FIA threatens Australian GP future

[team illucid]

FIA threatens Australian GP future
Ramifications of the Minardi fiasco

Paul Stoddart has few friends at the FIA

The FIA has threatened to pull future Grand Prix events out of Australia after legal intervention in the Minardi team saga. Minardi's attempts to participate in this week's Australian GP without modifying their cars to new team regulations have dominated the headlines and led to team principal Paul Stoddart seeking a court injunction to overturn a stewards' ruling.

A judge in the Victorian Supreme Court on Friday ruled that the F1 minnows could participate in Saturday qualifying, even though it was in contravention of participation rules set down by the FIA before the start of the season.

Minardi's cars competed in Saturday's first qualifying session after team mechanics modified them overnight to 2005 specifications and were cleared by FIA stewards before morning practice. But FIA have taken a dim view of Stoddart's much-publicised actions and on Saturday issued a press release slamming the interference in their sport by Australia's legal system.

The FIA said that as a consequence if Australian laws and procedures allowed a judge to act in this manner then the future of world championship motorsport events in Australia were under threat.



FIA said they and their stewards were given no notice of Stoddart's legal proceedings and were given no opportunity to be in court when the judge ruled on the case.

"Apparently, the judge thought it right to interfere with the running of a major sporting event, overrule the duly appointed international officials and compel the governing body to allow cars to participate in breach of the international regulations, all this without first hearing both sides of the case," FIA's statement said.

"If Australian laws and procedures do indeed allow a judge to act in this way, it will be for the World Motor Sport Council to decide is a world championship motor sport event of any kind can ever again be held in Australia."

Stoddart's actions are known to have upset the sport's commercial powerbroker Bernie Ecclestone, who is said to have spoken to the Australian aviation millionaire team owner late Friday.

[VXSS346]

Paul Stoddart, will have no friends in Australia if that happens. Would you fly his airline?

[strife]

I doubt the circumstances would be unique to Australia

[Litre8]

Does that mean that FIA considers themselves to operate outside the laws of the countries they frequent with their circus? I dont have all the facts on this saga to comment on the pro's/con's of the Stoddart actions but it would appear the FIA/Bernie E believe that the might/right of their all singing/all dancing show is beyond question/challenge. This wasnt some little dinky local magistrate ruling, it was the Vic Supreme Court.

[carneb]

Wouldn't it be interesting if the Supreme Court Judge found the FIA/Grand Prix officials/stewards to be in contempt of court.

[Rod]

yeah but with only the facts outlined in the first post it was unreasonable to make a ruling withut hearing both sides. From the quote it seems FIA werent given a chance to put their side before the court.

"FIA said they and their stewards were given no notice of Stoddart's legal proceedings and were given no opportunity to be in court when the judge ruled on the case."

[group 3]

From GrandPrix.com

The FIA, Minardi, contracts and the Concorde Agreement

The FIA spent most of Saturday coming up with a four paragraph statement about the decision of the Victorian Supreme Court which granted Paul Stoddart of Minardi an injunction to race 2004 cars in the Australian Grand Prix. When that happened the FIA appears to have threatened to refuse to sanction other events in Australia in the future unless Stoddart withdrew the injunction and faced by that possibility, Stoddart backed down. That was the responsible thing to do. No-one wants the sport to be disrupted by the arguments over how the rules are made and who had the power to make such decisions.

No-one has won a victory in this matter but the FIA clearly felt the need to react and on Saturday afternoon issued a statement saying that "if Australian laws and procedures do indeed allow a judge to act in this way, it will be for the World Motor Sport Council to decide if a World Championship motor sport event of any kind can ever again be held in Australia."

This is not a very productive response. And will almost certainly stir up trouble around the world. The Australian legal system is much the same as the British system and many others and if the FIA wants to exclude racing from Australian it might end up having to threaten the same in many other countries. This is not going to win Max Mosley votes in any FIA presidential election.

The important point in all of this is that the law is the law and the sport is not above it. It might be if the rules and regulations were not linked to a commercial contract called the Concorde Agreement but a commercial contract is judged by commercial law and that is what the Supreme Court of Victoria did.

The irony of this is that Max Mosley, Bernie Ecclestone and Marco Piccinini were the architects of the Concorde Agreement. That was back in the early 1980s and after they had won power for the F1 teams Mosley and Ecclestone changed their roles to become the president of the FIA and the commercial rights holder of F1. Suddenly they found themselves caught in a trap of their own creation because they had become the authority which previously they had fought. The teams were once allies of Mosley and Ecclestone but in recent times friction has been building.

The issue of the Minardi cars in Melbourne was a pretext to provoke a confrontation that would take the issue into a court of law. That is what happened and the court ruled that the Concorde Agreement is the document that governs F1. It gives the sporting and technical commissions of the FIA powers to make rules but they do not override the contract. As this is a commercial contract it is not a sporting issue.

This is the significance of the Melbourne decision.

The FIA cannot cancel the Concorde Agreement without the other parties agreeing to that course of action.

The danger of threatening to remove motorsport from Australia is a very risky move because the legal systems in civilised countries across the world would probably reach the same decision as the Supreme Court in Melbourne.

The matter is not solved by what happened in Melbourne and it is probable that there will have to be another court showdown between the teams and the FIA to show once and for all who is right.

Let us hurry up and get to the showdown so that the focus of the sport can go back to the race track and away from the unseemingly quibbling that blights F1 at the moment.

[Old Kiwi]

I agree with the FIA. A judge in Melbourne has no right to over rule any motorsport regulation.

I'd be pissed as well. I hope those involved with this do a major backflip and apologise to the FIA for the (very stupid) oversight.

[paul05]

an italian court would have made a ruling against frank williams without all the facts,cool tyres ,low tyre pressure and a few pace car laps caused this sad event(senna) .this is motor sport,stoddart new about this in september 2004,all this time to make changes.he's an aussie we get behind our boys but not if he is going to be the cause of international motorsport staying away from this country. :bash:

[traco]

The FIA is the ruling body for fomula one cars. It sets the calander and the rules and regulations under which the cars race. The VIC supreme court has no standing in the matter unless a crime has been committed or the agreement with Australian authorities hosting the event has been breached.

The F1 circus is a world event held in many countries and there are alot more countries lining up to host it. I fear we stand a chance of loosing it as a result of this stupidity.

Supreme court judges should understand they are not GOD.

[sloone]

I agree with the FIA. A judge in Melbourne has no right to over rule any motorsport regulation.

I'd be pissed as well. I hope those involved with this do a major backflip and apologise to the FIA for the (very stupid) oversight.
Is the FIA above the law or is this a contractual problem?
If a motorsport regulation due for implementation was to increase the potential consequence of causing injury or death, who then, if not a Supreme court judge, should be allowed to rule on it? The people who made the change?
Personally if the FIA want to come back with such a knee jerk statement then I say they can take their bat and ball and go somewhere else.
They should have dealt with it in house directly with the team and not threatened all the other Australian events that are sanctioned by them.
Does this response mean that they would threaten the host country regardless of which team took court action or is it only because Paul Stoddart took action in Australia?
If it doesn't matter which team, then all a country who wants a GP would have to do is to get a team to take court action (fully paid for of course) at a race and then soon enough they would get a chance to run their own event, until someone took court action in their country.
Anyway this is just my 2 cents worth, because I hate being threatened with a consequence due to someone else actions.

[PepeLePew]

How long will we have to worry about this before the whole circus self-destructs anyway?

Sounds like a 'we like to make rules and regs but no one dare question them or find a loophole in them or we'll make you pay'.

Kids are like that too.

[alexcs]

"The important point in all of this is that the law is the law and the sport is not above it. It might be if the rules and regulations were not linked to a commercial contract called the Concorde Agreement but a commercial contract is judged by commercial law and that is what the Supreme Court of Victoria did."

please reread the article.