Full Throttle

The FIA kangaroo court has returned a verdict. Guilty on 2 of the five charges. BAR Honda, along with the other six Michelin tyred teams, has been found guilty on two charges of bringing the sport of Formula One into disrepute.

The teams have been found not guilty on the other three charges.

Any punishments will be decided on 14 September, after the Belgian Grand Prix, once the FIA see what steps the teams have taken to remedy the situation, starting with Michelins offer yesterday of refunding the fans at the US GP.

The end result is these idiots in 3 thousand dollar suits have kicked the can further down the road for the sentencing phase. All the while hopeing the Championship will be decided and they can extract their revenge and start suspending teams a couple at a time.

Not that I expected one, but this doesn’t resolve anything.

UPDATE: From the mouths of babes…er… George.

“What garbage! Can anyone show me anywhere within the rules the definition of a suitable race tire? Is it a tire that is puncture proof under all conditions? Most conditions? Some conditions? Is it a tire that won’t flat spot under the hardest of braking conditions, over and over again? Or is it a tire that will not shred on impact with carbon fiber shards? You could go on forever with the questions and you won’t find any answers because they don’t exist, only within the figment of Max’s politicaly driven imagination.”

WOW, Max has an imagination! Who’d a thunk it! If he had the slightest bit of imagination and guts Ferrari would have been told to race with a chicane or sit Indy out. A race would have been held, fans would have been happy and 7 teams wouldn’t be waiting for the Sword of Damocles to fall come September.

“That sword! That sword!” cried Damocles 7 teams awaiting.

UPDATE II: Max Mosley speaks after the verdict was announced:

The difficulty that we have is that the FIA has no direct relationship with the Michelin tyre. We have no contractual relationship with them, we are therefore not in a position to impose a penalty on Michelin. Had we been in a position to do that, they would have been summoned to the World Council and, judging from what we heard from the teams, they would have found themselves in a very difficult position.

In “”FIA speak” that means Max went after the only target he could get his slimmey hands on. Read the rest of the interview, including the part about “one eccentric gentleman.” Also note this statement that was signed by all drivers except Michael Schumacher. If the FIA had followed these recommendation the race would have been run, possibly without Schumacher, but it would have been a RACE, vice a FIAsco!