Sponsors pulling F1 strings? (page 2 of 2)

And the ruling that the drivers should not be penalised was, as Max Mosley for one clearly agrees, quite absurd.

Lest anyone thinks otherwise let's state quite clearly that without the team the drivers have no status and if (as the WMSC says) the team transgressed and benefited then the drivers, whilst they may not themselves have also transgressed, have certainly benefited as well. The "some degree of sporting advantage" was at least as much to each of the drivers benefit as it was to the team.

Pipers call the tune

There is no suggestion that any of the major sponsors of any of the teams put direct pressure on anyone at the FIA to try and keep the 2007 title race open through to its conclusion. But it is not just the McLaren sponsors who benefit. Had the season been utterly destroyed as a spectacle by disqualifying Hamilton and Alonso TV viewing figures for the remaining Grands Prix would have plummeted and the sponsors of all the major teams would have been disadvantaged.

Ironically it is arguably as much in the interest of the sponsors of Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro that awareness of Formula One is held at a high level as it is for the sponsors of Vodafone McLaren Mercedes!

Hundreds of millions of TV viewers around the world will continue to be spellbound by the fight between Alonso and Hamilton and Raikkonen and Massa and that means hundreds of million of exposures of brand logos on the cars and the drivers and the circuits.

The FIA didn't need Vodafone or Philip Morris or Mercedes to call it to say this - it knew it very well - and this must have influenced the decision not to ban Hamilton and Alonso.

See also:
Turkish delight for Ferrari
Will Ron Dennis now take charge to ensure McLaren's season finishes in glory?
Formula one season under threat from Ferrari/McLaren spy scandal
McLaren's Monaco triumph down to talent and teamwork