Schumacher

	Barrichello

The verdict is in and the FIA has ruled on the Ferrari-Austrian Grand Prix controversy.

No points were taken. No race results were altered. No wins were stripped.

Instead, Ferrari and its drivers were fined for their podium behavior. Michael Schumacher failed to acknowledge the Austrian chancellor when receiving the victor's trophy, instead turning and handing it to spurned teammate Rubens Barrichello. Shortly thereafter, Schumacher allowed -- no, prodded Barrichello to stand atop the podium in the winner's spot while the German national anthem played.

What was on Schumacher's mind? He felt bad for his teammate.

What was Schumacher's motivation? To somehow allay the unfair blow landed on his teammate from his bosses.

Were the drivers incorrect in making a mockery of Formula One's precious podium etiquette guidelines? Sure. But fining Ferrari and its drivers for what happened after the race is like grounding two brothers for being rambunctious and running around screaming in the dining room during dinner after not properly greeting the neighbor who brought a casserole.

Meanwhile, Papa Ecclestone had no problem with those brothers slashing the neighbor's tires before dinner.

F1 made it clear that while they weren't happy with Ferrari's team orders allowing Schumacher to take a win away from Barrichello, the act was not against any F1 rules. Therefore, it wouldn't be fair to punish the team for those actions.

That's fine. But while Ferrari even acknowledged the unpopularity of the move after the race, saying it'd think twice before doing it again, F1, by not using this incident as a jumping point to review and/or change the rules, is continuing to condone team orders which sometimes can be detrimental to the sport.

Meanwhile, officials were aghast at the podium behavior, which is of absolutely no consequence whatsoever to the series driver and constructor title races.

Talk about priorities being out of whack. We all know Formula One essentially exists on its own plane of existence, but can the F1 brass really be that uptight?

Maybe. Or maybe the FIA knew it couldn't penalize Ferrari or Schumacher for the team orders because they really didn't violate any rules, so sticking it to them on the podium issue was the only way to hold the team accountable.

If that were the motivation, it might speak to some spirit of fairness. But that's still bad business.

What if, in some terribly unlikely event, Minardi drivers Alex Yoong and Mark Webber finish 1-2. (We'll skip the possibility of Minardi actually ordering one to pull over and allow the other win, because trying to imagine a scenario in which there'd be any reason to do that is even more absurd). After Yoong's win and Webber's runner-up finish, the drivers are quite understandably elated. In their euphoria, they both grab the trophy without properly acknowledging the supreme chancellor of Canthappenstan and then they switch places just because neither has any idea what they are doing up there.

Ferrari has deep pockets. But does F1 fine Minardi $1 million? That's an enormous chunk of change for a team that doesn't cruise anywhere near F1's elite, but if the drivers committed the same heinous offense that Schumacher and Barrichello did ...

No, the fine doesn't work, no matter what the motivation. And with F1 being bound by rules allowing team orders, fining the team for those actions or rearranging the finishing order in Austria wouldn't have been appropriate, either.

In the end, Ferrari was fined because the drivers realized the absurdity of the Austrian GP finish and remedied it the only way they could at that moment. And F1 considered this to be inappropriate behavior.

If that's inappropriate, how would you describe the fine?