Todt & Saillant: le dénouement part 1

I wanted to finish up once and for all, and relate the “dénouement” of the Saillant-gate affair. Here’s a link to my post immediately after finding out Saillant had paid a severely ill-intentioned visit to my boss here at the hospital:

An open letter to Gérard Saillant (oh yeah Jean Todt too)

My boss, who is also the Dean of the Medical Faculty, asked Saillant (the president of the FIA Medical Commission and of the FIA Institute) two questions: 1) does Gary speak in the name of the hospital? 2) does Gary reveal information that is obtained illegally or that represents a violation of doctor-patient confidentiality? Because the answer to both is, of course, no, Saillant was sent packing. The next day, my boss gave me the “dossier” that the FIA had painstakingly put together detailing all the reasons I should be fired. We will look at this together in a subesequent post.

My attorneys informed me that because Todt and Saillant’s underhanded, slimy and reprehensible act caused no actual damages to me, legal recourse would be moot. I therefore decided to request that the FIA convene their ethics committee to enquire about this affair. I therefore addressed the following registered letter (click it to enlarge) to Todt just before Christmas 2014:

I was, of course, under no illusion as to the outcome of this request.

We will dissect the FIA’s response in my next post. It is highly instructive, and provides fascinating insight into just how perverse these guys’ concept of governance is. And just how oblivious to any normal standards of behavior they are.

More importantly for now is for me to highlight the fact that within days, Todt and Saillant viciously attacked Philippe Streiff. This, the same Philippe Streiff who idolized Saillant as his savior (I will omit details of his case that would rather call this into question!), and who entertained extremely close relations with him for almost 30 years. Philippe, a staunch defender of Todt and Saillant, was unceremoniously thrown under the bus, like an old newspaper. He was humiliated into publicly backing down and apologising (the fact is celebrated in the twitter feed of Xavier Malenfer, Todt’s chief of staff!), under threats of legal action based on some imagined “calomny” (their threat of a legal case, naught but an odious scare tactic, would have been thrown out perfunctorily – there was neither libel nor slander). And for what?

For an interview that was hardly seen by anyone, but was widely quoted. For saying what needs to be said: that the FIA has not been open about their “inquiry” into the circumstances surrounding the Jules Bianchi accident.

I believe that both Philippe Streiff and myself drew the gangster-like wrath of these two critters BECAUSE THEY ARE PANICKED. It is my firm belief (and their actions certainly don’t belie this!) that they are SO legally vulnerable for the management of the Bianchi accident that they probably fear not just for their cushy posts at the FIA, but for their freedom and fortunes. If Mr. and Mrs. Bianchi decided to hire lawyers and to demand clarity, I am relatively certain that the fact that Piette deliberately ignored HIS OWN REGULATIONS (as concerns evac, among other problems) would be ruled legally as contributing significantly to his current state.

Let me make things as clear as they can be. I worked with Jean-Charles Piette, the current F1 Medical Delegate from 2008 to 2012. During this entire period he was OBSESSED with the rules governing helicopters at F1 events. Remember, this is the man responsible legally for the medical/rescue services at F1 races. It was he who held up the GP2 race at Spa in 2012 until the helicopter returned from evacuating a previous casualty . . . for well over an hour. And yet, inexplicably, despite weather conditions that were known to preclude landing with a victim at the designated receiving hospital, he let the race proceed. And then, he allowed a profoundly comatose driver to be ground evac’d (40 minutes vs 20!!!!).

I’ll post and analyse Todt’s reply (actually written by his hatchet man Malenfer) to my ethics request later, and look briefly at the absurd “dossier” they compiled. Then we’ll be done with this. And I, hopefully, will never have to mention either of these . . . people . . . again.