The Vettel penalty has created a new phenomenon in Formula 1 – a fake FIA ruling. This was sent to me by someone within the FIA asking me why I had not mentioned that Vettel had been docked his points from Baku. I replied with the actual press release. The instant conclusion was that the decision had been overruled, but I saw the same document a few hours ago and concluded at the time that it could not be trusted because the style looked wrong and there were clear signs in its appearance that it might have been cobbled together by a forger, notably the slight shading around the words.
But why on earth would someone want to produce a fake FIA decision? And what possible value does this have? A bit of a laugh? I will leave you to decide on that one.
Here it is:
joeblogsf1 
Must have been done by someone with zero computer skills. I’m pretty sure I could make something better than that using windows paint!
Of all the things you can photoshop or forge on the internet…who on earth would pick an FIA ruling. LOL
Someone within the FIA unhappy with the ruling? Ridiculous result. Completely agree with your points Joe and disappointed Vettel’s behavior in light of his comments after the race do not warrant more than a slap on the wrist.
If interested in my own opinion on this one: some people are so bored with their lives, they are getting seriously mentally sick. I am serious. My opinion.
It is Baku, not Silicon valley….
No rationalizing stupid people. If people can believe pizzagate…
Another clue that it’s a fake is the spelling of “behavior” – dropping the ‘U’ American-style whereas their official website uses the British spelling “behaviour”
Ferrari now write about “tires” in their press releases….
Press releases?!!! I thought they were in full sulk mode!
When they win they put one out…
The worse thing about this is that actual newspapers were writing pine articles stating this as fact when it’s clearly a really bad photoshop! What I don’t understand is why these news outlets pay the kind of people that believe this good money when I’m trying to start out and can’t get a break. Baffles me.
Loving your work as always Joe
Because it is an opportunity to get out a story to attract customers. That is all the general press cares about. Sales trump truth every time. That is why they have less public respect than politicians. Joe is one of the shining exceptions.
Maybe whomever knocked up that dodgy shoop sent it to Reuters. They’ll print it verbatim, without question, like they do with pretty much everything they receive, then every other news source reports on it. Everyone reading it says “oooh it must be legit, it’s from Reuters”. JD.
>> “why on earth would someone want to produce a fake FIA decision? And what possible value does this have? A bit of a laugh?”
All actions like this are an attempt to destabilize and subtly alter the course of or thoughts about something — a person, an organization, or most commonly a developing narrative or point of view about which multiple parties have competing agendas, as you well know. Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s a skilled attempt or a well-reasoned one and it *might* be as shallow as someone having a laugh, but if and when it’s serious then someone’s trying a chess move.
Bored former CNN employees?
given the subject matter and content I’d say more Breitbart News or Fox.
Or, give the man the job as whoever it was knows what the result should have been.
Are you saying that this fake ruling was sent to you by the FIA or someone pretending to be the FIA? Because if it’s the former they were attempting to set you up and destroy your credibility by making you look like you are gullible/ill informed or just lazy. Either way it’s disturbing. A French journalist sent out a tweet earlier claiming Vettel had been disqualified so it looks like he fell for it.
I am saying it was sent to me privately by an FIA person. They believed it to be real. They were not pretending to be anything they were not.
In that case it was simply a troll trying to dupe any and all and take advantage of the huge furore on the internet about whether Vettel should be penalised or not. Apparently a few major sources simply jumped on it before verification, so he achieved his aim. In short: he did it for the lulz.
Reminds me of those Can’t Miss E-mail offers where someone is claiming to be a US government official, but the message has the usual misspellings and gramatical errors often associated with English as a Second Language folks. Why? Don’t have a clue, but surely there are more interesting things to mess with?!?!
Whatever- all I can say is “if only”…
True
Agreed👍John Shackleton.
“If only”
Eddie Jordan ?
There is a difference between blather and fake news.
I blame the Russians.
Good call. But you must be pro-Lewis because that’s an anti-red remark!!
I blame Tony Blair
I blame Sebastien Vettel…oh wait!
I blame Vettel
I blame Ferrari
I blame the Kong of Botox and multiple face lifts…
The perpetually surprised looking Tzar of Russia…
Putin a champion of free press and a dam good egg.
Yep the last sentence came from the FSB….probably.
Oh great, now 60% of the US tv audience are going to think that the points classification is wrong on the TV during the Austrian GP coverage.
I wonder if your FIA contact sent it anywhere else, and if anyone has run with the fake story in the media.
I saw references to this on Twitter well before the FIA issued their own press release. Quite clearly somebody had created this forgery well in advance and publicised it on Twitter, hoping that it would overwhelm the official notification.
My droid feed picked up ‘the sun’ uk newspaper running the story of vettels dq, but the page was gone when I clicked the link.
Pros use illustrator.
Well apart from the american spelling, I rather prefer this version, perhaps this is real and the other one a fake! Perception is all!
It seems you know who sent this, so a little digging will find the originator, do you want him/her to remain at the FIA ?
We approach an era of news in which it will become increasingly difficult to determine what is real and what is fake or misdirection. After all such techniques have been used for centuries in warfare, WW2 saw the birth of several official government departments tasked with diverting enemy resources against fake targets.
We know that our governments do this all the time to their own citizens nowadays and the rather crude attempts by action groups and the discontented, via twitface instagit etc will get more sophisticated as they are used by larger more subtle organisations, to direct our thoughts or opinions in ways we may not realise.
It is now already unreliable to use only one source of daily home or international news, and I often find UK stories in other foreign channels that have no presence in “normal” UK channels.
It will be interesting to see how far this fake FIA release goes and what the FIA do about it.
One possible explanation could be someone trying to manipulate betting markets… would only need to move prices for a few minutes to create a possibility of instant profit.
It’s wishful thinking!
Sometimes there is tell tale information hidden in the meta data of the image. If the person who sent it to you still has the original they received, or if you still have the original, you might gain clues as to the faker that way.
The shading around the text (particularly noticeable in any area that shows a distinct contrast between light and dark) is a typical sign of saving an image in jpg format using a high compression value to limit the final file size.
Repeatedly saving a jpg as a jpg will compound the effect.
And as some people in the comments sections of recent articles seem to be keeping score, I’m with Joe in feeling that the original punishment did not fit the crime and the genuine FIA ruling has now set an unfortunate precedent.
Jacques Villeneuve was disqualified from the 1997 Japanese Grand Prix because he ignored a yellow flag during the saturday’s practice session. His offence activated a suspended one-race ban imposed on him at the previous Italian Grand Prix for a similar offence.
That was a real harsh penalty because he was contender for the driver’s Championship, but ignoring yellow flag is very dangerous for other drivers and marshalls. In Vettel situation, there was no danger at all, only kiddy attitude.
Mercedes employee in the Graphic Design Dept. perhaps?
We live in a crazy F—–up world.
50 years ago, in 1967, everything seemed to be coming-up roses. Life was simple, I understood Good Vs Bad and Love Vs Hate. Truth and honesty were seen as positive traits.
These recent replies to Joe’s heartfelt beliefs seem to defy all reasonable logic. The simple fact that he is also probably right, seem to be lost in people’s accusations that he is somehow biased, partisan, nationalistic, or, does not know what he is talking about.
It really is a very sad inditement of the world, at large
Interesting to see the difference between the FIA and the response from organisers of the Tour de France over todays crash..
Yes, I thought do
II have been meaning to comment on this incident for a while.
The actions of other sports show put the FIA decision and the stewards’ actions under the spot light.
In Rugby Union the All Blacks have a status within the sport that Ferrari would probably envy. On Saturday, an All black player was the first player to be issued a red card (black flag) in New Zealand and only the third player for that to happen in All Black history.
It is interesting for the way the officiating team operated. Jérôme Garcès the referee gave the red card and said I have no option due to directives from World Rugby. His assistants appeared to want to review it further. The referee had the option of a yellow card which is 10 minute off the field of play.
Sonny Bill Williams conducted a no arm tackle, putting his shoulder into the face of Lion’s wing Anthony Watson. SBW is a 2 time Rugby Union World Cup winner, a Heavy weight boxing Champion and Rugby League World Cup finalist, New Zealand’s golden boy and one of rugby’s biggest stars.
This was considered a brave decision by Jérôme Garcès and the correct one.
The New Zealand public have been accepting of the punishment and SBW apologised immediately afterward and took responsibility for his actions. He was banned for a further 4 weeks by the citing committee which looks at all issues of foul play passed on by the citing commissioner an independent official.
The reason why I find this so interesting because traditionally The All Blacks are the Ferrari of the rugby world and officials over the years have allowed them to escape punishment that other teams and players have been issued.
Then we come to the Tour De France and the Mark Cavendish and Peter Sagan incident. The Tour has traditionally been very hard on any instances of violent conduct and has disqualified riders for this, Mark Renshaw for a clash of helmets and others.
The original penalty for Peter Sagan was to finish last on the stage. This was upgraded to a disqualification later on. Peter Sagan is a 2 times World Road Race Champion, 5 time consecutive maillot vert winner and 8 time Tour de France stage winner. He too apologised immediately afterward and took responsibility for his actions.
Two different sports have acted in a way to impose their authority over players and teams. This shows F1 and the FIA in extremely bad way. The weakness at the top of the FIA, allowing for a driver already on a conduct warning to bring the sport into disrepute, the weakness and cowardice of the track stewards who allowed external factors outside of the incident to modify their judgment. The perception is they only gave the 10 sec stop go because Lewis Hamilton had to come into the pits. The Sebastian Vettel penalty was announced after Lewis Hamilton’s, this smacks of a political decision to not affect the show.
Let’s us remember this all happened during the safety car period, where drivers and marshals are on track. Sebastian Vettel committed 2 of the worst offenses in motor racing, he used his car to hit another car on purpose and he did this under a safety car period. The force and speed of the impact has no bearing on his actions. In others sports, the whistle has been blow the game has stopped need we say more.
The other issue that the FIA or stewards have not addressed is that there were 3 separate incidents.
1 Hitting the back of Lewis Hamilton under the safety car
2 Overtaking under the safety car
3 Hitting on the side Lewis Hamilton under the safety car
Then we have the after race incidents of ignoring it ever happened.
All this would appear to show if you are a 4 time World Champion, in a title race and drive for Ferrari you can get away with making an apology under duress a week after the event and get away with everything.
The problem now as you have so rightly said Joe is where do the FIA go from here with respect to disciplining other drivers when the transgress.
Excellent post, H-Bomb. Compares and contrasts it all very nicely. Especially agree regarding how the stewards seem to have completely ignored the potential overtake behindthe safety car.
I saw that too. At first, I thought the ban was a bit harsh, and agreed with the original demotion to the back of the peloton with a time penalty. Then the commissionaire stepped in and upgraded it to a full tour ban. I thought about it and then I could see why. They are pro-cyclists and they know *exactly* what they are doing. So too F1 drivers. Except, Vettel didn’t, because the red mist had descended and he had become a danger to other drivers and himself. Therefore, it should have been dealt with by the harshest punishment possible – DQ. The FIA should be made to sit in a room with a video of the cycling incident and how their authorities subsequently dealt with it and told “And THAT’S how you deal with deliberate misdemeanours which endanger safety”. Fully support you Joe in your views on what in future will probably always be remembered as ” *that* incident” and how the FIA deflated itself.
Ah – I see someone has arrived before me. I thought this was good:
Philippe Marien, the head UCI commissaire [race official], said: “Before the Tour de France we warned the sprinters that we would look very closely at every sprint, that is what we did today. It was not an easy decision, but this is the beginning of the Tour and now is the moment to set our boundaries. And that is what we did today. It was not about Sagan, but about the act the rider made. What happens here, it looks like it was on purpose and it almost looks like hitting a person. It’s not about Cavendish and Sagan, it could be anybody, the names won’t matter.”
Wow, what an excellent statement; “almost looks like hitting a person” indeed. Although, to be honest, he did: from what I saw he deliberately elbowed him in the face! But yes, a brilliant example of how to run a sport: “now is the moment to set our boundaries”. Look and learn, M. Todt.