The Mercedes and Ferrari drivers were fighting over ninth place at the end of yesterday’s Grand Prix, when Massa suffered front wing damage after being squeezed into the wall while attempting an overtaking move. The Ferrari driver dropped to fifteenth position and was subsequently penalised for speeding in the pit lane while attempting to change his nose.

Broken: Massa's nose after the wall's vicious assault

“Having reviewed the incident between cars 3 and 7 toward the end of the race, the Stewards have decided that the wall into which car 7 was pushed was in a dangerous position and should have taken appropriate action to avoid the collision,” the announcement read. “The Stewards have therefore resolved to fine the wall USD 10,000 and issue an official warning that if such behaviour is repeated, the wall will be reminded very sternly that such behaviour should not be repeated.

“Moreover, the Stewards have declined to take action on car 3 for the incident, as the driver of car 3 should have expected a more mature and professional response from the wall in question. The Stewards hold the wall one hundred per cent responsible for the damage caused to car 7.”

Ferrari have already lashed out at the decision, with President Luca di Montezemolo particularly outraged. “These new walls are just incompetent and dangerous compared to the old, established walls that we are used to,” Montezemolo whispered, hoarsely. “Perhaps the better teams such as ourselves should be charged with providing extra walls for safer racing, taking the responsibility away from the dangerous mavericks that caused this problem.”

In a separate incident, the stewards also ordered that a strip of grass elsewhere on the circuit be dug up and moved a few metres further back on the track, as a penalty for damaging one of Schumacher’s tyres earlier in the race.

The new facility, set to open in 2011, was set to be constructed in the area around Bridge corner, before someone at the circuit pointed out that this part of the track is to be bypassed by most international events since the opening of the new “Arena circuit” layout earlier this year.

Wrong: New developments at Silverstone

Progress on the new complex is already going well, with foundations being laid and the pit wall having already been completed. The realisation that all of this is in the wrong place is sure to be a blow to Silverstone’s ambitions.

It has not yet been explained how such a catastrophic error could have happened, though the BRDC lounge’s traditional cocktail (a measure of gin combined with a tenuous grasp of reality) may have played its part in the debacle.

“Oh, bugger,” said BRDC President Damon Hill when informed of the news. “Clearly we will have to begin rectifying this issue right away. I fully intend to spend the next ten years drawing up spurious plans for how this problem will be solved.”

In other news, there was cause for slight celebration at Silverstone after the Northamptonshire circuit installed its first flushing toilet. Plans are already underway to connect the track’s buildings to the National Grid, the BRDC having acknowledged that the previous method of self-generated power was not cost-effective. “Oiling the hamster’s wheel every day was a time-consuming and costly activity,” Hill revealed.

Red Bull have long insisted that no driver receives superior treatment from the team; however, this was called into question on Sunday night after their Director of Something-or-Other Helmut Marko appeared to be the only person in the world to think that the collision was Webber’s fault, rather than that of his overexuberant teammate.

Smashing: Red Bull's driver policy in action

Today Red Bull team principal Christian Horner confirmed that previous statements have been false: “Following speculation over whether we practice driver favouritism, we have decided to address those doubts by confirming that we do, in fact, intend to benefit one driver.

“That driver is Jenson Button.”

Though the announcement initially came as a shock, it was later reflected upon as being unsurprising. “We did everything we could to ensure that Jenson, and not Sebastian or Mark, won the world championship in 2009, and we intend to do the same this year,” Horner continued. “This has been done through a range of reliability issues, strategic errors, and when all else fails – as it did yesterday – brazen stupidity and incompetence, on the part of both our drivers and senior team staff.”

Button expressed his relief that the story had finally broken: “I’m glad it’s all out in the open now,” the 2009 world champion, one of the main beneficiaries of yesterday’s incident, claimed. “It’s been very embarrassing, having to hide the blatant bias of the Red Bull team in my favour up until now,” he added.

This latest announcement is believed to be related to the revelation that Red Bull’s preparations for the notoriously demanding Canadian Grand Prix include the use of Melbourne-specification brakes for the Montreal race. “It makes perfect sense,” Horner said.

The club, long a prestigious haunt for the Formula One community in the Principality, confirmed that a 41-year-old man had been “forcibly removed” from the premises after violating their code of conduct.

Denied: Monaco clubber Michael Schumacher

It is alleged that once the bell for last orders had been rung, Schumacher pushed his way to the front of the queue to be served drinks, jumping in front of fellow clubber Fernando Alonso. Bouncers quickly resolved the dispute by confiscating the German’s drinks and ushering him to the exit. “He didn’t seem to understand that once the bell for last orders is rung, it doesn’t make it a free-for-all,” a source from the club said. “We still have rules that need to be followed for the comfort and satisfaction of all our customers.”

Some onlookers, however, were not convinced. Bystander Arthur Gnomely told reporters: “It’s all a bit unfair if you ask me. Michael was asked by Ross Brawn to go and get some drinks at the last minute. He wasn’t to know about the rules! And Fernando was barely even in the queue, just shuffling along complaining about his shoes.

“I spotted Damon Hill having a word with the bouncers just before it all kicked off,” Gnomely continued, by now in a pointless rage. “I bet he had something to do with it.”

Meanwhile, a meeting of FOTA representatives at the same club had to be abandoned after none of them could agree on what cocktail to have. The idea of all having different cocktails apparently never occurred to them.

Ferrari’s interpretation of the device, first seen on a McLaren earlier in the season, raised eyebrows at the Spanish Grand Prix when onboard footage saw the drivers briefly having no hands on the steering wheel as they operated the system, by blocking an air vent in the cockpit with their left glove.

Armless: Ferrari, without their F-duct

Ferrari has confirmed that it does not intend to use the F-duct again until the modifications are complete: “Our F-duct will remain inoperative until we have had Fernando [Alonso] and Felipe [Massa] modified to use the system safely,” a Scuderia spokesman said today. “We are currently consulting the world’s best surgeons to evaluate the possibility of giving each driver an additional arm.”

The weight distribution and balance implications of adding an extra arm to the driver are considerable, and the modifications may mean that the F-duct system is not re-introduced until after the European Grand Prix in June. However, the changes will carry the advantage of adding extra space onto the drivers’ race suits, allowing the team to earn millions more dollars using the space to not advertise various cigarette brands.

A column on Ferrari’s website, however, written by the anonymous “Horse Whisperer,” poured scorn on attempts to declare the current F-duct arrangement unsafe: “This is just idle chatter from teams jealous of Ferrari’s superior pedigree and historical accomplishment,” the unknown author said. “It makes me so angry that I could go and smash a television set.”