Schumacher to help distribute funds from McLaren fine

Former world champion Michael Schumacher is among the management committee members for the FIA’s newly-formed Motor Sport Safety Development Fund, the body which will distribute $60 million from McLaren’s ‘spy scandal’ fine, for the benefit of motorsport worldwide.

The FIA’s World Motor Sport Council announced Schumacher’s appointment on Wednesday, along with those of FIA President Max Mosley (like Schumacher, a trustee of the FIA Foundation which will administer the Fund), Nick Craw, President of the Automobile Competition Committee for the United States (representing National Sporting Associations), Jean Todt and Norbert Haug (from Ferrari and Mercedes as the manufacturers involved in the incident that gave rise to the original fine).

The intention is to disperse the Fund over the next five years and to concentrate activities on a Young Driver Safety Scholarship Programme, an Officials Skills Safety Training Programme and a Facility Safety Improvement Consultancy Programme.

McLaren were fined a total of $100 million last year, and excluded from the 2007 constructors’ championship, after it was decided they had exploited confidential technical information obtained from Ferrari.

News source：http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2008/3/7561.html