The Forumla One season for 2005 has not yet started and already we are watching a controversy unfold.
This little saga started all the way back in October of 2004 when Ferrari tried to push for new regulations to raise the minimum ride heights of the cars (me thinks that they had perhaps discovered some advantage to be made). So regulations were drawn up and in prniciple the 10 F1 teams agreed without actually finding out what the rules were.
The 10 F1 teams are governed by the Formula and by a series of agreements called "Concorde". They require a unianimous agreement for then to be changed. They cover all sorts of things from TV revenue rights, how the championship is to be run, rules changes etc.
Without knowing the rules, most teams went and devloped their 2005 cars in expectation. Minardi on the other hand have such a limited budget that they more or less had to wait for the rules to be written before committing to building the 2005 car. For a car to be signed off by the FIA, a concorde agreement is required. Minardi and Ferrari have been fighting a war within the Italian press with the Ficenzan team claiming that Ferrari has too much of the revenue pie - consequently Ferrari didn't sign off on the car until the last minute.
When it came time to send the cars to Melbourne, Minardi still hadn't got all the aero kit worked out and so asked for permission to run last year's car despite it's "illegality". Given that last year's car was more than 3 seconds off the pace as most circuits, I personally see this as mean spirited by a team with a budget of $590m as opposed to Minardi's paltry $9m. If Ferrari were to score no points in the World Championship, according to their standing within the F1 community they'd still get $67m in revenue whereas Minardi if they acheived a clean sweep of every race would only get $37m.
I think Ferrari using their somewhat unique position are trying to actually remove Minardi from the grid permanently. I suspect but can't prove that the regs put in place for 2005 were decided by Ferrari and then forcibly agreed to.
F2004M was already compliant before F2005 makes an appearance whereas all other teams bar Minardi are fronting up in totally new equipment. F2004M is esentially last years car which is already reliable and they'll be watching the 2005 spec cars to improve F2005 before it makes an appearance. Baddoer has been testing the car outside of the regulations and so long as F2004M is the prescribed car, virtually unlimited miles can be done in it.
Actually to be perfectly honest and no-one saw this as it escaped under the radar the Technical Regulations were passed without Concorde and only officially published at Jan 1, 2005 making it impossible for anyone but whoever submitted the changes to actually know what they were.
Stoddart has a 2005 spec car that still hasn't got it's FIA approval and didn't get it as the FIA were in legal deliberations before the start of the season. Hmm, submit new rules then hold up the process of accreditation then disallow an ex-compliant car...
Notice something people?
Addenda: Even as I was writing this, the first practive session of the Melbourne GP was being run. Minardi were still not allowed to run their cars. To do so would require a signature by all 10 teams as at 3pm this afternoon prior to the final qualifying session. Jean Todt the Ferrari mysteriously has not signed as yet.
Ferrari: Scum scum scum scum scum scum scum scum scum scum scum scum scum.
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