Michael Schumacher's career was yesterday involved in a low-speed collision near Heathrow with the men who run Formula One. Schumacher emerged unscathed from the incident, but the authority and integrity of F1 were a write-off.Now that Schumacher has escaped both a fine and a suspension for trying to ram Jacques Villeneuve off the track in Jerez, it can only be a matter of time before the Dukes of Hazard start up an F1 team. According to the 24-man World Motorsport Council, Schumacher's actions were "deliberate but not premediated", and he is free to zoom into the 1998 season as hot favourite to win the drivers' championship. Laugh? I nearly crashed.After a hearing that could quite easily have taken place at its original venue (Paris) had the sport's governing body simply asked Schumacher to take his Ferrari out and clear the roads of French lorries, a surge of disillusionment will be felt by anyone with the vaguest notion of what sport is supposed to be about.One of the sub-themes of the film LA Confidential is people getting away with things and how bad that can feel. Schumacher ought to see it if he wants to understand the reaction to yesterday's announcement.Schumacher's only punishment is to lose his runner-up spot from the season just passed. He hates finishing second anyway, so the council was doing him a favour.Deep down they probably wanted to throw the book at him, but the logic of the box office said no. A three-race ban would have killed the start of the 1998 season, because a grand prix without Schumacher would be like a performance of King Lear without the king.Yesterday's hurriedly-convened disciplinary hearing might as well have been presided over by the three monkeys. Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil. Also at issue was whether the Williams and McLaren teams colluded to allow Mika Hakkinen (McLaren) to win the race as a reward for staying out of the action early on, thus enabling Villeneuve to engage in a straight fight with Schumacher. Villeneuve allowed Hakkinen to pass near the end - ostensibly to remove any risk of another collision to the Canadian's already damaged car.The main evidence here was recordings of conversations between Villeneuve and his race engineer, Jock Clear, who was heard to say: "Be aware that Hakkinen is now in position two. He probably wants to win. Very helpful . . ." and, "Hakkinen has been very helpful. Don't let me down, Jacques. We discussed this". The council decided that there was no prior agreement to "fix the race". It was, they want us to believe, much ado about nothing.This one was more complex, but destroying the logic of the Schumacher verdict wouldn't stretch the analytical powers of a toddler. "Deliberate", is fine, apparently, but "premeditated" would have landed him in real trouble. Is the difference really so big?The implication is that a driver can make a potentially life-threatening manoeuvre as long as he hasn't concocted a nefarious plan the night before. Schumacher's ram-raid on the title was deemed serious enough for him to be thrown out of the 1997 championship, but insufficiently grave for him to be penalised for 1998. This is what is known in the trade as designer justice.The good news, for those concerned about reckless driving, is that Schumacher has agreed to participate next year in a road safety campaign with the FIA and European Commission. This is motor racing's answer to community service.Former triple world champion Niki Lauda claimed the punishment handed out to Schumacher had been "brutal"."It's a brutal decision," said Lauda. "I'm surprised by the harshness of it, because Schumacher, until Jerez, had had a good season in difficult conditions. It seems brutal to punish a mistake like this."