Jean Todt’s Approval Rating VIII

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Are you happy with how F1 is being run by the FIA president?

Once every month at F1 Fanatic we look at how the president of the sport’s governing body, Jean Todt, is managing the championship.

Join in by casting your vote below.

FIA developments since the last approval rating

The 13th team

The decision on who will get the final space on the grid next year is yet to be made.

The Cypher Group withdrew its bid to compete in the 2011 F1 championship at the end of July.

The American group released a statement saying:

We remain completely committed to developing a credible and viable Formula One team and were able to raise a considerable amount of sponsorship and interest in recent months. However after much deliberation, we have decided that the budget we have is not sufficient to allow us to pursue the project in a manner befitting the series. It was not an easy decision, but one made out of respect for the FIA Formula One World Championship and our loyal supporters.

This news followed the announcement that the GP2 team ART had also abandoned its plans to form an F1 team.

Read more: Cypher Group withdraws 2011 F1 team bid

Flexibile front wings

As at Silverstone, Red Bull’s front wings were the centre of attention at Hockenheim – but for a very different reason. The new front wings were observed to be flexing at high speeds, allowing parts of the wing to move closer to the ground and operate more efficiently.

The FIA has responded to lobbying from McLaren and Mercedes by announcing it will increase the deflection tests from the next race in Belgium.

The FIA has activated Article 3.17.8 of the technical regulations, which allows it to increase load deflection tests at any point to prevent teams being able to run flexible wings.

Article 3.17.8 states:

In order to ensure that the requirements of Article 3.15 are respected, the FIA reserves the right to introduce further load/deflection tests on any part of the bodywork which appears to be (or is suspected of), moving whilst the car is in motion.
Article 3.17.8

The FIA has warned it reserves the right to increase that test up to 100 kilogrammes and that it will only allow a linear increase of deflection up to 20mm – which is designed to ensure that teams are not using clever material design to ensure that their cars pass the deflection test to stay within the regulations but then flex further at higher loads.

Ferrari team orders

The FIA World Motor Sport Council will meet on September 8th to look into the matter in which Ferrari ordered Felipe Massa to allow Fernando Alonso past to win the German Grand Prix.

An FIA statement said:

On 25 July 2010, on the occasion of the Grand Prix of Germany counting towards the 2010 Formula One World Championship, the Stewards of the meeting, after hearing the persons concerned, noted an infringement by the Scuderia Ferrari of:

– Article 39.1 of the 2010 Sporting Regulations (“Team orders which interfere with a race result are prohibited”)
– and Article 151 c) of the International Sporting Code (“Any of the following offences (?óÔé¼?ª) shall be deemed to be a breach of these rules (…) any fraudulent conduct or any act prejudicial to the interests of any competition or to the interests of motor sport generally”).

In the light of the information in their possession, the Stewards decided to impose a fine of $100,000 on the Scuderia Ferrari and to forward the dossier to the FIA World Motor Sport Council.

On the basis of that decision and of the inquiry report, and following the receipt of a report sent by the Stewards to the FIA, the FIA President has decided, in conformity with the new rules of disciplinary procedure adopted at his initiative on 11 March 2010, to submit the case to the judging body of the World Motor Sport Council.

The disciplinary hearing of the World Council will be chaired by the FIA Deputy President for Sport and will take place in Paris on 8 September 2010.

Read more: Ferrari to face FIA on September 8th

Pit stop safety

Renault and Mercedes have each been fined $50,000 for their roles in incidents that took place in the pit lane during the Hungarian Grand Prix.

A wheel came off Nico Rosberg’s car and Renault’s lollipop man allowed Robert Kubica out of his pit box too soon, causing a collision with Adrian Sutil.

Both teams were fined for "unsafe release" of their vehicles. Kubica was also given a stop-go penalty before retiring from the race. Rosberg retired immediately after the problem at his pit stop.

The FIA has not revealed any suggested rule changes but the incident shows something needs to be done to improve safety in the pit lane.

Read more: How F1 can make pit stops safer

2011 tyre supply

In the last approval rating we told you that the FIA confirmed Pirelli as F1’s tyre supplier for 2011-2013.

Pirelli has now completed its first test session at Mugello this week and has announced it is on target to return to Formula One for the 2011 season.

Nick Heidfeld spent two days at the wheel of Toyota’s 2009 TF109, evaluating prototype versions of the new Pirelli Pzero F1 tyre, which will be used by all teams from next season under a three-year agreement with the FIA.

Read more: Pirelli "on target" after first test session

Jean Todt’s Approval Rating

As an F1 fan, do you approve or disapprove of the way Jean Todt is handling his job as FIA President?

As an F1 fan, do you approve or disapprove of the way Jean Todt is handling his job as FIA President?

  • No opinion (23%)
  • Disapprove (17%)
  • Approve (60%)

Total Voters: 910

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Jean Todt’s Approval Ratings

DateApproveDisapproveNo opinion
July 201054%24%22%
June 201053%23%24%
May 201078%8%14%
April 201063%14%23%
March 201053%24%23%
February 201057%14%29%
January 201055%16%29%

Jean Todt’s Approval Rating, January-June 2010 (click to enlarge)

Image (C) FIA

42 comments on “Jean Todt’s Approval Rating VIII”

  1. Am I missing something about how to vote? I see the results of the previous polls and the graph, but no voting area….

    1. Can you see it now – it’s appearing fine for me, just above the table of past results?

  2. Haha, yes I have no voting option my end too.

  3. I’m not going to vote until I see the outcome of the FIA meeting on September 8th re: Ferrari team orders.

    1. That’s for next month’s vote

  4. Why is the bottom half of the page all in bold text?

    1. Even weirder it’s not happening in Firefox but it is in Chrome – is it fixed?

      1. Yes, it’s normal now.

  5. Jean’s doing pretty good. His approval is still fairl;y high and he doesn’t even have a huge opposition as many say ‘no opinion’. Who’d have thought that when he became president?

    1. I was one of thos very sceptical, i suppose most of us were.

      At first i was waiting to see, then i voted approve, but after the tyre desicion took very long (were Todt was more to blame than not) and making it a very hard deal for any new team and some of the things for next year were voted through (107% rule, the rear wing i don’t blame as much on Todt as on the FOTA), i went for disapprove last way round and stayed with that for now.

      Maybe after they announce a 13th team and depending on how the Ferrari WMC meeting is handled i will change my mind again.

      But Todt is doing a lot better than Mosley did in the last 5-6 years.

    2. This is the first time I went no opinion instead of approve.
      I feel the result of the Ferrari decision is something that worries me.

      But apart from that, and that, I think he’s doing very, very, very well.

  6. Still disapprove for me.
    We dont know the 13th team – which is now long, long overdue.
    Also, I still think that safetycar/pitlane rules are not optimized, even after all these little changes.
    Furthermore, punishments/penalties are unclear as well – 100K fine verus warning, versus 2 second penalty, versus 25 second penalty versus grid penalty – it’s a mess and then I expect the boss to step in and clean it up.

    …If we didn’t have Max Mosley before Jean Todt, what would his approval rate be?

    1. Yeah not knowing the 13th team is the deal-breaker. Should have been sorted by June latest. The new team will now probably be as comparitively slow as virgin/lotus/hrt are this year. But they will be on their own, so suffer more critisism, and struggle with sponsors more.

    2. That you don’t understand the rules of motor racing is Todt’s fault?

  7. I have no opinion until the real test for todt. The wmsc meeting

    1. Same here. No opinion until the Ferrari verdict.

      1. Exactly. The man has just been doing his job, nothing really important or testing during the last few months.
        Oh, by the way, Todt will not be the one responsible for any outcome the Ferrari case will have – or at least not the only one responsible. There is a whole counsil that’s going to decide after all. It wouldn’t be right for him to be judged alone for the penalty – or non-penalty – that Ferrari will recieve.

      2. same here – i’d like to see history change

        1. Todt can’t be responsible for the outcome.

          But he and the FIA can be held responsible for the monumental faff and the sheer length of time it has taken (and is taking) for the Hockenheimgate issue to be swept under the carpet. It already seems ages ago since it happened and we still won’t know until September. And think of the 4 week gap we’ve had – a fine oppurtunity to get it all out the way!

  8. One of the biggest test for him will be about the Ferrari team orders what will happen on 8th September is something everyone wants to know. The pit-stop speed limit was exceed to 100km/h from 80km/h but in some tracks it is 80 km/k so with no refueling I think the number of people working on each car in a pit time can be brought to 10-12.

    I am not convinced that they gave the contract to Pirelli instead of Michelin but I hope that they will do a good job.

    & last I also hope a good team get the 13th grid position.

  9. works fine for me in opera.

  10. WMSC result won’t be only due to Todt, so there’s no reason to base our judgement on that sentence, will it be positive or negative for Ferrari.

    1. Even though the WMSC result won’t be due to Todt, this is an important moment for judging him.
      This is the first time the new procedures for a WMSC hearing will be used, so I will judge Todt for how it works (arguments from both sides heard and weighted, no bias and no secrets being “leaked” to damage Ferrari up front/afterwards), not for the result as such.

      1. Well said, that will be an important part of the next approval-rate vote for me. The 13th team thing is taking too long though, if they are waiting until no one is left, they should just cancel it for next year. And I’m not yet judging how the flex-wing thing works out either – only after SPA will we see how it worked out, and if they did effective changes (or if they just cost a lot of teams money for something that couldn’t then be raced).

  11. I personally never approved of todt after he gave Barrichello orders at austria

  12. I’m highly disappointed that they’ve waited this long to decide on the 13th team. How long does it honestly take to see if someone has the funding lined up? And for that matter, doesn’t it behoove them to decide QUICKLY so they have more time to prepare?

    1. Pretty much resulted in no opinion from me. All these teams are pulling out because they won’t have enough time to get established for next year. I just hope everyone pulls out and makes FIA look like a bunch of braying asses.

      Still uncertain about the wing tests but it should be interesting to see what comes of it.

  13. Last time, after 5 Approves I went back to No Opinion. For this time, I think he’s doing a good job but not enough to warrant going back to Approve. The fact that there’s still no 13th team doesn’t help either.

  14. 13th team or not, Todt has won me over totally and this comes from someone who was blindly opposed to his election, based on his past Ferrari history.

    Sure, lots of issues up in the air, and even if we can’t all agree with his decisions at the least they are made in an atmosphere of discussion with most of the stakeholders in the sport.

  15. Approve for me, with the one reservation being the lack of decision on the 13th team. Whoever gets it is going to be hopelessly uncompetitive, even if they can hit the ground running like lotus did.

  16. Thats the same for me, although It’s better to make the right decision and if that is that no team should be given the spot or it to be put off until 2012 then so bit it.

    1. Yeah and maybe they should even wait till 2013. That’s when the new engines should come and probably a big regulation change.

  17. i voted “disapprove” last time, and nothing has happened to change my opinion.

  18. give it a few weeks and then i’ll let you know what i think…

  19. Charles Carroll
    22nd August 2010, 3:59

    It would be better to wait until after the Ferrari decision, but at this point (and with that not done yet), I actually approved.

    Heck, I’ve been enjoying the sport a ton this year…and this is my first year watching it!

  20. I approve. Ferrari incident has been refered to WMSC, additional weight testing will be done on RB and Ferrari front wings. Where there have been questions raised, FIA has responded with action.

    FIA starting to look more like a respectable governing body once more, rather than the plaything of a discredited politician’s lawyer son.

  21. I’ve approved every month so far but this month I voted no opinion, mainly because we still don’t know who the 13th team are. Theres 7 months till the 2011 season, how can they expect a new team to build a decent car that will at least be on pace with this years new teams within that time? Also I think with the pit stop issue he shouldnt just have fined the teams, I think it would have been better to put a maximum limit to pit crew members

  22. I voted no opinion, but the more I think about it I probably would’ve voted disapprove as I did last time. We still have no decision on the 13th team, or the supposed runner up (that will be waiting in the wings should there be another USF1 type moment). It’s gotten to the point now where any team that fills that spot will have about as much time as Lotus had, and less than both HRT and Virgin had last year, who are both struggling to stay afloat as it is. At the very best they’re set up to fail. I was also disappointed with the speed of dealing with Ferrari’s team orders. I’m also skeptical that the WMSC is going to give Ferrari anything more than a slap on the wrist. We shall see.

  23. Well, we STILL have to wait for a decision on Ferrari, I wonder if anybody will be interested in it after all this time……..
    Yipee, Renault and Mercedes got a slap on the wrist for poor pit safety, but since the FIA hasn’t issued any new instructions, or consulted the teams, or anything like that, perhaps we will have to wait for something more serious to happen before its looked at properly.
    I am still expecting an announcement that there won’t be a 13th team, and that any teams that drop out this year or after won’t be replaced, since the FIA appears to be backtracking on this….
    Tyre supplier – you do know that Pirelli now also supply the WRC (also FIA controlled). Do you think there might be some back-room deals going on?
    Now guess which way I voted……..

  24. My problem with Jean Todt is that he doesn’t appear to have speeded up the decision making of the FIA. More than six weeks to convene a disciplinary court isn’t good enough, and the delays in tyre agreement and 13th team show a lack of urgency in the whole set-up. Voted “no opinion”

  25. 13th team – For it.
    Flexible front wing – clever. Nobody should be penalized if the wings confirm to basic requirements
    Team Order – I think Team Orders are necessary but Ferrari broke a rule. Ferrari earned the points. But put them in 23rd and 24th position in next race.
    Pit Lane – Racing incident. Careless on the team. Fines suffice.
    2011 Tyre Supply – I would enjoy a tyre war.
    Jean Todt – Not even showing his face, changing rules to benefit F1, I easily forget him. Lot of rules to be changed.

  26. The reason its taken a relatively long time to hear the Ferrari case is because they went with the next scheduled WMSC meeting date.

    Why schedule a WMSC meeting in August during the break when theres another one already scheduled for early September. You must remember that members of the WMSC come from all around the world & that travel for some of them isn’t easy which is why the WMSC only meets every few months.

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