MAY 28, 2002

Renault off the hook

THE FIA has announced that Renault Sport and Jarno Trulli will keep the points they scored for fourth place in Sunday's Monaco Grand Prix after its software was found to be legal. The FIA said that the car's launch control system was found "to be in conformity with the requirements of the 2002 Formula 1 technical regulations.

The news is not a big surprise but it does raise questions about why the FIA was not able to come up the decision on Sunday night at Monaco. The federation has been very keen in recent years to create a situation in which there is very little chance of a result being left in any way provisional and has adopted the attitude that it is the referee and makes the decisions there are then. This is good for the sport as protests, appeals and counter-appeals do nothing for the image of the sport. The important question therefore is why the FIA was not able to come up with an instant response on Sunday when it seems the only question was whether or not the software was the same as had been registered with the federation earlier in the year. With computers as they are nowadays there seems to be no reason that this could not have been at the circuit on Sunday evening.