Ferrari duo to attend team orders hearing by video

Ferrari race drivers Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa will address Wednesday’s FIA disciplinary hearing by video link.

It emerged last week that the pair, accused of obeying illegal team orders by swapping places at Hockenheim in July, had been summoned to the World Motor

Sport Council session in Paris.

Reports indicated that the pair may appear in person or by video, probably from a location within Italy.

An article in the British newspaper Daily Telegraph, confirmed by the Maranello based team, said Alonso and Massa will be available to the FIA by video.

After Wednesday’s hearing, it is expected the verdict will be published later that day.

Team boss Domenicali and team manager Massimo Rivola, alongside the obligatory lawyers, are slated to be in attendance at the Place de la Concorde.

Alonso’s world championship chances are riding on the outcome, given his already 41 point deficit to leader Lewis Hamilton.

Should his Hockenheim points be deducted as a further penalty by the World Council, the Spaniard’s deficit – with six races left to run – would blow out to

70 points, because other championship contenders also stand to benefit.

Giorgio Beghella Bartoli, director of the Italian grand prix venue Monza, thinks Ferrari should escape sanction.

“As for the (team orders) regulation, an instruction (at Hockenheim) was not there,” he is quoted in Italian reports.

“Because an engineer (Rob Smedley) said ‘sorry’?  What kind of proof is that?” he insisted.

Livio Oricchio, an authoritative Brazilian journalist, went a step further, urging the FIA to scrap the team orders ban altogether.

“There is no way to control them.  Ending the ban respects the truth, therefore the fan.  And, as paradoxically as it may seem, the sport.

“On some occasions, the outcome of a race has been decided within a team and few people knew about it,” he wrote in his column in the Jornal da Tarde.

© RIF | GMM