COOPER: Big Week For Jean Todt And The FIA

Formula 1

COOPER: Big Week For Jean Todt And The FIA

There’s lot more stuff on the boil...one way or another, it will be an interesting week...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted September 07, 2010 Balen (BEL)

Jean Todt, president of the FIA, has yet to make a decision on the identity of F1's 13th team for 2011. (Photo: Getty Images)

This week is a busy one for Jean Todt and the FIA, with Wednesday’s World Motor Sport Council hearing into the Hockenheim Ferrari team orders affair in Paris followed by more activity in Italy on Friday.

Tomorrow is the first major F1 ‘trial’ to take place on Jean Todt’s watch, and it promises to be fascinating. It’s also the first under the new arrangements which see the FIA President take a step back from the process, whereas his predecessor put himself at the very center of the action. Transcripts or recordings of some of the major investigations of the recent past showed it was all too clear who was in charge.

What makes this week’s action all the more intriguing is that it involves Ferrari and Felipe Massa, both of whom have strong links with Todt. And it was events at Ferrari under Todt in Austria in 2002 that led to the very rule which tripped the team up at Hockenheim.

It’s impossible to second guess what might happen tomorrow, but it’s worth noting that the long delay in getting the WMSC to review the case – it will be 45 days since the German GP – the events of July 25 have drifted out of people’s minds to some extent, and the sense of outrage has faded.

Not only that, but Fernando Alonso is in very much still in contention for the title, and the battle is hotting up. The WMSC members know that that any penalty involving a loss of points for the Spaniard will be a big deal – perhaps too big a deal for them to consider at this stage.

Will there be an increased fine? A token loss of constructors’ points? A recommendation that the team orders rule be clarified – or perhaps dropped altogether?

We await tomorrow with interest. One thing is sure, and that is whatever decision is arrived at, it’s going to be a difficult day for Todt, because someone or other is bound to accuse him of bias. Talk about rock and a hard place...

Also resolved this week will be the small matter of the 13th team for 2011. It seems incredible that the FIA has waited until September before addressing the issue, and indeed the longer the process has dragged on, the less likely it has seemed that the governing body will actually award the 13th place to anybody.

We are now pretty much at the point where Lotus was awarded the “bonus” fourth new team slot last year, although Mike Gascoyne had actually got things going much earlier, and had even moved into the factory, on the basis that Max Mosley would eventually make it happen.

Last year the decision on the three initial teams was made in June, and yet US F1 completely failed to progress, and HRT only just made it to Bahrain, after a change of ownership. That has provided a valuable lesson for everyone, and one presumes that the FIA has taken an even closer look than before at the packages on offer.

The problem is that it’s something of a Catch 22, in that the longer the decision process dragged on, the less likely it was that anyone finally getting the entry would actually be able to get their act together by the start of next season. Epsilon Euskadi and Villeneuve/Durango may well have wasted their time, so don’t be too surprised if the 13th entry is not awarded after all.

Korean International Circuit pit building. (Photo courtesy of Korea International Circuit)

The other big question that should be addressed this week is Korea, but whether it will be or not remains to be seen. Bernie Ecclestone is pushing for it to happen come what may, but in the end, the F1 schedule is the FIA’s call, and it’s the FIA rules that have already been flouted in terms of the extra time given to get things finished. It’s certainly an issue on which Todt and Bernie may have quite different viewpoints right now, so it could be an important test case for their still very new relationship.

The FIA’s Charlie Whiting is due to inspect the track in a week’s time, on his way to Singapore. But TV footage of Karun Chandhok’s demo run for Red Bull last weekend has given us all a chance to see how far behind the project it is, and it is surely time that the FIA makes its position clear.

It will be interesting to see whether the WMSC cancels it outright, formally states that the race will go ahead only pending a successful outcome of Whiting’s inspection, or in a worst case scenario, makes no comment at all.

There’s lot more stuff on the boil too, but it may be too early for definitive news on the technical rules for 2013. But one way or another, it will be an interesting week...

Adam Cooper notched up his 25th season as a racing journalist in 2009. Born in London, England, he saw his first F1 race at age 10 in 1976. He began freelancing for Autosport magazine in 1985 and was on the fulltime staff from 1987-92. He then went freelance again, initially spending two years in Japan before following the 1994 Champcar series from a base in Indianapolis. He has not missed a Grand Prix since Suzuka ‘94, a run that has extended to Abu Dhabi ’09. Adam has written books about Eddie Irvine, Piers Courage and Michael Schumacher and hosts a race preview show on Sirius XM. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Check out Adam's Blog or follow him on Twitter

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