As a person whose entire life was dedicated to being an athlete, it’s inevitable to get interested in other areas of sports. What started as a simple recommendation from a friend soon became a long term interest of mine. “You should begin watching Formula 1! Motorsports are always interesting and something tells me that you would really enjoy learning and watching Formula 1 in particular.”
Formula 1 is a sport defined by rules meant to instill safety and unite us all from all over the world. However instead of being by purely body to body merit, the components of vehicles with engines that supply rocketships are incorporated. With Formula 1 being the pinnacle of motorsports, many gather around to collectively enjoy the excitement and adrenaline that the sport has to offer. Like any sport, Formula 1 has their own set of guidelines to regulate safety and fairness when competing to prevent injustice. Not only are there specific guidelines for the drivers but there are also guidelines for the cars that they race with. Regulations for cars ensure that the playing field is leveled with teams having to solely improve on the permitted components as well as ensuring safety for the drivers inside the car. Regulations for the drivers on the other hand, focus on making sure that everyone is racing safely to prevent any crashes or dangers while competing. To regulate races and ensure that these rules are being enforced, there is a governing body instilled known as the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile or commonly referred to as the FIA.
A link to view the entire set of guidelines written by the FIA is available here:https://www.fia.com/regulation/category/110
In that link, you’ll be able to locate the regulations regarding sporting, technical, financial, and operational. All of which are installed in order to keep order and justice while competing in Grand Prixs all over the world. During competition weekends, the FIA is constantly working. While the cars are racing, the FIA works to specifically look out for any rules that can be broken on track such as track limits, safety car infringements, speeding in the pit lane, unsafe release from the garage, and more. When the cars are off track, the FIA looks out for rules that can be broken regarding the car’s plank wear, the amount of fuel left, the weight, and more. All of which are closely monitored to ensure fairness is maintained throughout the race weekend. On the other hand, if a certain call is made by the FIA in which a racing team believes to be unjust, they’re able to appeal it. For example, teams can request a review of the decision, present new evidence, or time limits to lodging an appeal. However, it’s important to note that not everything can be appealed. Decisions ruled out regarding penalties are not eligible for an appeal.
Throughout the history of Formula 1, there have been various instances and events where justice was challenged. However, despite whatever the challenge presented, the FIA has consistently managed to ensure that justice within the sport is preserved. Here, I will be discussing a few instances where justice was challenged.
-Mclaren Spygate Scandal:
Back in the early 2000’s, Ferrari was seen as dominating the sport for a few years with them having won 7 constructor’s titles from the years of 2000-2010. It was clear that they were the team to beat. With the new 2007 season coming up, Mclaren were eager to put the Ferrari dominance to an end. In 2007, Chief mechanic Nigel Stepney was suspended by Ferrari due to irregularities discovered at the Ferrari factory. After this firing, Stepney went over to Mclaren and provided them with 800 pages of confidential technical information about the 2007 Ferrari to Coughlan (Chief Designer for McLaren) who then photo copied it. The person who owned the shop where the photo copying was done, emailed Ferrari about what they witnessed being photocopied. In response, the FIA opened up an investigation. Despite the FIA finding out that Mclaren had these documents, no evidence was found that the designs were incorporated into the 2007 McLaren F1 car. So, they were cleared to race in the 2007 F1 season. Following the F1 season that year, rookie Lewis Hamilton and two time F1 world champion Fernando Alonso weren’t the steadiest of teammates. Despite the typical assumption of a rookie following second to the experienced, world champion driver, Lewis Hamilton gave Fernando Alonso a shocking fight. Hamilton managed to outperform Alonso in a few races which sparked anger. Alonso went over to team principal of McLaren, Ron Dennis, and exclaimed his dissatisfaction. One example of this was during the 2007 Monaco Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton was advised to not chase down Fernando Alonso for the win making it an easy 1-2. Fernando Alonso saw this as an insult in that they had to advise Lewis Hamilton not to pass him despite Alonso being a world champion and Hamilton being an inexperienced driver. Alonso saw this as an insult to his abilities as a driver. However, these tensions would finally boil over during the Hungary Grand Prix. During qualifying, Alonso deliberately delayed himself in the pit box after being fitted with new tires. This ensured Hamilton ran out of time to begin his final qualifying lap which ultimately knocked him out of Q3. This was because in the session prior to the pit incident, Hamilton allegedly refused to let Alonso pass him on track. Due to Alonso’s deliberate actions in order to ruin Hamilton’s qualifying, Alonso was docked 5 places on the grid. This then sparked an intense argument between Alonso and Dennis where Alonso threatened Dennis to reveal new information about Spygate to the FIA. This immediately caused the FIA to re-open the investigation previously opened earlier that year regarding the Ferrari documents that McLaren were in possession of. During this hearing, McLaren ended up being fined $100 million and had their constructor’s points removed. If their points weren’t removed, McLaren would've won the constructor’s title with a 9 point lead.
-Renault Crashgate Scandal:
Ahead of the 2008 F1 season, Renault had its eyes set to maximise its points and place higher in the World Constructors Championships. Due to the lackluster performance Renault has been having in years prior to 2008, it was crucial that they did well or else they were at risk of having the whole team pulled from F1. During the 2008 F1 season, Renault’s two drivers were Fernado Alonso and Nelson Piquet Jr. As the season progressed, Renault was clearly struggling with 2 time world champion Fernando Alonso having achieved zero podiums and Nelson Piquet Jr hardly making any significant impacts in bringing the team enough points to secure a higher spot in the constructors championship. With 4 races left to the F1 season, this left team principal Flavio Briatore under immense pressure to be able to magically pull out a substantial result and move Renault up in the championship. During the Singapore Grand Prix, both Renault drivers qualified in the mid field with Alonso starting 15th and Piquet Jr starting 16th. The odds of securing a decent amount of points for the team wasn’t looking bright for Renault at the time but this would all change. Alonso came into the pit stops at an earlier time than the other drivers which then sent him to the back of the grid. Despite his race looking compromised at this moment, Piquet Jr shockingly crashed which led to a safety car being deployed. Under the regulations at the time of 2008, the pit lane was closed off when a safety car was out on track. This gave Fernando Alonso a massive chance to regain position as the gap between all the 20 drivers closed up and he was the only driver that pitted already. Underneath F1 regulations, there is a mandatory pit stop required for every driver during a race. While a driver is in the pit stop, there is substantial time lost compared to those out on track. Relating back to the 2008 Singapore grand prix, this gave Fernado Alonso a massive advantage. After the safety car went back into the pits, Alonso managed to gain track position and ultimately won the grand prix. This was a shocking result for Renault as prior to this race, they were having an extremely poor and uneventful season. Suspensions were had about Piquet Jr’s mysterious crash being foul play but not much attention was drawn. Only a few insiders from the Renault team truly knew what was going down at the time. Nelson Piquet Jr’s dad called his son to discuss what happened with his crash and over the phone, Piquet Jr told his dad that his crash was in fact intentional in order to maximize points for the team. When asked why he would follow such orders, Piquet Jr responded how he did it in order to keep his spot on the team next year. However, following the 2009 F1 season, Piquet Jr was fired due to a performance clause. This caused Piquet Jr to tell the FIA what truly occurred at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix and how team principal Flavio Briatore and engineering director Pat Symonds told him to purposely crash his car in order to benefit his teammate Alonso. As soon as the FIA heard of such illegal activity conspiring within the Renault team, they immediately scheduled a hearing to be held regarding this matter. But before this hearing was held, both Briatore and Symonds quit their roles within the team. However this wouldn’t cause them to walk away unscathed. Briatore was given a lifetime ban from all FIA related motorsports as well as an expensive fine. The aggressiveness with his penalties was partially due to him pleading innocent but ultimately being found guilty. Symonds on the other hand pleading guilty was given a 5 year ban. On top of all this, Renault was disqualified from the 2009 F1 season and suspended for two years. After revisions to the case underneath French courts, they ultimately determined that the punishments issued out by the FIA were not legal which then led to the FIA reducing Symonds’ ban from 5 to 3 years and paying £12,000 in damages to Briatore.
-$5.5Million Streaming Privacy Lawsuit and Settlement
Formula 1 Digital Media is a major company that is behind streaming services for live and on-demand Formula 1 content. Examples of this being F1 TV which allows viewers to view any type of F1 content on demand. This includes live coverage of free practices, qualifying sessions, pre and post race shows, documentaries, and other official F1 archives including previous races dating all the way back to the early 2000’s. With many fans using this platform, a recent privacy class-action lawsuit was filed against Formula 1 Digital Media. In June 29, 2024, Esteban Palma filed this class action suit on the premise of violating the Video Privacy Protection Act. The VPPA was passed in the United States in 1988 which granted consumers protection over their personal information when receiving services from video streaming services. A key part of the VPPA was that an individual’s personal information cannot be shared to a third party source without one’s consent. That being said, the plaintiff (Palma) had paid for an F1 TV Pro subscription to have access to all the media and content provided but unbeknownst to the plaintiff and every other user of F1 TV, the defendant (Formula 1 Digital Media) had been disclosing users’ personal information to third party sources. This personal information includes records of every video the user has viewed. So, the plaintiff filed this privacy class action suit for the damages caused by the defendant having violated the VPPA. After this suit was filed, Formula 1 agreed to a $5.5 million settlement to resolve its claims of violating the federal law. Despite having reached an agreement on the amount of money settled in response to the suit, Formula 1 hasn’t admitted to doing any personal wrongdoings. This settlement benefits any user in the United States who had a Formula 1 account and watched a prerecorded video between May 1, 2022, and June 24, 2025.
-Ferrari Team Orders:
In 2010, Ferrari had introduced their driving pairing of the season as Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa. With Fernando Alonso being a two time World Drivers’ Champion and Felipe Massa being the runner-up World Drivers’ Champion, it was clear that Ferrari came into the season with one clear goal in mind: to win. As the season progressed, there was an evident title fight between Ferrari and Redbull in both the Constructors Championship and Drivers Championship. Redbull driver Sebastian Vettel specifically was racing head to head with Fernando Alonso throughout the season in an intense battle to see who would end up becoming World Champion. During the German Grand Prix, Vettel started from pole position (first), Alonso started 2nd, and Massa started 3rd. As the race began, Vettel had a poor start causing him to lose position to both Ferrari drivers directly behind him with Massa leading the race and Alonso following shortly behind. As the race progressed, both Ferrari drivers showed strong pace by pulling away from Vettel and building up a significant gap to him. However, despite Massa being ahead of Alonso, Alonso took to the radio to communicate with his race engineer how he believes that he is the faster driver and is being held up by Massa. With multiple complainants throughout the race, Ferrari decided to make a move which would cause major controversy. Team orders were issued in a coded way with Massa’s race engineer telling him, “Fernando is faster than you. Can you confirm you understood that message?”. After hearing this, Massa was visibly seen slowing down coming out of the hairpin just enough to allow Alonso pass him without a fight. Immediately this move sparked discussions regarding the legality of this maneuver by the team, to have your driver let their teammate pass through and make up a place without properly racing and earning the position. At the end of the race, Alonso managed to keep the position previously held by Massa before the swap to win first place and take home with him significant points for the World Drivers’ Championship and to the World Constructors Championship. However, despite the race being over, the move between Massa and Alonso was continuing to stir up major controversy. Besides, is it really fair to simply allow another driver to pass you? Isn’t a key aspect of this sport about earning your position by overtaking the other driver in better wheel to wheel racing or outsmarting them? How can the key aspect of Formula 1 be held if teams are allowed to make such a move? In response to the backlash received, the FIA would take matters into their own hands and investigate this matter. After deliberation, the outcome was that Ferrari was fined $100,000 for breaching the ban on team orders and bringing the sport into disrepute. This then furthermore caused more debates between the idea of having “team orders” within a team. Team orders can be defined as instructions given by the team to their drivers that entails altering their performance in order to benefit the final outcome of the team. At the time, team orders were banned but poorly enforced with there being multiple instances where teams were able to easily disguise the true intentions of certain driver calls. With such heavy debates, the FIA decided to ultimately unban and relegalize team orders with the difficulty it brought enforcing it. Looking back at the scenario, Ferrari were lucky with the major controversy and debates behind team orders, otherwise their punishment, having done something illegal, would've been significantly more detrimental than a simple fine.
1999 Ferrari Appeal
During the 1999 F1 season, Ferrari’s driver lineup consisted of Michael Schumacher and Eddie Irvine. This strong driver pairing with Schumacher having 2 World Drivers’ Championship to his name, and Eddie Irvine being a successful podium finisher, it was clear that Ferrari had its eyes set on winning both the Constructors and Drivers’ Championship. As the season began, Ferrari had 3 notable victories with Schumacher winning both the San Marino and Monaco Grand Prix and Irvine having his maiden win at the Australian Grand Prix. With a strong start to the season, a shocking twist occurred when Schumacher endured a serious leg injury at the British Grand Prix with his brakes having failed. This led to him having to miss the season and forgetting the fight for the championship. It wasn’t until the Malaysian Grand Prix where Schumacher was able to make his return to racing post injury. Despite his fight for the World Drivers’ Championship being clearly over as this was the second to last grand prix of the season, Schumacher still raced with hopes to earn significant points for the team in the Constructors Championship. During qualifying, Schumacher managed to put in a flyer lap and earned his place to start the race in pole position with his teammate, Eddie Irvine, qualifying to start the race second. Once the race started, Schumacher managed to successfully lead the first three laps of the race in the early few laps with Irvine following behind him. On lap 4, Schumacher decided to slow down and allow Irvine to pass him, a strategic move to help his teammate earn points for the World Drivers’ Championship as he was in a close fight with Mika Häkkinen from McLaren. With effective strategies, quick pit stops, and strong wheel to wheel racing, the Malaysian Grand Prix ended with Irvine in first place, Schumacher in second, and Häkkinen in third. Once the race concluded and the podium celebration was held, typical post race procedures were held which included the stewards extensively observing and inspecting each car after a race. This is to ensure each car complied with all technical regulations during the race. All of a sudden, the Ferrari crew was informed that the stewards had found their cars having non-compliant deflector panels which violated Article 3.12.1 of the FIA technical regulations. As a result, both Ferrari cars that Schumacher and Irvine drove were deemed illegal and they were both disqualified from the Malaysian Grand Prix. This means that both of their race results were removed and Mika Häkkinen was credited for winning the grand prix by default. This shock hit Ferrari hard and in response to the disqualification, Ferrari appealed the decision. Ferrari arrived at the FIA tribunal showcasing that their bargeboards were within the permitted 5mm tolerance specified in the FIA Technical Regulations. Turns out that the Malaysian stewards had originally performed a measurement error which ruled both of the Ferrari cars as wrongly illegal. With a major turn of events, both race results from Irvine and Schumacher from the Malaysian Grand Prix were reinstated.