FORMULA ONE
MICHAEL Schumacher has been dramatically stripped of pole position and banished to last on the grid for tonight's (AEST) Monaco Formula One Grand Prix.
The FIA, motor racing's world governing body, said in a statement that the seven-time world champion had deliberately stopped his car on the track at the penultimate Rascasse corner in the closing seconds of qualifying, preventing rivals from setting a faster time.
Renault's current world champion, Spain's Fernando Alonso, will now start on pole with Australia's Mark Webber alongside in a Williams.
Nearly eight hours after qualifying had ended, and with Schumacher leaving the paddock after an impromptu meeting with reporters to protest his innocence, the FIA issued the stewards's verdict.
The two-page document found that the 37-year-old had broken the rules on a number of counts.
"The stewards can find no justifiable reason for the driver to have braked with such undue, excessive and unusual pressure at this part of the circuit, and are therefore left with no alternative but to conclude that the driver deliberately stopped his car on the circuit," it said.
"This is a breach of 2006 Formula One sporting regulations article 116 and hence a driving infringement.
"The stewards accordingly direct that the qualifying times of Michael Schumacher, the driver of car No.5 five, be deleted.
"The effect of this is that...the driver will start the race from the back of the grid."
The verdict means that Ferrari will now have both cars at the back after Schumacher's Brazil teammate, Felipe Massa, crashed out in the first part of qualifying.
Monaco's tight and twisting circuit is almost impossible to overtake on, meaning that Schumacher effectively has no hope of equalling the late Ayrton Senna's record of six Monaco wins.
It is also a major blow to his hopes of an eighth title, with Alonso already 15 points clear after six races.
Italian Giancarlo Fisichella was also punished by the stewards, his Renault pushed five places down the grid to ninth after he was found to have blocked Red Bull's David Coulthard.
Schumacher was branded a cheat by his fellow drivers and rival team managers after his controversial manoeuvre.
But he insisted he had done nothing wrong.
"No, I didn't cheat - and I think it is pretty tough to be asked if I did," he said.
But Flavio Briatore, his former Benetton team chief, now boss at Renault, vehemently disagreed.
"I think he is taking everyone for a ride. Someone who was seven times a world champion wants us to believe that he didn't do it on purpose. It's fairyland."
Schumacher said he had simply "pushed too hard" in pursuit of an improved time on his final run in the final seconds of an incident-filled qualifying hour.
"I locked up the front and went wide," he said.
"I wasn't sure what was going on after this because of the positioning of the cars and so on, so I was not aware and in the end, I checked with the guys what the situation was, where did we end up, because I didn't expect to be sitting here right now in this position – and they said P1. So, I was glad considering what had happened."
Schumacher said he had attempted to find reverse, when he realised his car was stranded on the racing line of the circuit, but the gear did not engage.
"I didn't really want to back up just by myself without knowing what was coming around the corner and finally, it stalled," he said.
The incident meant that his Ferrari ended up stranded on the outside of the key Rascasse hairpin and prevented Alonso from clocking an improved lap time for pole.
Alonso, stony-faced after the session, was clearly livid and like most paddock observers could hardly believe that Schumacher had deliberately stopped on the track to gain an advantage in that way.
He said: "For sure, I'd have been on pole if I did not see the yellow flags. I was three-tenths (of a second) up on the lap until then. I am not going to give my true opinion on the matter here though. It is not the right place or time."
Schumacher had dominated much of the session in a bid to secure his record 67th pole position, but was afterwards accused of pre-meditated subterfuge – and not for the first time in his long and often controversial career.
Briatore was one of the most disgusted observers.
He said: "I think he is taking everyone for a ride. Someone who was seven times a world champion wants us to believe that he didn't do it on purpose. It's fairyland.
"And given that we are not Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, I think that what he did was unsporting and against everything
"It's really astonishing what he did. Incredible. It looked deliberate, and everybody is saying it, not just me. It wasn't like he hit the barriers. He just parked the car. I can't believe it. I don't know why he needed to do it – that's the way Ferrari manage."
Schumacher has often courted controversy in his 15-years F1 career, most famously when he crashed into Briton Damon Hill in the decisive season-ending 1994 Australian Grand Prix to win his first drivers's title.
In 1997, after leaving Benetton to join Ferrari, he collided with Canada's Jacques Villeneuve in a bid to win the title, but ended up handing his rival the crown and being disqualified, stripped of his runners-up place in the title race and disgraced again.
Villeneuve, 35, who now drives for the BMW Sauber team, said: "You cannot win seven world championships and do that. It is unacceptable. It shows that every time in the past that he has done something like that and people have given him the benefit of the doubt – that makes it obvious."
Schumacher hit back at his critics. He challenged his doubters to drive a lap of the Monaco track and see for themselves just how narrow and difficult the street circuit is to drive a racing car at maximum speed.
"Whatever you do in certain moments, your enemies believe one thing and the people who support you believe another," he added. "Some people may not believe it, but unfortunately that's the world we live in."
Mark Webber is in 3rd place
