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[sagi58]

 wrote:">Sauber: Reckless to let van der Garde race

Sauber's lawyer has said that it would be "reckless and dangerous" to allow Giedo van der Garde to contest the Australian Grand Prix in one of the team's cars.

Van der Garde has claimed that he had a valid contract to race for the outfit this season, but the seats were ultimately taken by Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr.

The Dutchman, 29, was recently backed by a Swiss arbitral tribunal, and is now hoping to get the judgment upheld in the Victorian Supreme Court.

But Rodney Garratt QC, acting for Sauber, brought up the issue of safety, claiming that the C34 has been custom-built for Ericsson and Nasr, who were both present in court.

He added that van der Garde has no experience in the car, and is not covered by the team's insurance.

"Sauber could not allow him to race... it would be reckless and dangerous to do otherwise," said Garratt.

"It would result in an unacceptable risk of physical harm or even death."

Justice Croft is due to deliver his verdict on Wednesday morning.

[myownalias]

So it looks like van der Garde has won his court battle against Sauber and the Swiss team would have to allow him to drive one of their two C34's.

Giedo van der Garde wins court case against Sauber in Australian court

Sauber’s plans for the new Formula One season – which starts in four days with the Australian Grand Prix – have been thrown into disarray after a court found in favour of Dutch driver Giedo van der Garde in his bid to force the team to let him drive for them this season.

Van der Garde had claimed that Sauber had reneged on a deal to give him a drive this season when they announced their all-new lineup, Sweden’s Marcus Ericsson and Brazilian Felipe Nasr. On Wednesday morning the Supreme Court of Victoria passed judgement in the Dutchman’s favour.

A tweet from the court’s official account read: “F1 driver Giedo van der Garde’s application successful, full judgment will be posted and made available @F1 @ausgrandprix @SauberF1Team.”

Monisha Kaltenborn, CEO and team principal of Sauber, said in a statement that they remain concerned about the effect the ruling could have on safety.

“We are disappointed with this decision and now need to take time to understand what it means and the impact it will have on the start of our season,” it read. “What we cannot do is jeopardise the safety of our team, or any other driver on the track, by having an unprepared driver in a car that has now been tailored to two other assigned drivers.”

The news is a huge setback for Sauber, who had been preparing for the new season with some optimism after an awful 2014, when they failed to win a single point and were also firefighting financial pressures along with most of the teams at the back end of the grid.

They had gone through an encouraging testing season in Spain last month, when their Ferrari-powered car put in a number of eye-catching performances. But now the team is urgently considering how best to respond to the news in Australia.

Van der Garde’s lawyer, Tom Clarke, said his client’s attempts to get in touch with Sauber over the last few days had not been responded to.

“Mr Van der Garde remains ready, willing and able to perform his obligations,” Clarke told the court. “He wishes to meet with the team. He wishes to have his seat ... organised and he can do so forthwith.

“Unfortunately our email last night at 7:44pm local time has gone unresponded to but we would call upon Sauber Motor Sport AG to fulfill its obligations.”

Lawyers for Sauber had argued handing Van der Garde a seat was an unacceptable safety risk because their cars had been prepared for Ericsson and Nasr.

“I’m very fit and very strong,” Van der Garde told reporters in Melbourne. “I’m looking forward to going back to the team and we’ll work hard to do our best for this weekend.I still have a very good relation with the team. I’m looking forward to racing this weekend.”

Lawyers had told the court the team’s cars had been upgraded for the 2015 racing season, from Ferrari C33s to Ferrari C34s, and were custom-designed to fit the bodies of Nasr and Ericsson. Rodney Garratt QC said the cars were capable of reaching speeds “in excess of 300 kilometres per hour”, exposing drivers to forces of “up to five times their bodyweight”.

Mr Garratt argued on Monday that Van der Garde had no experience driving the C34s and was not covered by Sauber’s insurance. He had argued the absence of necessary parts, including the right seat-belt, would prohibit him from racing safely at such short notice.

“It would result in an unacceptable risk of physical harm or even death,” Mr Garratt said.

The court heard there were numerous public safety issues at play, including the safety of spectators at the event.

Van der Garde drove for Caterham in 2013 and in January last year it was announced that he had joined Sauber as a reserve driver. Ericsson had a difficult debut season with Caterham last year, with a number of crashes as he tried to keep up with his more experienced team-mate Kamui Kobayashi. The Brazilian Nasr, who drove five times for Williams in practice last year, is a GP2 winner who was third in that field in 2014, driving for Carlin. He won the British F3 title in 2011.

Now van der Garde will forever be known as the driver that sued himself into an F1 seat... he'll get one season and disappear forever, assuming Sauber survive the year!

[darwin dali]

Or he's so slow (maybe with the clandestine help of the Sauber team ) that he agrees after a few races that it's useless...

[myownalias]

Apparently this decision applies to the whole season... but the question I ask is how can an Australian court decide this so unilaterally?

Wouldn't it have to be either a Swiss or French court to be made season long?

[darwin dali]

zurich_allan?

[myownalias]

zurich_allan?

Why not... although he is not from Zurich... he can probably make sense of all this legal nonsense... over to you Allan!

[zurich_allan]

Hah, I'd need to read the judgment in full, but on the face of it the court have looked at the contract and it must be binding. This means that as long as he is willing to meet his end of the contract then they have to honour theirs. The arguments about safety are totally irrelevant to a purely contractual matter, and their lawyers will know that - the court wouldn't have even considered them. It's not arguable anyway as teams get in emergency drivers at a few days notice all the time, so it's spurious in the extreme to say that they could not accommodate him. Indeed, given that they have shown a complete disregard for what seems to be an open and shut case in my opinion means that they deserve all they get.

Of course they have the option to just breach the contract and not let him actually drive (nobody can physically force them to comply with the court judgment), but then they will have absolutely no choice but to pay the contract in full along with substantial damages due to the damaging effect that not actually driving can have on the career of a racing driver.

In my opinion, very bad from Sauber on the assumption that the contract IS binding as the court found.

[myownalias]

I have a question Allan, given that countries have different laws and regulations, can the Australian decision be legally binding worldwide? I would have thought that for it to be a valid worldwide ruling, it would have to take place in Switzerland (where Sauber are registered) or France (where the FIA is registered)?

Please excuse my ignorance, my legal knowledge is limited at best...

[zurich_allan]

I have a question Allan, given that countries have different laws and regulations, can the Australian decision be legally binding worldwide? I would have thought that for it to be a valid worldwide ruling, it would have to take place in Switzerland (where Sauber are registered) or France (where the FIA is registered)?

Please excuse my ignorance, my legal knowledge is limited at best...

It's a very tricky one. Technically the decision is only binding in the jurisdiction the judgment was made. However with a subject like contract law, the basics of the law is pretty much universal as pertaining to contract formation. So the chances are very very high that a judgment of this nature would be the same regardless of jurisdiction.

Decisions of the FIA or CAS are effectively only very strong suggestions, they are not legally binding, and any legal 'court' judgment would be deemed to be superior to any if their decisions.

So technically the judgment isn't universally binding, but the nature and effect of the judgment would make it pretty much so unless Sauber want to continue to metaphorically throw money down the drain and fight it.

[myownalias]

Thanks, I appreciate your response... clears up my ideas on law a little, although it does make my head hurt!

[LiamCatterson]

We can sort this drama out easily.


THREE CAR TEAMS

[sagi58]

...Technically the decision is only binding in the jurisdiction the judgment was made. However with a subject like contract law, the basics of the law is pretty much universal as pertaining to contract formation. So the chances are very very high that a judgment of this nature would be the same regardless of jurisdiction...

And, here's my "dumb question of the day":
By its very nature, F1 seems to be an international organization/business/endeavour,
is there some sort of international standard all contracts are bound by?

[zurich_allan]

...Technically the decision is only binding in the jurisdiction the judgment was made. However with a subject like contract law, the basics of the law is pretty much universal as pertaining to contract formation. So the chances are very very high that a judgment of this nature would be the same regardless of jurisdiction...

And, here's my "dumb question of the day":
By its very nature, F1 seems to be an international organization/business/endeavour,
is there some sort of international standard all contracts are bound by?

There is some limited international jurisdiction under the former Rome Statute (now the Rome I Regulations), but they only apply to EU member states and some other select jurisdictions, they're certainly not universal.

[darwin dali]

...Technically the decision is only binding in the jurisdiction the judgment was made. However with a subject like contract law, the basics of the law is pretty much universal as pertaining to contract formation. So the chances are very very high that a judgment of this nature would be the same regardless of jurisdiction...

And, here's my "dumb question of the day":
By its very nature, F1 seems to be an international organization/business/endeavour,
is there some sort of international standard all contracts are bound by?

There is some limited international jurisdiction under the former Rome Statute (now the Rome I Regulations), but they only apply to EU member states and some other select jurisdictions, they're certainly not universal.

And as most know, Switzerland is NOT part of the EU.

[sagi58]

There is some limited international jurisdiction under the former Rome Statute (now the Rome I Regulations), but they only apply to EU member states and some other select jurisdictions, they're certainly not universal.

I guess it would be impossible to get a universal set of regulations!
Can you imagine the timeline on that?