Unhappy with this verdict,
Ferrari wrote to
FIA President
Max Mosley claiming the judgment set a ‘dangerous precedent’ for future ‘dishonest behaviour’ within the sport and asking for the matter to be referred to the FIA’s International Court of Appeal. Mosley agreed to this request, and the case will likely be heard towards the end of August where it will be debated as to whether McLaren’s cars gained any ‘illegitimate advantage’ from the information in their possession. Ferrari’s sacked former head of performance development Nigel Stepney, meanwhile, claims he was the victim of a set-up within Maranello. The plot thickens.
Indeed, Stepney is not the only one to have found himself summarily dismissed during Formula 1’s summer of discontent, as
Scott Speed discovered to his cost less than a week before the Hungarian Grand Prix. The Californian, who had a very public verbal and physical bust-up with team principal Franz Tost in the aftermath of his premature retirement from the European Grand Prix, claiming that both the Austrian and
Scuderia Toro Rosso co-owner Gerhard Berger were doing everything possible to undermine him and team-mate Tonio Liuzzi and that no amount of money in the world would convince him to race for Tost and Berger again. Just days later, it was announced he would be replaced by
BMW test-driver
Sebastian Vettel – who already made his grand prix debut in place of the recovering
Robert Kubica in Indianapolis back in June, impressively finishing the race inside the points – with immediate effect.
Also shown the door last month was Spyker’s Christijan Albers, and while Markus Winkelhock made a stunning impression by leading on his maiden appearance last time out at the Nürburgring in the Dutchman’s place, the German DTM star was only ever a stop-gap measure as the team searched for someone with more available budget to complete the season. Despite the names of such as Christian Klien, Narain Karthikeyan and Adrian Valles being bandied about, the drive eventually went the way of former
Super Aguri pilot Sakon Yamamoto. The Japanese began eleven races for Super Aguri last year, but has failed to shine in GP2 with BCN Competicion in 2007, and it will be interesting to see how he fares on his return alongside the talented
Adrian Sutil.
NEWS FROM THE TEAMS:
McLaren – Fernando Alonso (#1), Lewis Hamilton (#2):
McLaren travels to Hungary in confident mood, following Fernando Alonso’s imperious last-gasp triumph over Ferrari’s
Felipe Massa at the Nürburgring that stole Maranello’s thunder on a weekend when the scarlet cars had looked nigh-on unbeatable.
