Ferrari come clean on the Austrian GP Rubengate scandal

[woof]

SPIELBERG, Austria (AF1) - Ferrari, under heavy scrutiny for its
behaviour during the Austrian Grand Prix which saw German Michael Schumacher
handed the win when Brazilian teammate Ruben Barichello was asked to slow
and allow the defending champion to pass, has approached the media with a
clarification of the incident and statement of regret.

Jean Todt, accompanied by Ferrari technical director Ross Brawn, offered
their insight into the incident during a hastily-called press conference.

"I very much regret the way the race played out," said a weary Todt. "During
the formation lap, the computer technicians discovered a problem with the
telemetry systems of the car. It appears that our frequencies were too close
to those of BAR. We speculated this might cause issues during the race, and
in fact it did. When it became clear Rubens was on his way to victory, we
attempted to lower the rev limiter on his car. However, when we lowered it
by 100 rpm, Olivier Panis' car exploded into a ball of flames. It appears,
Ferrari's engine has about a 600 rpm advantage on the Honda powerplant -
even when we take into consideration the 100 rpm subtraction we were
attempting."

"That's correct. We suspect the Honda powerplant attempted to obey the
instruction of 18,500 rpm but was only capable of 17,800. Well, we can see
that causes trouble," laughed a red-faced Brawn. "Clearly, we had to go to
plan B! We were ready to botch Ruben's pit stop. In fact, we were going to
have the mechanics damage the transmission system so he couldn't drive. He's
attempted to leave the pits with a damaged car before, as in Indy 2001.
Clearly, we couldn't afford to have him explode in front of Michael on the
track after he pitted. However, just as the mechanics were ready to do this,
Michael radioed in. He thought he was having trouble and wanted to pit ASAP.
We couldn't damage Rubens' car and have the mechanics push it into the
garage - that would take far too long. So I called off plan B and told the
mechanics we'd get him later! Fortunately, Michael was not having problems -
Montoya and Ralf were just catching up with him and he thought this to be
highly unlikely given his talent."

Todt anxiously cut-off Brawn at this point. "Plan C was my idea! I thought
we might be able to get the telemetry systems working properly. On the last
lap, we gave the go-ahead for the computer technicians to slow Rubens by way
of transmission modifications. However, at this point Villeneuve's car
exploded into a ball of flames," laughed Todt, "it appears Honda have got to
work on their transmission as well! Anyways, we would like to apologize to
everybody. The situation turned out to be far more dramatic than we would
have liked."

Todt and Brawn then made an animated attempt at depicting the speed with
which they passed the post-it notes to eachother discussing what they would
tell Rubens. "We told him if he didn't pull over, we'd have the lawyers
point out that the contract we gave him is actually a 'test pilot'
contract."

The dejected Brazilian could not be reached for comment, but rumours swirled
around the paddock that he went to the Ferrari coach home where he broke
down crying. He was then physically removed from the coach home when
Schumacher wanted to have a nap and he was forced into the red Fiat the team
rented for him during his stay in Austria. As a joke to help boost his
morale and show him things could be worse, Todt and Brawn phoned Austrian
traffic patrol saying that Barrichello had consumed too much champagne on
the podium and could be seen driving erratically in a red Fiat. Austrian
police will not comment on the situation other than to say they are still
waiting for the cheque to pay for Rubens' bail that Ferrari has promised to
pay.

[johnnywb]

[jbudgie]

Great.

[woof]

an oldie but a goodie