No winners

By now, it has become rather tiresome to harp on about the need to tidy up Formula One’s regulations, in a bid to avert future repeats of the myriad controversies that have further soured a motor racing season already depressed by tragedy.

It is difficult to imagine that there will be any real winners in Formula One this year.

If Michael Schumacher is crowned world champion in Adelaide on November 13, there will inevitably be those who question the value of his accomplishment, given the aspersions cast upon the Benetton team’s interpretation of the rules. Even if the FIA has now concluded its round of hearings, and all technical matters have been resolved on paper, a summer of incessant turmoil has taken any gloss off what the team might eventually achieve.

And if Damon Hill should be crowned champion, there will doubtless be those who will view it as Schumacher’s season, no matter what the history books might record.

As we said, it is difficult to see there being any winners.

It is not, however, simply the racing teams who are to blame for Formula One’s presently tarnished reputation.

Anyone who witnessed Gerhard Berger receiving medical treatment in a run-off area on Sunday morning at Monza, while the race warm-up continued, will realise that the FIA has rather more on its plate than a need to purge the technical departments of leading F1 teams. It would also be well advised to examine the extraordinary behaviour of some of its own operatives. S. A.