A lot of people are scratching their heads about the FIA’s latest plan when it comes to race stewards. One of the most common complaints you will hear an F1 fan make is that the decisions made by the stewards are not consistent enough. For the past couple of years there has been a permanent steward, Tony Scott-Andrews, who has presided over every race alongside two others who are appointed on a race-by-race basis.

The presence of a permanent steward greatly improved the image of the process. Although there were still perceived inconsistencies, you couldn’t really lay the blame on anything in particular because of Tony Scott-Andrews, who most seem to agree did a good job.

Tony Scott-Andrews has decided not to continue in the role in 2008. So what would you do if you were the FIA? Would you continue the successful scheme of having permanent, independent stewards? Or will you hire a lackey?

Of course, you are not President of the FIA. Unfortunately, Max Mosley is. And so apparently his good buddy Alan Donnelly “will be involved in the process”, alongside three stewards who will be appointed on a race-by-race basis.

The three stewards will be “neutrals” in that they won’t come from the same country as anyone else involved in F1. Given that nationality shamefully played such a big role in the Hamilton / Alonso hoo-ha last year, this is understandable. But I can’t help but worry that it means the best people for the job will be overlooked.

The real worry though is that Alan Donnelly will apparently have a major influence in the decision-making process this year. According to GrandPrix.com:

If Donnelly takes up a role as the permanent F1 steward it is going to be very hard for him to establish any credibility as an independent. This in turn will reflect on the FIA and will not help improve the perception - whether true or not - that everything is controlled by Mosley.

The problem is that while Donnelly is clearly an intelligent and capable individual he has been a close ally of Mosley for eight years and before that worked with the FIA President as a member of the FIA-funded Automobile Users Group at the European Parliament. Today he is paid as an FIA consultant.

And Sidepodcast has revealed more:

His company Sovereign Strategy currently list Formula One Management Ltd as a client. It’s not hard to imagine the sport’s commercial interests being taken into consideration when looking at future rule infringements…

Of further interest a quick perusal through the Internet Archive, sees Sovereign Strategy at one time listing Ferrari as a previous client…

It’s not clear when the Italian manufacturer was removed from the client list (the archive displays the page as recently as June 2007), but one could speculate it was probably very recently. One also wonders whether the Scuderia have completely severed ties with Sovereign, and what bearing that may have on future ‘difficult’ decisions?

So the new permanent steward is not only an FIA / Max Mosley lackey, he is a Ferrari lackey as well! But this should come as no surprise given that FIA stands for Ferrari International Assistance and all.

In all seriousness, this is the last thing Formula 1 needs. At a time when so many people see Max Mosley as wielding too much power over F1 (to put it very politely indeed), to have a chum of Mosley’s become the new permanent steward is a recipe for disaster. Worse still, when so many people see the FIA as blatantly favouring Ferrari, is it really so wise to bring in a man whose company very recently listed Ferrari among its clients, one position below the FIA (Max Mosley’s organisation) and two above FOA (Bernie Ecclestone’s company)?

Max Mosley is truly in cloud cuckoo land. He must realise that this move is highly provocative. It will not be long before people start pointing fingers and suspecting bias.

The FIA has a major image problem among F1 fans as I recently pointed out. It is worrying enough that Max Mosley should install someone with such blatant Ferrari links in a position of such authority. What is even more worrying is that Mosley no longer even seems to be interested in pretending that the FIA are not just a bunch of Ferrari lackeys.

The sooner Mosley is replaced, the better. He is a rotten man who brings far too much politics into Formula 1 just because real politics was a no-go area due to his lineage. After the events of last year, more politics is the last thing F1 needs. But given this provocative appointment, it is obvious that Mosley doesn’t give a damn about this fact.

The “confession” by McLaren yesterday looks rather damning on the face of it. But it is well known that to stop getting punished you have to confess, even if you didn’t do it. When you read between the lines, McLaren have actually confessed to very little.

In terms of “copied” Ferrari information, the smoking gun is there — but for stuff that everyone had access to. So the 2008 McLaren has a longer wheelbase? Big deal — it wasn’t exactly top secret that the F2007 had a long wheelbase. It was well known long before the start of last season.

And reading between the lines, it looks as though McLaren’s new braking system employs the famous double-rear master cylinder with spring — information that the FIA leaked!

What is really telling about all of this is the way the two branches of FIArrari (the racing team that masquerades as the FIA and the governing body that calls itself Ferrari) have reacted to this — in complete tandem, would you believe! You couldn’t make it up.

Every single movement by Max Mosley, the FIA and the World Motor Sport Council on this Stepneygate scandal since June has been calculated to maximise the embarrassment of the McLaren team as an organisation and Ron Dennis as an individual.

The first WMSC meeting stuck the knife in. Then in September Mosley inserted it further. Last week he gave the knife a jolly good twist when it was revealed at the last minute that they weren’t going to clear the McLaren car until February. They had said they were going to judge on it last week. “Just kidding Ron! We’re going to make you suffer for a few months yet.”

By then, it had become obvious what game the maFIA was playing at all along. There was no way McLaren could risk waiting until just a few weeks before the start of the season to find out if their car would be given the all-clear — particularly given the FIA’s hostile attitude towards the McLaren team. There was every chance that the car would not have been cleared, McLaren would have been thrown out of the Championship.

In the end, McLaren were faced with no choice but to fall on their own sword rather than go through Max Mosley’s bizarre torture methods. The fact that the FIA have now offered to close the matter as a result of this apology speaks volumes. The FIA and Ferrari were not interested in justice one iota. If they were, they would not seek to close the matter just because McLaren said sorry. They would continue to investigate the car and meet in February as promised.

Rather, the FIA and Ferrari’s main goal was to embarrass McLaren in the most public, torturous, long-winded way possible. Having now maximised that embarrassment, they have decided they have had enough of their games and are now “graciously” offering closure.

Pathetic.

A full race review will come later. But I have to talk about the stewards’ investigation because it is so pressing.

I was hoping — as was everyone else who loves sport — that the World Championship would be decided on the track. I was hoping that there would be no irregularities found after the race. After the year Formula 1 has had, to have the World Champion decided in a private room between three men was the last thing we needed.

Unfortunately, the nature of the sport means that it is not always that way. Sometimes the scrutineers find something on the cars that causes a result to be changed after the fans have left the circuit. It happens a few times a year. This is a regrettable reality of Formula 1, but it is the reality. It was just unfortunate that it had to happen on this of all days.

Once it was announced that the Williams and BMW cars were being investigated for fuel irregularities, it was clear to me that the FIA were stuck between a rock and a hard place. If they disqualified the four drivers, they would be accused of handing the Championship to Hamilton. If they didn’t (as they haven’t), then they would have been accused of stealing the Championship from Hamilton.

Surprise, surprise, now that the decision — that the drivers will not be disqualified — has been confirmed, sure enough I can hear Stephen Nolan on BBC Radio 5 Live doing his nut about it (luckily David Croft is rather more balanced). There is no doubt in my mind that the reaction from some other people would have been equally angry had the decision gone the other way.

Earlier on this evening I was listening to the 606 phone-in, and everyone seemed to have a different conspiracy theory about the race. Depending on who you listen to, the FIA are pro-Ferrari, pro-Hamilton, anti-Hamilton, anti-McLaren. McLaren are pro-Alonso, anti-Alonso, anti-Hamilton, pro-Hamilton.

It is a sign of the bad management at the FIA that this could happen. Here we were in a situation where the stewards’ decision, whichever way it went, would have been criticised. And whenever anything slightly abnormal happens there is somebody out there ready with a conspiracy theory about it.

Murray Walker always used to say, “Anything can happen in Formula 1 — and it usually does.” Today it would be better to say, “Anything can happen in Formula 1 — and when it does, point the finger at the FIA.”

This has come about because Max Mosley has politicised the sport to a poisonous degree. The FIA has created far too many ridiculous rules, making the sport more convoluted than it should be. And Max Mosley does business on the basis of personal grudges rather than what is good for the sport.

It is sad — but understandable — that people can not have confidence in the decisions made by the FIA. It is yet another sign for me that the sooner Max Mosley is removed from his post as President of the FIA the better.

I have really had enough. Formula 1 is being ruined by a ridiculously Byzantine rule book, political in-fighting, inconsistent penalty decisions, nonsensical posturing and the power-crazy FIA President responsible for it all.

It seems to me as though the FIA is increasingly determined to stick its nose in everything, constantly bossing the teams and bosses around for no good reason, and ruining the sporting spectacle for the fans at home. All too often the race result is changed hours after the chequered flag is waved. And with the multitude of almost-random grid penalties being handed out race-in race-out they really might as well draw lots to determine the grid order.

There is no need for McLaren to be given a special scrutineer to ensure that Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso are given equal treatment throughout the weekend. Even Fernando Alonso — whose complaints set off the chain of events that led to McLaren getting the extra scrutineer — says that it is completely unnecessary.

There is surely no-one who seriously considers that McLaren would do anything but offer their drivers complete equality — as far as they possibly can — this weekend. For a start, if anything goes wrong with Alonso’s car, there will be no shortage of people ready to suspect the worst and waiting to throw stones at Ron Dennis for it.

But even if McLaren were to ditch their long-standing (and contractually-binding) policy of equality between their two drivers, what business is it of the FIA’s? None whatsoever. McLaren are a private team, and they should be allowed to run their team in whatever way they see fit. Of course, Max Mosley sees it differently.

How interesting, though, that the FIA turned a blind eye to Ferrari’s policy of explicitly favouring one driver over another during the years that Michael Schumacher drove for them. Not only was this Ferrari’s well-known policy, but Ferrari were proud of it. Many today see it as the model by which all modern F1 teams should be run. If the FIA are so worried about equality, why are they not intervene when Michael Schumacher was competing for any of the five World Championships that he won for Ferrari, or for Ferrari’s own six Constructors’ Championships?

As if that wasn’t bad enough, on Friday at Interlagos came news that three drivers had broken a rule that nobody had heard of. Why on earth is there a rule concerning the number of sets of wet tyres a team can use during a practice session?

Quick, fire up the FIA Random Penalty Generator. Because we don’t know where Takuma Sato, Jenson Button or Lewis Hamilton will be on the grid. That’s right, Lewis Hamilton. Given all the criticism the FIA have faced this season, you would think they would be sensible enough to keep their grubby mitts off the championship battle and let the drivers decide the outcome on the track, the way sport should be.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am not the biggest fan of Lewis Hamilton. But I must sympathise with him and the McLaren team here. Of course, it is fair enough if Lewis Hamilton and the McLaren team have broken a rule. To be frank, it baffles me why Lewis Hamilton needed two sets of tyres when he only did a dozen or so laps. And McLaren (and Honda and Super Aguri) should not be in the sort of situation where they find themselves not knowing the rules.

But this is quite a silly rule that I can’t understand the point of. This probably comes under the FIA’s catch-all “cost cutting” heading, the excuse they give for introducing all of their silliest rules. It is on days like this when I wonder if Formula 1 would not be better just re-writing the rules from scratch.

A good government needs to learn when to leave things alone and treat people as mature adults who can sort things out for themselves. Of course, most governments rather prefer to grab as much power as they can, and the FIA is no different.

Despite what I have written about Lewis Hamilton’s actions behind the Safety Car over the past couple of days, I think the FIA’s decision was the correct one (it’s not often I say that!). Hamilton broke the rules, but it was not the sort of thing that merited a serious punishment. A slap on the wrists or a fine perhaps, but not points deductions or anything like that.

But I don’t like the implication from the biased British media that Hamilton was found “not guilty”. Remember that Sebastian Vettel’s punishment was taken away from him. There has only been one major piece of new evidence since Sunday, and we all know what that shows.

Of course, the British media is absolutely unbearable when it comes to this sort of thing. Mark Blundell was on ITV this morning criticising the fact that the stewards have never driven a Grand Prix car before, so they’re bound not to know what it’s like. That’s funny, I don’t remember him making such a criticism before, but there you go.

It’s also quite amusing because Blundell would know a lot about not being qualified for your job. He is, after all, a broadcaster who has a shockingly poor grasp of the English language.

Funny also how all of the other Grand Prix drivers seem to have been criticising Hamilton as well. Mark Blundell conveniently ignored this point. After being grilled by his colleagues, Hamilton said:

It was a bit disappointing because I knew a few of the drivers there and I didn’t expect them to say certain things.

Perhaps it’s time to admit when you are in the wrong.

In a way, the FIA couldn’t really have risked giving Hamilton a larger penalty because they would have been accused of manipulating the championship. It’s a sign of the sorry state of affairs that the FIA has found itself in. It is constantly being accused of bias one way or another and of manipulating this and that.

There are a few measures that I would like to see the FIA bring in to help prevent this.

1. When the race result is announced, it should not be changed

   I think there should be a time limit on when the race result can be changed. This is not to say that teams should not be able to appeal or that stewards should be unable to punish bad driving. But there should be a time limit for when a team can appeal a result. Something like six hours for instance. This does not even necessarily mean that the result has to be set in stone — just that we know what is going on. For a race result to come under question several days after the event is simply unacceptable.
   (This would be the case for drivers breaking the rules, but should be different in case a car is found to be illegal. But illegal parts on a car ought to be caught during scrutineering anyway.)

2. Stewards in one race should not rule on something that happened in another race

   For the second time this year, the stewards have found themselves ruling on something that happened in another race. This week the Chinese GP stewards had to discuss something which had already been discussed by the Japanese stewards. This is not on really. It is like a referee at a football match giving someone a yellow card for something a footballer did in his previous match.

3. Make penalties more sensible and predictable

   Whenever somebody is in trouble, you simply do not know what kind of punishment they are going to get. I once saw somebody referring to ‘The FIA Random Penalty Generator’ and it really is true. Disqualification? 10 place grid penalty? Drive through penalty? Start the race from the pits? Points docked? Seconds added to your time? We just don’t know which of these punishments will be used at a particular time. The stewards appear to award penalties in a completely arbitrary manner. It is no wonder people wonder about possible FIA bias. This must be sorted out, as a matter of priority.

What happened during the Japanese Grand Prix is actually a good case in point. Robert Kubica was given a drive-through penalty for being involved in an accident with Lewis Hamilton. Now, Kubica’s move was quite ambitious and he was unlikely to be able to pull it off, but did it really merit a drive-through? After all, other drivers crash into each other all the time and never get so much as a slap on the wrists. It’s kind of seen as part of the territory of motor racing.

You have to wonder when Fernando Alonso got whacked pretty hard by Sebastian Vettel. Unlike Hamilton, Alonso sustained quite bad damage to his car. Did Vettel get punished? Of course not — the FIA is biased against Alonso and in favour of Hamilton.

I know some people don’t believe me when I say that the FIA is biased in favour of Hamilton and that he is the successor to Michael Schumacher in this regard. To me, it is clear in the FIA’s eyes that the departure of Schumacher has left a void, and they have decided that Wonder Boy Britain’s Lewis Hamilton shall fill that void. (I believe it is actually illegal to say ‘Lewis Hamilton’ without prefixing it with ‘Britain’s’.)

There is a resentment about the fact that Alonso was able to beat Michael Schumacher fair and square, when Schumacher had no excuses. Alonso is the only driver ever to have managed this (apart from possibly Mika Häkkinen, and he only did it once, not twice like Alonso did).

But don’t ask me if the F1 establishment favours Hamilton. Ask the F1 establishment itself.

Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone has hailed Lewis Hamilton as the saviour of the sport…

“Lewis Hamilton has been a real breath of fresh air and has resurrected Formula One,” Britain’s Guardian newspaper quoted commercial rights holder Ecclestone, who is not in Shanghai, as saying…

“We lost a big hero in Michael Schumacher but in Lewis we have another. But for him, I’m not sure where the sport would be heading.”

Straight from the horse’s mouth.

There is no doubt that the mess that the FIA and Formula 1 as a whole currently finds itself in is directly the fault of its power-mad President Max Mosley. A lot of people have been criticising the FIA’s bad management recently (not just the Hamilton investigation, but the bungled email to the teams about tyres at Fuji).

Max Mosley seems to do business on the basis of personal vendettas and the FIA’s institutional pro-Ferrari bias rather than anything to do with notions of fairness or merit. This year’s witch-hunt against McLaren is a case in point — all to do with Max Mosley’s personal dislike of Ron Dennis.

Then there are the extraordinarily offensive comments he made about Jackie Stewart, somebody who had the cheek to criticise the FIA’s handling of the Stepneygate row. Doesn’t he know that people are not allowed to criticise Mosley?

Mosley said: “There’s one particular ex-driver who because he never stops talking, never has the chance to listen — so he doesn’t know what’s going on.

“He said the FIA’s decision would not have worked in a civil court. He has no qualification to say that.

“Then he starts saying this is personal between me and Ron Dennis, at great length, because everything he does is at extreme length.

“It’s annoying that some of the sponsors listen to him because he’s won a few championships. But nobody else in Formula One does — not the teams, not the drivers. He’s a figure of fun among drivers.”

Mosley, presumably alluding to the tartan trousers and cap Stewart wears to races, added: “He goes round dressed up as a 1930s music hall man. He’s a certified halfwit.”

The comment about Jackie Stewart being a “certified halfwit” is seen as a reference to Stewart’s dyslexia. Damon Hill says all that needs to be said in his letter to Autosport magazine.

Update: Pitpass also has a good article on Max Mosley’s comments about Jackie Stewart.

With such contemptuous regard for his fellow inhabitants, one has to wonder what Mosley really feels about the diminutive former second-hand car salesman who not only facilitated his entry to Planet Paddock but has allowed him to enjoy the sort of totalitarian power trip his name prevented him enjoying in the real world.

You don’t often see professional media outlets referring to the fact that Max Mosley is the son of fascist leader Oswald Mosley. Some believe that Max Mosley really wanted a career in politics, but was advised against it due to who is father was. So rather than fucking up the country, Max Mosley decided to go into motor racing politics instead so that he could fuck up motor racing.