JUNE 22, 2006

Here comes trouble?

The Sporting Working Group meeting has now finished and we hear that Charlie Whiting, the FIA representative present, ruled that the teams could not vote on an engine proposal - known as the Monaco Proposal. The argument, according to our sources, was that the proposal included technical elements which mean that it should be discussed by the Technical Working Group and that it was all put forward too late to be included on the agenda. This is an interesting argument as at the last meeting in May it was Whiting who insisted that the teams vote on the engine issue, despite the fact that those present had little or no knowledge of the so-called Maranello Proposal, because they did not know the details in advance.

The situation is now very clear. The FIA is going to go ahead with its plans unless someone does something about it. The only route forward is legal action and, perhaps, a complaint to the European Commission about how the sport is being run.

The big question is whether or not anyone is going to do anything.