FIA, FIO, Mathieu Bonato discussed on The Autosport Podcast
Automatic TRANSCRIPT
I wrote a column on the FIO and how they really didn't handle Austria well, and they actually tweeted once during that weekend and it's been forgotten about since this VAR thing is up and running. It's a room in Geneva and basically it's purposes. And I think the direct quote is to give an extra data stream and that's it. So it's not here to influence, but that's ludicrous, but I want to go back and actually Martin forgive me for doing this, but I don't think you read up the most important thing in the statement from the FIA. Nevertheless, we took into count the wet conditions in the difficulties highlighted by pros as mitigate circumstances. Obviously, derivation of the word mitigation. And so the reason it's so frustrating is that I understand Eduardo freight tests and shares FIA being French. English isn't their first language. I'm a journalist. I'm particularly precious about the way certain language is used, but they're saying mitigating circumstances. It is serious. This is exceptional, and then the previous paragraph is we do not accept the conditions were serious or made it an exception that Perez couldn't control. So it's one or the other, and you know, to go back to the stewards now, what we're expecting, it's nothing new that we've now had in the past 18 races. We've had three race directors and two operating. This is what you get, you get, you get inconsistency, and then you look at this specific infringement right, which is the ten safety car links. So it was I think Mathieu bonato said, are we fully expect it to be a 5 second penalty? Because Antonio giovinazzi got one in 2020, which is fine, but in Vettel in Canada didn't get one for the same infringement because I think they said he closed up by the end of safety car period. That's fine. And basically loads of other drivers today. That was exactly it, wasn't it? Back in June, the FIA said, we've looked at the evidence. We looked at the GPS, Vettel and the safety car fell back more than ten car lengths from the car. He was following, but then reclosed the gap and maintained the ten car lengths until the race resumed. The stewards also noted that there were other drivers who did the same thing, therefore, no harm no foul. This is me being a bit flip, but going, oh, there's that means there's a lot of work to assess who's done what, so let's leave it. And that's not a penalty, but if you're just slam dunk codified rule, then you fall foul of it or you don't. So if Perez gets a penalty, fine, but then Vettel has to, and all the other drivers. You go on, it's like, you know, I'm a massive football fan. I will never complain about VAR taking three and a half minutes to decide a penalty. If it's two and a half hours for a race for something that is a rule break, or it's not, it's not like, you know, doing those 2D lines on a 3D shape to find out someone's shoelaces offside. This is a lot more clear cut. And when you're imposing to race, what do you expect, of course, you're going to get inconsistency, let's play, but I just can not find them. And I think maybe I'm adding one and one and getting 5 here, whatever. But there's look at context. The FIA, yes, we all and the wider audience of F one thinks are a bit of a shambles at the minute for how they've come back after Abu Dhabi and whatever. It's also not just us. It's their relationship with F one, which is an all time low. And if I could take one point, D F one calendar for 2023, F one's works are, you know, it's got Vegas and Saudi Arabian Qatar. Where do you agree with any of those races? It's F one success story. The FIA announced it with the 2023 calendar, they jumped the gun. So if you look actually on the timed stamps on Twitter, it took F one 92 minutes to get a statement from domenico to announce their own calendar because the FIA jumped it, jumped the gun. Because the relationship is so poor now. There's infighting and they're going around each other just to try and one up each other and look better in the public domain. So you've got that. So we're at a point where it's like focus fees are spec war between them and that's not hyperbole. I think if you were to stick a neat whisky down Stephanie de Medicare and let him go off the record, the stuff he would say at the minute is superheated. So this is doing nothing to help the public perception or what is going on between the comms department of the FI and F one. And again, without going too far, but whether it's okay, there's been a new change of president since Jean Todd into MBS, but the outright defense of their own decision making, and I understand as well like justice said, we don't have team principles barking on the radio. But what Massey like him or hate him, what he used to do after every single race, no matter the pressure he used to front up to meet her and go, I will now talk through my decision process or I'll speak on behalf of the stuarts, obviously got different things there. The FIA don't do that anymore. And you can argue that's good. It's less of a distraction. But now there's just no transparency. So we can sit here and I can go up an octave because I'm a bit angry about it. And whatever, but we don't have there right to reply, we get we don't we don't have that transparent process. And so when you've got the president and his tact and the statements he's been given to the media and he isn't particularly popular, we as fans and commentators on sport, then the teams or your investors, your commercial partners, whatever. Where's the faith coming from? Because it's really baffling. The process is slow and inconsistent. Okay, fine, take two and a half hours by the letter of the law, which you can argue they have done in this case, but then what does that say, you know, the aforementioned case study of Vettel or the fact that they contradict themselves in their own definition and outcome, which is fantastic. Or if you're going to be inconsistent, at least be quick. So that Martin Brundle and Paul diresta can argue both sides of it on Sky Sports F one. We've had neither. This is the worst outcome. It's just like the FIA okay, you've had a new boss now and you've had time to settle in. But it would be, again, it would be fine if, okay, the decision making and the outcomes were bad, but now you've got this like school ground politics where, oh, I'm going to announce your calendar an hour and a half before you, which is unplanned, but we get a leg up. What Zach Brown would call, it's a horrible phrase, but the optics of it always is really bad. I'm talking of optics. What could the FIA