Spa-Francorchamps.
Formula One can be a cruel sport and regulars queuing up at airline check-in desks on Monday morning were already talking about ‘Look How Bad You Are’ and wondering whether he had finished the race yet.
In fact the jokes started even on Friday when he was fined and reprimanded for speeding in the pit lane on four separate occasions while being more than a second slower than everyone else on the track in practice.
Fisichella looking a better shout that ever after today… no slouch indeed, alan.
Schumacher pulls plug on F1 comeback
A disappointing day for fans of Ferrari and Michael Schumacher, with news that the German has had to call off his proposed F1 comeback.
As the seven-times world champion said on his website:
“Yesterday evening, I had to inform Ferrari President Luca di Montezemolo and Team Principal Stefano Domenicali that unfortunately I’m not able to step in for Felipe (Massa). I really tried everything to make that temporary comeback possible, however, much to my regret it didn’t work out. Unfortunately we did not manage to get a grip on the pain in the neck which occurred after the private F1-day in Mugello, even if medically or therapeutically we tried everything possible.
The consequences of the injuries caused by the bike-accident in February, fractures in the area of head and neck, unfortunately have turned out to be still too severe. That is why my neck cannot stand the extreme stresses caused by Formula 1 yet. This are the clear results of the examinations we did on the course of the past two weeks and the final examination yesterday afternoon. As there were no improvements after the day in Mugello, I decided at short notice on Sunday to do that thorough examination already yesterday.
I am disappointed to the core. I am awfully sorry for the guys of Ferrari and for all the fans which crossed fingers for me. I can only repeat that I tried everything that was within my power. All I can do now is to keep my fingers crossed for the whole team for the coming races.”
“Disappointed to the core” says it all, really. It has been a year of sporting comebacks, but this one was just not meant to be.
PHOTO: Michael Schumacher leaves a restaurant after visiting injured Ferrari driver, Felipe Massa, in downtown Budapest August 1, 2009. REUTERS/Karoly Arvai
As much as I’d have loved to see MS back in F1, I’m kind of glad he didn’t come back. Regardless of reputation and some of the more questionable decisions he has made, he will always be an F1 legend. After 3 years out and at his age, there was a good chance he’d have struggled in the midfield runners and that would have tarnsihed the man when the rose-tints are already forgetting the more dubious side to his character. Let us not forget, the current Ferrari has won precisely zero races this year. Had it been the best car on the road, fair enough – add a few dozen WDC points and notcha cameo win. That was pretty much never on the cards.
The best sportsmen/women rise to the top, and in this case he has made the best sporting decision.
Is Schumacher right to return to Formula One?
Incredible but true: Seven-times world champion Michael Schumacher is to return to Formula One as a short-term replacement for Felipe Massa — provided the German passes a medical.
As Ferrari have just confirmed, Schumacher is poised to make a comeback after Massa fractured his skull in an accident at last weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix.
It’s another twist to a Formula One season you could hardly describe as ordinary, what with the breakaway threat, the stunning start from Brawn GP and the news from BMW this morning.
Is Schumacher doing the right thing in returning to the sport? Having him back will be a great boon in PR terms both for F1 as a whole and for Ferrari but will it work out? He hasn’t been out that long but in a sport where fitness is becoming more and more important, can the 40-year-old possibly be in the necessary shape to step straight back into the car?
Here’s what Willi Weber, Schumacher’s manager, said yesterday: “What would we expect from Schumacher if he stepped into a Formula One car? To win. The expectations from both sides would be too high.”
Is Schumacher right to come back?
It may be difficult to win but it’s good to see the greatest driver back in the race !
Who can replace Felipe Massa?
With seven times champion Michael Schumacher seemingly in no rush to come out of retirement to stand in for his friend and former team mate Felipe Massa, Ferrari will have to resign themselves to looking elsewhere.
Massa appears to be on the mend, thankfully, but it has to be doubtful whether last year’s overall runner-up will race again this season after the serious head injuries sustained in Hungary.
The problem is that there are not that many obvious, and available, candidates of the necessary calibre to replace the Brazilian.
Drivers are not lightbulbs and, in any case, champions Ferrari are not the sort of team to just plug in an inexperienced teenager and hope for the best.
There is a question of prestige. Ferrari are the sport’s most glamorous team and, traditionally, employers of the world’s best drivers.
Very few ever get the privilege — only six in the last decade.
Mr Whitmarsh does not seem to remember what happened in the same circuit two years before. I do not think McLaren got any fine at all nor warning.