GPWizard F1 Forum
F1 News & Discussions => General F1 Discussion => Topic started by: Scott on March 18, 2018, 07:50:19 AM
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Seems the FIA need some help...
http://en.f1i.com/news/297349-fia-scrambling-deputy-race-director.html
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That's actually a pretty serious piece of news. Australia has a history of pretty incident filled first laps, so whoever does end up getting the job is going to need to be on the ball and know what they are doing. I don't envy anyone being parachuted into this post at the last minute.
I also nominate Ali though :).
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I'll second that. Alia knows F1 forwards, backwards, upside down and sideways.
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Can't see there's a real problem, there must be quite a number of experienced race officials able to step up. Sure some of the rules and regs are different but series like world touring cars, Renault V8, Super Formula, etc. etc. have officials who are well used to dealing with standing start races and the problems it throws up.
To my mind this the real issue is the FIA not implementing the full year gardening leave when their employees are poached by teams. If there is this longer timescale the outgoing official doing a race or even 2 before a replacement is in post is not really a problem.
The FIA going against what was agreed in principle with the teams is the cause of such a ridiculous problem.
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To my mind this the real issue is the FIA not implementing the full year gardening leave when their employees are poached by teams.
They are only doing so because a Swiss court ordered the FIA to cease making gardening leaves longer than 3 months. This is not something a gentlemen's rule can override. The FIA is no more pleased with this than you are, from what I understand - the gardening leave rule acted as a deterrant for anyone wishing to leave the organisation. They were especially keen to keep Laurent, but Ferrari "outbid" the FIA.
It is Ferrari, not the FIA, which broke the "gentlemen's agreement", though it is not clear if a Swiss court would be impressed if it thought Ferrari was trying to enforce by proxy the agreement that had previously been explicit.
If the FIA had used French contracts, I believe this would not have been a problem, however there are other reasons why the FIA prefers to use Swiss contracts for its workforce. (I'm not sure how many of those are practical and how many merely historical). Besides, it is not clear how well it would work if the FIA started transferring contracts into French law, when it would be fairly obvious it would be doing so merely to make things more difficult for its employees...
I think the FIA will have someone in the wings, though it is unlikely to be their first choice. As for everyone who nominated me, thank you very much - if you can convince my workplace to let me have the weekend off, I would certainly be prepared to have a go.