Schumacher under fire for actions

MICHAEL SCHUMACHER yesterday emerged from a fiery meeting of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association with his role as a director intact.

Schumacher was forced to explain his actions in the dying moments of qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix two weeks ago when he parked his Ferrari in the middle of the Monte Carlo circuit.

Before the half-hour meeting at Silverstone the seven-times world champion had come under fire from many quarters, in particular after stating the incident was down to nothing more than a simple error.

The race stewards refused to believe the 37-year-old German and while he was punished in being demoted from pole position, the furore has since rumbled on. There was the suggestion Schumacher would be ousted, but David Coulthard, the Red Bull Racing driver and fellow GPDA director, said: “As I have said before, it was on the end of our agenda we had to go through, and it’s all been cleared up.

“Of course there was a bit of tension to start with. People just needed to sit down with each other and in the end it was a very productive meeting.

“It is good to have these things from time to time, to get everyone’s enthusiasm and juices going.

“I don’t want to say too much about what the discussion was, but we are still represented by the three main directors.

“I think it was a good meeting. It was good to clear the air over the ‘he said, she said’ of the last two weeks.

“Everyone is unanimous in that we are together and that we want to move forward and Michael is a major player in that.

“Everyone has their individual opinion of what happened in Monaco and is comfortable with what the stewards did.”

That is not to say Schumacher will not be ousted later this year when the GPDA makes its annual decision on the directorship.

“As per last year, Turkey will be a point where we nominate whether the three directors continue,” said Coulthard on autosport.com.

“Personally I think it is good to see change because then the reactive role of the GPDA keeps moving along.”

Kimi Raikkonen, Mark Webber, Fernando Alonso, Juan Pablo Montoya, Heikki Kovalainen, Franck Montagny and Anthony Davidson did not attend the meeting.

Ulsterman Adam Carroll took a surprise pole position for the first GP2 at Silverstone as British drivers monopolised the front row.

Carroll, driving for Racing Engineering, only clocked nine laps but put his time to good use with a best effort of one minute 29.104 seconds. He beat championship leader Lewis Hamilton to top spot by just 0.026secs to give Britain a clean sweep of the front row.