Can someone clarify the Minardi situation?

[Born Racer]

There is one aspect I remain unsure of regarding the issue of whether Ferrari were to agree to Minardi running a car that didn't comply exactly to 2005 chassis regulations.

What was Minardi's reason for not arriving in Melbourne with their old car modified to the 2005 regs, as Ferrari did? I'm aware that Paul Stoddart was unhappy with the lateness of the mention of this year's changes (when were the regulation changes announced?)

Nevertheless the team managed to hastily prepare a car conforming to the standard OVERNIGHT! This clearly demonstrates that they were able to meet the new regulations.

[Knowlesy]

Yes.........basically it was all meaningless posturing and quite farcical.

I mean, the regulations were given when.....last October? And Minardi can't get their cars adapted in time for Melbourne?

It's not so long ago they were designing whole cars in a few months because of financial uncertainties being resolved late!

[Kicking-back]

It was politics.

[Inigo Montoya]

Welcome to the forum Born Racer! It was a joke, as it turned out that Ferrari were never blocking Minardi from competing. It was, as K-B put it, simply politics.

[yggdrasil]

Yes, I agree with Born racer, why spend the amount of money on a poor car, when the extra cost to have a car that is just a second slower is not, in these hirollers perspectiv, so much bigger. The drivers in these cars I think have to pay a large amount of money to get a seat. So why not demand this money from them. If I get it right there will always will be affording drivers.

[Super Tourer]

Originally Posted by Born Racer

There is one aspect I remain unsure of regarding the issue of whether Ferrari were to agree to Minardi running a car that didn't comply exactly to 2005 chassis regulations.

What was Minardi's reason for not arriving in Melbourne with their old car modified to the 2005 regs, as Ferrari did? I'm aware that Paul Stoddart was unhappy with the lateness of the mention of this year's changes (when were the regulation changes announced?)

Nevertheless the team managed to hastily prepare a car conforming to the standard OVERNIGHT! This clearly demonstrates that they were able to meet the new regulations.

Welcome to 10 Tenths, enjoy posting here.

As KB said, it was political.

Minardi had tested 2005 aero parts on their 2004 car back in November 2004, so they certainly had parts that complied and they had run them on the car, this somewhat ate into Minardi's argument that they had neither the funds or time to develop an interim car or 2005 spec parts for the old car.

Paul Stoddart was clearly testing the 'legality' of the 2005 regulations and the way they were implemented, it is said that he 'speaks' for the teams that oppose much of what the FIA decides to change and the way regulations are introduced.

As I recall, it wasn't a case of Ferrari not agreeing but them stating that the legality of the cars was decided by the stewards. As it turned out the support that PS though he had amongst the remaining teams was (allegedly) not as concrete as he thought, he had apparently canvassed opinion on him running 2004 cars in Melbourne before both Jaguar and Jordan were sold and their new owners took a different view.

[Dixie Flatline]

Stoddart claimed (a) the regulations weren't properly promulgated because approval was not sought nor received from the ten team principals in accordance with the Concorde Agreement, and (b) the issue concerning the future of Cosworth which was caught up in the sale of Jaguar by Ford meant that the engines Minardi would use for the 2005 season were not confirmed until relatively late in the off-season, reducing the time available to Minardi to make cars fully compliant with the regulations.

Hence, Stoddart (so he claims) spoke to Max Mosley in his capacity as President of the FIA to determine whether it was permissible for Minardi to collect the approval from the other nine teams to Minardi running cars that did not comply with the FIA technical regulations. He claims he collected all but Ferrari's agreement to Minardi's proposal, and he spent Thursday and Friday morning chasing Jean Todt for his signature (much like the fans at the Grand Prix, actually!). He finally persuaded Todt to give in, and despite negative comments from Jordan and RBR saying they weren't bound by the decision of their predecessors to agree to Stoddart's request, went to see the stewards, who promptly said they knew nothing of this, didn't know the terms of the Concorde Agreement, found his cars didn't comply with the FIA regulations and disqualified Minardi from competing.

We all know what happened after that!

[Born Racer]

Politics, eh? Quite synonymous with much F1 activity at times

Did Paul Stoddart, as a team owner, not have to agree to the last-minute chassis regulation changes in the first place?

I think by putting together a last-minute car that complied with the regulations, he may have shot himself a bit in the foot as regards the point he was making.

[avsfan733]

IIRC his whole point was exactly that Born, that the teams had not unanimously agreed to the changes so they were technically illegal based on the concorde agreement

[Dixie Flatline]

Stoddart claimed that the regulations were not agreed to by the Team Principals in accordance with the requirements of the Concorde Agreement. The FIA has obligingly uploaded a lot of correspondence between the Team Principals and the FIA in relation to cutting costs and have devoted a separate section to the correspondence between Minardi and the FIA (there is a separate thread on this subject perhaps back in January or February).

Stoddart claims that the Concorde Agreement requires 14 days notice to be given of the proposed changes, and for the Team Principals to positively indicate their agreement to these changes. He claims that the FIA sent the rule changes to the team principals during the 2004 Brazilian Grand Prix and provided that if the Principal did not respond, then that Principal would be taken as agreeing to the rule changes. Given that the Brazilian Grand Prix was imminent, according to Stoddart, a lot of the Team Principals didn't respond.

[davester]

Its got to be behind the scenes politics. There is no logical reason to pursue this path of action when you are almost irrelevant to the sport in terms of performance.

[Logrence]

It also got Stoddart a nice bit of publicity for his home GP - I think getting the Melbourne courts involved was a little unprecedented.