Minardi and bending the rules

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dbartucci

dbartucci

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What do you think of Ferrari (jean todt) refusing to grant Minardi an exception so they could run their 2004 car? On one hand there's no way Minardi would have been competitive with Ferrari and the other 8 teams all consented to Minardi running.
On the other hand rules are rules, and these rules have been finalized for a while now and it's Minardi's fault they aren't ready - and since they aren't they can't race. Why should Minardi get an exception just because they chose not to spend the money to have a car ready in time?

Any thoughts?
 
You don't have complete picture.

Ferrari wasn't the only one not to accept signature. There was also BAR and Red Bull. After some arguing Everybody signed the petition which allowed Minardi to drive 2004 Spec car (Red Bull even signed with a clause, that Minardi will leave any points they might score to them!!!). After that, FIA Stewards didn't allow Minardi to run on Free Practise (none of the teams had anything to do with that), and Minardi went to australian court to allow them to race which it did. And now FIA is threating never to race motorsport races in Australia. That is approximate sum up.

Overall, I thought inittially that only Ferrari didn't wanna sign (I am a Ferrari fan) which I didn't like and was ashamed to be Ferrari fan, but after all came out I was a bit relieved. Still I think it sucks, that politics is being included into racing. It's not noce and not good for the sport.
 
Why did Minardi insist on competing in the Melbourne race in the 2004 car all through the winter, go to the trouble of trying to get all the teams to agree, go to court to get an injunction to allow them to compete, winning that injunction, and then proceeding to convert their cars from 2004 to 2005 spec overnight so that they are now fully compliant with the 2005 regulations? Why didn't they just make their cars to the 2005 regulations to start with?


and is the first question the longest, most convoluted question ever?

And anyway, how did the judge get away with that ruling? Minardi were outwith the sporting regulations yet a court can overrule that?? Does that mean someone could turn up with a 4 litre engine and then take the FIA to court when they are banned from competing?
 
The argument was that with Minardis tight budget and limited testing added to how 'late' the new regulations came they hadn't tested to 2005s aero standards.

Thus the whole argument was about principle and they are racing with the untested 2005 aero package leading to even more problems for the Minardi drivers.
 
The only reason Minardi would be granted an exception is because they won't be cometitive even with last years car, imagine if Ferrari had said the F2005 isn't ready yet, let us use our car from last year, McLaren, Williams, BAR would go nuts, but because the Minardi program is smaller it's ok :boggled:

Minardi is a low budget team, they spend around $25 -35 million US on their F1 program, Toyota spends closer to $400 million, but this is Formula 1, the pinnacle of motorsports, either get the car ready or if you're unwilling to spend the money maybe they should sell the team to someone ready to spend the cash to atleast but a legal car on the grid.
 
They have the money to race, just possibly can't get their hands on it as fast as they would like. Also unless they can pull in big big money it will be hard for them to pull in the staff needed to get a car redesigned in such a short period.

Bare in mind they are not a factory team and don't have past glories.
 
Hey, they had all the parts with them to make a 2005 spec car, but they were worried it would be dangerous as it wasn't tested.

In the end they did run those cars but they were horribly slow.

Blake
 
horrily horribly slow, lapped in 12 laps, thats about 10 seconds a lap slower.

My main peev about the event was the coverage, we get the channel 10 (aus channel broadcasting the event) commentators saying we wont get to see much of webbr when its somewhere else in the world becuase we cant control that, fair enough. This is in Australia, and yet we barely got to see our countryman duke it out, okay it was pretty un-eventful race for Webber but thats hardly an excuse. He was catching Coulthard in the dieing stages of the race with the hope of making a pass, nobody even bothers to switch to the action. We have to wait for the post race results.

as far as the race goes, that was a great move from Coulthard, the first time ive seen him actually go for something in years, even tho Schumi was buried in the back of the pack he still dissapointed a bit personally, Barrachello stormed through the feild to take 2nd, yet Schumi was strangely lingering, that is until he got a shove from heidlfeld, one suspects he could have given some room. I dont know how they did it but it was some hard racing by Barrachello & Alonso to get 2nd and 3rd.
 
Publicity.

That's all there is to it - Paul Stoddard wanted as much publicity as possible and so played up to the media (who took it hook, line and sinker) and damn-near risked the future of international events in Australia.
 
Paul Stoddard has lost all respect from me. Not only did they have the parts there to make the car legal, they had been tested for at least a few hours at Mugello. Granted, it may not be very much testing, but at least it was something. He outright lied to the media saying the parts weren't tested, and then tried to make Ferrari out to be the bad guys. 👎 What an a**hole. This guy doesn't deserve to be in F1 IMO.
 
What makes you think Ferrari knew they had tested parts? Ferrari is still a dick for trying to deny them, regardless of the reason.

In my opinion Stoddart deserves applause for trying hard to get the FIA to stop giving Ferrari favoritism and to give equality to the teams.
 
I didn't say Ferrari knew they had the right parts, what I'm trying to say is that it was wrong of Stoddard to lie about the parts and then make Ferrari out to be the bad guy. Remember Ferrari wasn't the only team that initially denied Minardi, there was also BAR and Red Bull.
 
He didn't lie, he clearly said he had the parts but that he believed it was dangerous to use them.
 
He said that they HAD NOT tested the parts, when they actually have. Even if they are dangerous and it wouldn't have been good to run them, that doesn't give him the right to publicly attack Ferrari. Especially considering that BAR and Red Bull also vetoed them using 2004 spec parts. BAR, Red Bull AND Ferrari then backed off and allowed him to participate, the race stewards stepped in and told him that he had to run 2005 spec cars or not race at all. In F1, rules ARE NOT made to be broken and must be complied to no matter what your reasons. Besides, the teams have had five months to prepare there cars. This is F1, and if you can't modify your cars in five whole months, maybe it's time to consider other forms of motor racing.
 
Has anyone else noticed that Minardi got about 1000% more attention from both the Australian and International media than usual? There was more footage, more stills, more of everything, all of it brought on by Paul Stoddard. All he wanted was the extra attention because conveniently placed sponsorship just so happned to advertise OzJet, Stoddard's new airline in Australia ... is it just coincidence that he happens to get a lot more attention when his cars are innocently carrying his own sponsorship? I think not ...
 
Oy, Minardi has OzJet sponsership two years ago, so he wasn't doing it just for his sponser.

Nor was he doing it for himself, Minardi themselves are already well known for their underdog status.

Nor did he attack Ferrari. Stoddart's arguement was with the FIA, not Ferrari.

And Red Bull's status regarding allowing them was because Stoddart had an agreement with JAGUAR but not Red Bull. BAR obviously changed their minds after their original agreement.

And Minardi did NOT have five months, since not only was their engine supplies from Cosworth in question, but the rules themselves were not set in stone. And Minardi has the smallest budget, so they obviously were constrained. This is why the PS05 wont be coming out for a few races.

Even if the parts had been tested for a single day for a few hours does not necessarily mean they are still "safe".

Stoddart wants stability in the sport, and he deserves applause for actually fighting for it instead of just throwing small talk.

If you think Minardi was trying to cheat, you're clueless. 👎
 
1a) The OzJet sponsorship is far more prominent this year.
1b) OzJet is much more established now than it was 2 years ago.

2) I don't think Minardi was trying to cheat, I think Stoddard was doing it for the publicity.
 
We can't just say because someone can't afford new products they should be allowed to use their old ones. It's like communism. Ferrari could do it, they could cut off their F1 budget so it has 0 dollars for R&d and all of it is salary money. They could claim they can't afford new cars and therefore must use last year's obviously faster cars. Tada.
 
I think Stoddie went a little too far, I know he needed to prove a point but in no other sport do you see the law getting involved in this manner. Not that I agree with the response of the FIA. Their heavy handed reply was un necessary and unrealistic. Theyve not stoped racing in Italy even after the Senna case and they stil have such legislation there. Oh wait...Ferrari comes from Italy.... the FIA likes Ferrari....how silly of me of course they wont mind!!! One rule for Ferrari and one rule for everyone else!!

None of this would have happened if Ferrari had just said 'ok you can run your 04 car, we understand that your only a little team and it should be in our best interests to support you for the good of the sport.' But no!! Bearing in mind their lack of popularity with a number of fans and team folk I wouldnt be pushing it like they are.
 
I think they should allowed paul stoddart to run their 2004 spec because their already 4 a5 seconds behind i dont see the problem here and what really suprised tha even Jordan agreed to allow the Minardis run F1 gonna kill itselfs by his own rules
 

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