23/08/2010
NEWS STORY
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Former FIA president Max Mosley believes Ferrari and its two drivers should lose the points won in the German Grand Prix when the Italian team faces the World Motor Sport Council next month.
Having already been fined $100,000 for breaches of Articles 39.1 of the FIA 2010 Sporting regulations and article 151.c) of the 2010 FIA International sporting code, the matter was then referred to the World Motor Sport Council which has the power to inflict far harsher additional penalties.
Speaking to Germany's Welt am Sonntag, Mosley said: "Both cars and both drivers should lose the points they achieved in the German Grand Prix.
"I will not make any recommendation," he added, "but on the facts at the moment there should have been some sporting sanction and not only a fine."
On Mosley's watch as president, the FIA was often referred to as Ferrari International Assistance the result of perceived bias in favour of the Italian team, a claim which both parties have always denied. Nonetheless, the paddock was rocked when it was revealed that the Italian team had been given the power to veto certain new rules before they were introduced.
With former Ferrari boss Jean Todt now heading the sport's governing body all eyes will be on its Paris HQ on September 8 to see whether the Maranello outfit receives the same perceived leniency as before, though the Frenchman will not actually sit on the WMSC board at the hearing.
"This has nothing to do with his position as a former Ferrari employee," said Moseley, "however, if a team introduces team-orders into a race, heavy penalties should be issued."
Despite the charge facing Ferrari, it is thought that the team orders rule - introduced in the wake of the Italian team's manipulation of the 2002 Austrian GP result - will be scrapped, especially in the wake of numerous less - slightly more subtle - cases in recent seasons.