rec.autos.simulators

I see. Then the full text of Mosley's statement, and the verifiable
quotes from Haug and Dennis, and the full text of the appeals board's
ruling are hearsay, by your professional lights?

No, I ignore it because A) neither Brawn not Todt ever used the word
"illegal", which all you amateur Perry Masons seem to have fixated upon
as the "evidence that should have sent Ferrari to the chair", and B)
even if they had, it makes no difference whatsoever once the appeal has
been lodged, to which you will mechanistically reply (as you have):

No, it most assuredly is not. Once again, you have confused the process
of the FIA's board of appeals with TV courtroom drama. READ SLOWLY: The
hearing last Friday in Paris was held for ONE purpose only: to judge the
merit of, in this case, Ferrari's appeal of Joachim Bauer's OPINION. In
Sepang, nearly two weeks ago, the immediately subsequent result of
Bauer's OPINION was the automatic decision by the organizers of the
Malaysiam GP to exclude both Ferraris from the final results. The
appeals board, however, was NOT called upon to judge the race
organizers' exclusion of Ferrari -- the organizers' duty to exclude
Ferrari from the results is unquestionable IF -- and ONLY if -- Jo
Bauer's opinion went unappealed. That opinion WAS, of course, appealed.
Follow me so far?

There are ONLY two things the appeals board may be allowed to consider
in the hearing: First, Jo Bauer's technical opinion, as written at
Sepang, with no amendments or ancillary arguments -- IN OTHER WORDS,
when Bauer wrote his opinion, the moment he handed that written opinion
to the race organizers, the opinion was frozen in time and graven in
stone. Nothing else could be added to (or subtracted from) that argument
-- which you amateur solicitors out there have confused with "evidence":
Think of it in logical terms, rather than based upon your fantasies of
bringing vile miscreants to justice while boffing Lara Flynn Boyle and
wearing $1500 Armani suits: An opinion is written, Ferrari appeals the
opinion, a board is automatically convened to decide whether Ferrari's
appeal of the written opinion has merit. If, in the meantime, Bauer, the
FIA, the CIA, Ron Dennis, and Richard Miller were allowed to get
together and add a little to the opinion here, firm it up a little
there, delete this imprecise passage over there, ad infinitum, ad
nauseam...well, as I said before: we'd still be debating the outcome of
the 1950 British GP and every subsequent race and champioship -- in
fact, there wouldn't have BEEN any subsequent championships, as such an
unending process -- nearly as long as this thread -- would have stopped
F1 in its tracks 49 years ago.

So, AGAIN, the rule -- as agreed upon my every member of the PRIVATE
CLUB that is F1 -- is that the opinion against which the appeal has been
made must (and rightly so) be judged exactly as it was presented to the
race organizers: no more, no less.

SECOND, the appeals board considers the arguments and "evidence" of the
appealing party AT THE APPEALS HEARING, AND ONLY AT THE APPEALS HEARING.
The chosen tactic or line of appeal ("no performance advantage,"
inadequate measuring equipment/methods") is THAT which the appealing
party presents AT THE HEARING -- NOT what they might have warbled like
confused pigeons at Sepang, or what some out-of-work ex-pilote thinks it
ought to be when he drools in front of the Press like any other
Monday-Morning quarterback. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT, so PLEASE take the
Tootsie Roll Pop out of your mouth for a minute and pay attention: By
giving the appealing party an entire unfettered week in which to prepare
their appeal, while forcing the FIA tech steward to stick with his
original opinion, this method assures the most fair treatment to the
party making the appeal (quite the opposite from the "guilty until
proven innocent" drivel put forward by another ng bogus barrister), and
THAT'S the way it HAS to be. These are life-and-death decisions for the
drivers and teams, but affect the FIA and their tech reps not at all, so
obviously the drivers/teams have the most to lose -- MAYBE THAT'S WHY
THE TEAMS AGREED upon this method of appeals process in the first place,
huh? Doooohhhhh.... This is also the reason these appeals boards are
convened as quickly as possible: when F1 races are held as close
together as one week -- so there has to be a fast, decisive court of
appeal, the decisions of which appeals board are final, and unappealable
(see 1950 British GP above).

As much as it may personally discomfit the lunchtime lawyers here, there
IS NO impassioned Sam Waterston rising in righteous wrath in the middle
of the appeals court shouting "But your honor! The criminal Todt HIMSELF
agreed the darn board things were out-of-spec!" It just don't happen
that way because...S U R P R I S E ! ! !...it's NOT A COURT OF LAW; it's
a members-only meeting to decide, by mutually-agreed-upon-rules, if some
other mutually-agreed-upon-rules have been contravened by one of their
members. The same thing happens in the Rotary Club, the Shriners, your
local Country Club (I assume all attorney wanna-bes belong to country
clubs, no?), the Mystic Knights of the Sea, and probably the Ku Klux
Klan (Duuuhhhh....Yer Grand Dragon Eminence Sir, Billy-Bob done showed
up at the cross-burnin' with the K-Mart tag on the OUTSIDE of his robes
agin'... cain't we *** him?).

OK, put the Tootsie-Roll Pop back in your mouth.

Bart Brown

Barton Spencer Brown wrote on Thu, 28 Oct 1999 19:06:42 +0000:

<SNIP>

Nice going, Bart my man! Very nice! :-)

--
Cheers, Tilman

`Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and
 everything else follows in the same way.'
                                             -- Alan J. Perlis

Ouch!!

--
                         \\|//

|                      --James--                       |

|                  --ICQ# 36334509--                   |
|                                                      |
|      Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy"     |  

Fabulous summary my good man.
Based in fact, direct and to the point, and easily read.
Bravo!
Rik

wouldn't "here it's legal, here it's legal, here it's not"
count as admitting to be illegal in a (normal) court of law?

Sven.
--
..a little irRa+i0naL..

The appeal board's ruling is its own interpretation of the evidence, but
it is the closest to source material available for much of the evidence.
The various statements and quotes are just that - the spin placed on the
judgement by various people all with a huge axe to grind. I will not be
bound in my thinking by what any of them say, although I read it with
interest.

Brawn did.

Who are you calling an amateur?:-)

[snip]

Indeed. And here we come to the nub of the matter and why what Ferrari
said at the time of the original DQ is relevant.

The Appeal Board heard a number of arguments - from Ferrari, from
Stewart and from McLaren. They had to consider which of those arguments
was persuasive.

Now if Ferrari say immediately after the DQ "Ooops", and then say at the
appeal hearing, "Hey guys, what's the problem, we were legal all along",
that is something the Board is entitled to consider when deciding
whether what Ferrari has presented is a valid and genuine ground for
upholding the appeal or just a desperate and unjustifiable ex post facto
attempt at justification from a bunch of overpaid briefs. As a lawyer
myself I know how difficult it is - rightly - to convince a Court to
allow you to rescind an admission or confession which you have freely
made. It knackers your credibility.

In this case, the Board decided that the appeal was justified. So be it.
--
Richard Miller

Yes.
--
Richard Miller

Sorry, Richard, but you are completely misinformed about this. You
insist on confusing the rules board of a private club with a
nation/state judicial system, and it's just not so. That's not a
personal opinion, it's in the FIA rules: the appeals board can only
consider the original opinion, as made at the time, and Ferrari's case
for appealing that opinion -- it is nothing more, nor less, than a
hearing to consider the appeal, period. Nothing that went before --
except, of course, the original steward's opinion -- can have ANY
bearing on the appeal process whatsoever.

Your most misapprehensive statement, however, is this complete and utter floater:

That is quite simply and quite thoroughly untrue. It DID not, and CAN
not happen that way. While both McLaren International and Stewart-Ford
were invited to appear in Paris, they were there as observers only --
they contributed nothing to the appeals deliberations, because they are
not allowed, by the FIA rules, to contribute anything to the appeals
deliberations. The only "argument" the appeals board was empowered to
consider that Saturday was Ferrari's appeal of the original technical
opinion by Jo Bauer. Again (and again, and again, and again, and again,
and again), that's why it is called an "appeals hearing."

I'm sure you're a fine lawyer, but this was NOT a case of law. Trying to
apply all your bar-exam crib-note judiciary algorithms to it will not,
and can not, make it a case of law. Again, and for the last time: the
FIA is a private club that has evolved a set of rules that all the club
members -- through years of deliberations such as the recent "Concorde
Agreement" -- promise to abide by. These rules are in NO way related to
nation/state judicial proceedings, any more than are the rules by which
the Ku Klux Klan or the Knights of Columbus operate.

If you think I'm incorrect, then please show me, just as a for-instance,
where either McLaren International or Stewart-Ford were allowed to make
"a number of arguments" to the appeals court during Ferrari's appeal. In
other words, put up or shut up. Here's a good starting place:

The International Court of Appeal's Full Decision
http://www.atlasf1.com/news/1740.htm

McLaren's official statement
http://www.atlasf1.com/news/1743.htm

Stewart-Ford's official statement
http://www.atlasf1.com/news/1741.htm

Mercedes' Staement
http://www.atlasf1.com/news/1744.htm

Max Moseley's staement:
http://www.atlasf1.com/news/1745.htm

While I disagree with almost all of Richard Miller's analysis and claims in this
thread, on this point the FIA has made it clear that McLaren and Stewart
could ask to be heard  and did state their case at the appeal hearing:

1. FIA press release describing the appeal process
(http://www.fia.com/presse/f1-a/18-10-99.htm)

Excerpt:
    "On the day of the appeal, the International Court of Appeal hears all the
    parties involved and their lawyers and examines all the documents and other
    evidence. Any competing team which may be directly and significantly
    affected by the decision of the Court of Appeal may also request a hearing."

2. Decision of the appeals court (http://www.fia.com/presse/f1-a/23-10-99.htm)

Excerpt:
"Team West McLaren Mercedes was represented by Mr. Martin Whitmarsh and its
legal advisers Mr. Anthony Bosworth QC and Mr. Timothy Murnane.

Team Stewart Grand Prix was represented by Mr. Paul Stewart and its legal
advisers Mr. Christopher Clarke QC and Mr. Jeremy Courtenay-Stamp.

Having heard the parties and examined the evidence, the International Court of
Appeal has established that : ..."

I agree you are picking nits. I was making the point that
McLaren and Stewart as affected parties have a right to be heard at the
appeal and were invited to the hearing for this very purpose. I was
responding the Barton's statement that:

"While both McLaren International and Stewart-Ford were invited to
appear in Paris, they were there as observers only -- they contributed
nothing to the appeals deliberations, because they are not allowed, by
the FIA rules, to contribute anything to the appeals deliberations."

The first FIA press release (18/10) expressly mentions their right to be
heard at the appeals hearing.

Re: Whether they took advantage of their rights or not,
I agree that the second FIA statement (23/10) does not *explicitly* say
that
McLaren and Stewart stated their case, but it does say that the "parties"
were heard. The parties listed just before that sentence are ACI, Ferrari,

McLaren and Stewart.

This excerpt from the McLaren press release after the hearing sheds
further light on this issue:

"The West McLaren Mercedes team was invited to attend the International
Court of Appeal hearing in Paris. In accepting the invitation, it was our
understanding that there was an ***and written acceptance that there had

been a breach of the Technical Regulations. In a case of a breach of the
Technical Regulations during a race the penalty that has been consistently

applied is the one that was given in Malaysia, namely that of exclusion.
In
the circumstances we felt that the decision of the Stewards was correct
and consistent with the previous practices of Formula One.
Our purpose in attending was to point out these and other matters,
and to seek a consistent application of the rules as established in
the past in similar circumstances."

-----------------------
I can understand the confusion generated by this exceptionally abridged
summary of the appeals procedure, provided at their website by the FIA
as a quick & dirty reference for the short-attention-span press;
however, the FIRST key  to understanding the situation is in this
statement from that summary:

"On the day of the appeal, the International Court of Appeal hears all
the parties involved and their lawyers and examines all the documents
and other evidence."

If you'll read the *complete* FIA Rules regarding the process, you'll
discover that the only "parties involved" in the appeal are those
involved in the original steward's opinion -- in this case, Ferrari and
the FIA itself. Had McLaren, for instance, officially lodged a complaint
with the stewards at Malaysia regarding Ferrari's turning vanes, then
McLaren would, by the rules, have fallen into the category of "all the
parties involved." McLaren did NOT do so, preferring instead, as Norbert
Haug later admitted, to whisper in Joachim Bauer's ear. *** (pure
opinion from here to end of paragraph) Why? One can only conjecture, but
*my* opinion for possibilities:  A) they weren't so sure themselves that
Ferrari's barge boards were possibly out of spec, and B) someone with a
remaining shred of decency -- possibly Mika? -- might have reminded
McLaren's "Citizen Chauvelin," Ron Dennis, that a Championship bought at
ANY price might NOT be worth having.

Fact mode back on: McLaren, therefore was NOT an involved party in the
deliberations of the appeals board. However, that was NOT their last
chance to be heard. Going back to the first FIA link in the message:

"Any competing team which may be directly and significantly affected by
the decision of the Court of Appeal may also request a hearing."

NOTE: NOT "may contribute to the hearing at hand," BUT "may request a
hearing" -- again, more fully elucidated in the full FIA rules. AND YET,
despite all Ron Dennis' and Norbert Haug's initial stated "significant"
disgust with the "decision of the Court of Appeal" -- brayed loudly and
often to the motorsports tabloid journalists present -- and their
theatrical denigration of the technical aspects and future ramifications
of that decision, they did NOT request a hearing, as was their avenue of
redress under the rules. So just how serious *were* McLaren
International's protestations that the FIA had turned the rules
upside-down, destroyed their own reputation, yadda, yadda, yadda? If
they felt that strongly about it, they could have requested a hearing.
Yet they did not request such a hearing, and within hours, Ron Dennis
was claiming to be "not surprised" and "not upset" -- so what was the
intermission opera all about?    

The "documents and other evidence" -- again, in this case -- are simply
the Jo Bauer's written opinion to the race organizers AS ORIGINALLY MADE
AT SEPANG, and whatever Ferrari comes up with to support their appeal
the morning of the hearing. This, too, is very specifically spelled out
in the full text of the FIA rules, available at fine bookstores
everywhere.

Dave wrote on Fri, 29 Oct 1999 21:41:33 -0500:

                                            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

  While we're picking nits: I would say it is *not* clear from these
statements that, as you claim, McLaren and Stewart *did* state their
case. They say that they could have, and they say who represented them
at the hearing. Not that whoever represented them took any active role
during the hearing.

--
Cheers, Tilman

`Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and
 everything else follows in the same way.'
                                             -- Alan J. Perlis

Well, actually, it doesn't even say that, more's the pity. The FIA COULD
have made a clear statement, but instead said merely:
"Having heard the parties and examined the evidence, the International
Court of Appeal has established that..."

And McLaren doesn't help clear up matters any when they say:

"Our purpose in attending was to point out these and other matters, and
to seek a consistent application of the rules as established in the past
in similar circumstances."

That may well have been their *purpose,* but what did they ACTUALLY do?
According to FIA rules, they could have asked for a hearing, but the
fact is, they did not.

BB

I read it the same way as Dave, but your interpretation could well be
right.
--
Richard Miller

Oh, and BTW, didn't Mika win a clean race in truly World-Class fashion?
Not that anyone GaS, but I have never been a Hakkinen fan since his
questionable behavior at the memorial service for Senna and Ratzenberger
at Monaco. Last year and this, however, he has shown a human side and a
Champion's grace -- even his emotional difficulties at Monza (and who
can blame him?) show how much he's matured. And whatever you think of
Irvine, his post-race congratulatory embrace with Mika was a class act.
In fact, IMHO, the best thing that came out of the appeals ruling in
Paris (besides, of course, the long-overdue impetus for the FIA to
clarify their inadequate technical regulations) was the opportunity to
decide the championship in a clean, fair, and unequivocal way -- which
was what Mika said he wanted more than anything. Despite the
Clouseau-like bumbling of the FIA, the Championship ended on a
(relatively) high note. And while Schumacher and Irvine described the
Manufacturer's Championship as a consolation prize, you can bet
DeMontezemolo, Todt, Brawn, and the rest of the team see it as FAR more
than that. Besides the MC's importance to the team, Ferrari this year
have shown a level of reliability unprecedented in F1 history -- look at
Irvine's ratio of laps completed to laps available: something like 98%,
I believe. That's fantastic!

Not to disappoint those ng folk who need a downside, WHAT is the story
with Coulthard? He could have delivered the Manufacturer's Championship
to McLaren-Mercedes, and instead -- once again -- threw the whole thing
off the road. Sad.

BB