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Ferrari are in an interesting place at the moment so what will they do and can F1 as a brand tolerate them as back markers or perhaps their bluff should be called on their many calls to leave the sport. It would be an interesting debate whether they have brought the sport into disrepute via their alleged cheating and the NDA that subsequenlty quashed disclosure of what ever did or didn't happen and at whose behest that NDA was put in place. Was it to protect Ferrari's value on the stockmarket for instance or to protect the inability of the FIA to detect and prevent cheating of this nature. Corporate misbeaviour in public companies can result in legal proceedings BTW.
Another issue that can be raised is how the drivers did not know of any cheating because their cooperation would be needed and there would be talk within the team of what was going on at the time. So can the drivers be blamed for driving cars that they knew were not legal, in the past this question has always been ignored when it was patently obvious the drivers knew and profited from the cheats. Why aren't drivers punished for driving cars that they know are not legal?
The NDA is the problem not the cheating itself. In every other cheating case there has been absolute transparency as far as we are aware but this time the NDA prevents that and the other teams could rightfully say that if it was good enough for our cheating to be publicly acknowledged then what is different this time. Trying to bat this away with comparing this episode of cheating with other major cheats in the past is not the point at all, the NDA is the point.
I wonder if LeClerc is happy with joining Ferrari as he was and thinks his long term contract is such a good thing now. Certainly if this period of bad performance goes on right through hs existing contract then it will definitely harm his career prospects of getting into another team that has a chance of making him WDC some time before he retires. It seem that Ferrari do not have a good record of creating drivers to be WDC when compared to other teams so it could be pressional suicide to join them in that pursuit. it will be interesting if Vettel opens up and talks but he won't do that because other teams would not employ him in fear he would do the same to them so perhaps he might retire then open up.
Perhaps Karma is an appropriate word for what is happening.
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