Ferrarigate: I Name The Guilty Man

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: July 30, 2010

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In most sports, it is accepted that influencing the outcome of an event by means other than fair competition is cheating. Even in F1, where sportsmanship is a puny weakling being menaced by muscular thugs, it is illegal for a team to fix the result of a race by ordering a driver to concede a place.

Yet at Hockenheim 2010 we saw Ferrari arrange for Felipe Massa to throw away a race win in favour of Fernando Alonso.

Undoubtedly then, a blatant sporting crime was committed in front of our very eyes. But who is the guilty man, the fellow who should bear our outrage as a stain on his record?

Let us consider the suspects, and examine the case against each of them.

Fernando Alonso

The volatile Spanish driver was certainly the beneficiary of the crime, and that is often a whodunit clue.

Indisputably a driver of the first rank, he is building a reputation as an arrogant and tantrum-prone brat. But I have to suggest that being a prima donna is built into the personality of an F1 driver, and in the case in question Alonso did what any of his peers would have done.

Massa pulled over, and Alonso zipped past, it would be foolish to fault him for that.



Verdict: Not guilty.

Rob Smedley

Smedley was the public voice of the crime. He was ordered to communicate the team order that was the specific offence, and he did so.

But at the end of the day, Smedley is just a spanner-monkey, not a key decision maker, so he cannot be made responsible.

Not Guilty

Stefano Domenicali

As Ferrari team principal, Domenicali is very much the team's public face. It was him who gave Smedley the team order to pass along, and who made duplicitous statements to the media after the race.

Yet, Domenicali is only one cog in the Ferrari machine. A very important cog, true, but he does not act alone or wit...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Formula 1

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