7 Of The Biggest F1 Punishments

seven of the biggest punishments in f1 history racing point was recently handed a 400 000 fine and docked 15 points for breaching sporting regulations by using mercedes-designed rear brake ducts on this year's car and this got me wondering what other punishments have there been in formula one and how harsh were they we'll strap yourselves in as we go through seven of the biggest punishments in f1 history spygate 2007 at the start of 2007 ferrari chief mechanic nigel stepney was unhappy with the way things were going at the team especially once he was reassigned to a job at the factory later that year he was accused of sending 780 pages of confidential ferrari information to mclaren's chief designer mike cochlin after his wife went to a local shop in woking to have them photocopied the only problem is that the person who worked in the photocopier shop was a ferrari fan noticed the documents were confidential ferrari property and contacted the factory to inform them investigations were conducted by the teams and the fia cochlear and stephanie were dismissed by their teams and that seemed to be the end of that despite allegations that mclaren has accessed and used this information the investigation revealed that cochlear had acted alone and that nobody else in the team knew what was happening however a couple of weeks later the hungarian grand prix happened during qualifying lewis hamilton ignored a team order in an attempt to hinder teammate fernando alonso incensed alonso famously waited longer than he should have done in his pit box allowing him enough time to get out and set a pole position lap but prevent hamilton from doing so alonso was penalized and given a grid penalty while mclaren was barred from collecting any constructors points from the race for bringing the sport into disrepute however this was just the tip of the iceberg on the morning of the race a furious alonso confronted ron dennis and told him that he was going to release emails he and mclaren test driver pedro delarosa had to the fia which confirmed that mclaren did know about the confidential ferrari information dennis immediately explained that alonso had blackmailed him to fia president max mosley and claimed there was no basis to the claims however this new allegation prompted the fia to reopen the investigation the three drivers hamilton alonzo and dela rosa were essentially given immunity for testifying and telling the truth about what was going on on the 13th of september just over a month since the hungarian grand prix in almost two months since initially being cleared the fia announced its revised verdict mclaren was guilty because of the honesty of the drivers and probably because they were both involved in a compelling championship battle with kimi raikkonen that everyone was loving they were allowed to continue to fight for the title however mclaren was disqualified from the constructors championship and issued a whopping 100 million dollar fine despite being one of the biggest punishments in sporting history it could have been even worse mostly joked that the penalty was 5 million for the offense and 95 million for ron dennis being a [ __ ] he had initially wanted to ban mclaren for two years but was convinced by bernie ecclestone to be a bit more lenient mclaren was also threatened with a points deduction for the following season in case the 2008 car contained any ferrari data but after the team issued a full formal apology mosley decided the team had suffered enough and left them to it tyrell's illegal ballast 1984 one team that did get disqualified for an entire season was tyrell in f1's first turbo era any team running naturally aspirated engines tried to find ways to gain a competitive edge over the more powerful turbo teams with weight being a particular focus the likes of brabham and mclaren first did this by fitting a large tank of water under the guise of being used for cooling the brakes in reality it wasn't needed for calling at all and the water would be emptied in the early stages of the race allowing the cars to run underweight it was then topped up after the race to meet the minimum weight limit again completely legal but very definitely an exploiting of a loophole by 1984 tyra was one of the few teams left that hadn't gone down the route of turbo power so they came up with their own method they too used a water tank which sprayed water on the engine inlets to try and improve power again this was completely legal but the problem came with the way the team topped up the tanks again refilling fluids after the race had been banned so tyra elected to refill them during the race the cars would pit and have these water tanks refilled only this time the water contained a fair amount of lead shots in order to boost the weight up rival teams noticed this lead shot spilling onto the floor in the pit lane and before long the governing body was investigating what was going on following the detroit gp tyra was investigated amazingly the use of lead to bring the weight up was legal but the fact it wasn't secured meant that it fell foul of the rules surrounding movable ballast to make matters worse a sample of the water in the tanks was tested and discovered to contain a certain amount of fuel which meant that the team could also be charged with refueling during a race which was banned using illegal fuel and using illegal fuel lines which didn't conform to safety regulations unsurprisingly tyrrell appealed the decision subsequent tests on the water found that the amount of fuel in the water to be negligible meaning that the only charge that could realistically stick was the use of unsecured ballast the court of appeal dropped the charges on the fuel lines and mid-race refuelling but remained firm on believing the fuel in the water was offering an advantage controversially they also announced a new charge claiming that two small holes in the floor of the car which were vents for the water tank system were in contravention of aerodynamic regulations despite two rival team engineers arguing in tyrol's favor with regards to the floor the appeal was rejected the punishment tyrrell was banned from taking part in the remaining three races of the season and disqualified from the 13 races that had already taken place that year the team also lost 1 million dollars worth of travel concessions for the following year and was forced to pay half a million dollars in damages kentura was shocked by the decision and felt that it was an attempt to silence him having spent years speaking against the introduction of the turbo runners schumacher's intentional collision 1997. it was the last race of 1997 at the hereth circuit in spain and michael schumacher in the ferrari was up against jacques vilner for the championship effectively whoever won the race would win the title but if they both failed to finish schumacher would win it schumacher took the lead at the start but as the race progressed vilner was catching him with 23 laps to go villeneuve went for a move into hereth's dry sack corner yep that is actually a corner it was a big lunge but doable and as schumacher saw him coming he jerked out of the way however a split second later he reversed that decision and turned into the williams instead his front wheel banged vilner's side pod and while schumacher ended up in the gravel vilner carried on his merry way it was obvious to everybody what had happened speaking on commentary martin brundle immediately said that didn't work michael you've hit the wrong part of him my friend with schumacher out villeneuve only had to nurse his damaged car to sixth to win the title he ended up third and took the crown at the time the stewards had deemed it a racing incident but collisions had decided the championship in three of the past eight seasons ettinson and alain prost in 1989 and 1990 and schumacher and damon hill in 1994 and the fia were keen to put a stop to it two weeks after the race schumacher was summoned by the fia to a disciplinary hearing in paris the outcome all of his race results would stand but he was disqualified from the driver's championship and he was also made to take part in the fia road safety campaign the following year one concerned german citizen also checked in with some lawyers to see if schumacher could be charged with attempted murder but thankfully common sense prevailed and the charge if you can even call it that was dropped did it work well since then no world championship has been decided by a collision between the title contenders so it seems the message got through bar's extra fuel tank 2005. after a few years of underwhelming results in 2004 the bar team finally delivered the kind of results it's been promising since coming into the sport in 1999. jensen button took a string of podiums and finished third in the championship as he started to look like one of the sport's top drivers teammate kumasato was a little less successful thanks to some poor reliability and being well sato but he was still quick and the team finished runners-up to ferrari in the constructors championship 2005 hadn't started quite so well as after three races the team was still yet to score but at emelia things were looking rather better button qualified and finished third while sato started sixth and finished fifth the celebrations though didn't last long after the race button's car was found to be underweight that would normally mean a fairly straightforward disqualification but there was more to it than that by little more than luck the stewards discovered that bar had installed a hidden secondary fuel tank which could store over 11 kilograms of extra fuel meaning it was theoretically possible for the car to run under the minimum weight limit which at the time was 605 kilograms in qualifying and 600 kilograms in race conditions this also meant that the team had been lying to the scrutineers and stewards when asked if all the fuel had been drained from the cars saying it had when it hadn't bar maintained that the extra fuel was necessary for the car to work apparently without enough fuel the engine wouldn't pump it properly and that it never ran under the weight limit although this was pretty much impossible to prove although the scrutineers at the meeting accepted bar's explanation the fia wasn't buying any of it after a hearing at the international court of appeal button was disqualified from the san marino grand prix and despite his car being above the minimum weight limit in imola so was sato on top of that the team was thrown out of the next two races in spain and monaco and given a six-month ban suspended for a year it could have been far worse fia president max mosley was seriously against cheating and wanted bar thrown out for the rest of the season which probably would have been a little bit harsh ferrari team orders 2002 reuben's barrichello had dominated the austrian grand prix from pole and was looking set to take his first grand prix win in almost two years but coming around the final corner on the final lap he slowed down and handed michael schumacher the victory on a platter team orders had always been a thing in formula one but seldom had they been so blatant also disappointing it was only the sixth race of the season and it was hard to make an argument for ferrari needing to boost schumacher's points tally so early into the season especially when barakella was still theoretically a championship contender to say it was disappointing was an understatement and confirmed the feeling many fans had that schumacher was not only the clear lead driver but that whoever was number two at ferrari wasn't going to be allowed to beat him on the rare occasions that they could the crowd booed and jeered at the end of the race as schumacher and barakello went to the podium to sheepishly collect their trophies nobody realistically gained anything from what had happened but it was completely legal nothing could be done to redress the sporting wrong that had happened however the podium ceremony itself provided the fia with the opportunity they needed clearly understanding how badly the whole sorry site had gone down schumacher urged barakello onto the top step of the podium before handing him the race winners trophy in doing so they'd breached podium protocol and the fia decided to make an example of it a fine of one million dollars was issued divided between the team and the two drivers with half to be paid immediately and the other half suspended for 12 months it also directly led to the fia banning team orders which affect the result of the race for the 2003 season that rule stayed in place until 2010 but proved to be rather ineffective as teams had simply switched to using coded messages when ferrari issued another blatant team order in that year's german grand prix ordering felipe master to give up the win for fernando alonso the fia decided the team orders ban was too difficult to police and the rule was scrapped crashgate 2008. in 2008 mid-race refueling was still a thing and there was also a rule that the pit lane would initially be closed if a safety car came out until the whole field was bunched up behind it this meant that pitting just before a safety car would be an enormous strategic advantage while anyone who had to pick during a safety car would lose a large amount of time renault learned this in hockenheim when nelson pk jr found himself unexpectedly leading in the closing stages of the race before eventually finishing second in singapore that year fernando alonso was looking like a genuine contender for victory in a renault which had been generally uncompetitive however his car suffered an issue in qualifying and he only started 15th usually in this situation the strategy would be to fill the car up with as much fuel as possible and run long into the race in order to maximise options to move up the field unusually alonso had been one of the first to stop and came into the pips on lap 12. two laps later teammate pk crashed hard into the wall at turn 17 bringing out the safety car alonzo leapt towards the front of the field and eventually went on to win it raised a few eyebrows at the time but generally it was seen as just a bit of a lucky win thanks to the safety car and the fact his teammate had caused it was just a coincidence it wasn't a coincidence pk was fired by renault midway through the following season and on the 30th of august 2009 allegations surfaced that had been ordered by team principal flavio briatori and engineering director pat simmons to crash on purpose in order to benefit alonso fearful that not going along with the plan might cost him his drive he agreed to on the 4th of september renault was charged with breaching the international sporting code breatorian simmons initially denied the claims and reno even attempted to sue pk for slander though simmons later admitted during the investigation that the conspiracy was real although he claimed the idea had come from pk himself on the 16th of september both departed the team and renault announced that it wouldn't be contesting the charges as clear an admission of guilt as you could ever wish to see at the hearing the fia world motorsport council gave renault a suspended two-year ban simmons was banned from working in any fia event for five years while briatori was banned altogether although these were both later overturned despite essentially admitting to race fixing pk got off without punishment having been given immunity for speaking out about the scandal alonso he denied any involvement in the scheme and there was no evidence to suggest he'd known anything about it however pk and many others wondered that if he didn't know about it then it was odd that he went along with what was obviously such an unlikely strategy the race result itself stood meaning that alonso kept his win and the championship result remained this made felipe massa furious during the safety car a mistake by ferrari during their pit stop led masa to leave his box with the fuel hose still attached this cost him a load of time and he eventually finished 15th a result which he believes cost him the championship why did they do it well in 2008 the world was in recession and the future of manufacturer teams in f1 was uncertain if renault could be shown to be race winners it might encourage the board to keep the team in the sport on top of that there were murmurings that there was also a performance clause in alonso's contract that he could end his two-year contract a year early if he didn't win a race instead crashgate ended up being perhaps the biggest scandal in the history of the sport which tarnished the legacy of simmons and briatori ruined nelson pk jr's formula one career and put a big asterisk next to the result of the race the biggest irony at the very next race of 2008 in fuji alonso and renault won completely on merit rendering many of the reasons for crashgate utterly worthless andreia moda 1992. on paper andrea moda just looks like your average early 1990s backmarker team they had a mediocre car which mostly failed to qualify for races and which didn't even last the whole season but what set andrea moda apart was the utterly shambolic way in which the team was run at the first race of the season in south africa the team wasn't allowed to compete because it hadn't paid the entry fee and in mexico the cars hadn't been built in time at this point drivers alex cafe and enrico bertagia had both realised what a joke andrea moda was cathy said as much and was fired while battagia decided to walk away in their place came roberto moreno and perry mccarthy moreno gave it his all and surprisingly managed to qualify for the monaco grand prix but mccarthy may as well have not been there he had an engine failure before he could get out of the pit lane in spain was sent out to qualify on wet tyres in the dry at silverstone and in hungary was sent out of the pit lane so late that by the time he got around to the start line the time had run out and he couldn't set a lap the fia noticed that mccarthy was clearly being treated unfairly and told andre moda that they had to make a serious effort to run a second car for mccarthy or risk being excluded from the sport other mishaps the team got into during the season were failing to turn up to the canadian grand prix with any engines to the point where they had to borrow one from brabham to missing the french grand prix entirely because the team's trucks got stuck in a blockade it all came to a head at spa mccarthy was sent out with a steering part which had come from moreno's car and which the team knew was broken his steering froze going through o'rouge and he was fortunate to avoid a colossal accident on that same weekend team boss andrea ceceti was arrested in the paddock on allegations of forgery the fia had seen enough a week later the team was banned from formula one for failing to run a team to f1 standards and for bringing the sport into disrepute despite being banned andrea moda still decided to rock up at monza to try and race but was refused entry to the paddock there you have it some pretty crazy stories and punishments throughout f1 history which is your favorite are there any we've missed out let us know in the comment section below [Music]

Channel: WTF1

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Keywords: wtf1, f1, grand prix, hamilton, vettel, ferrari, mercedes, highlights, formula 1, verstappen, red bull, f1 2020, albon, norris, leclerc, russell, formula one

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Length: 16min 58sec (1018 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 21 2020