F1 Shenanigans
Oh, the games people play. So, about 800 pages of technical information about Ferrari’s F1 effort gets to McLaren’s engineering chief. In a rarefied world where a few tenths of a second separate someone on the fourth row of the grid from the pole-sitter, would you be surprised that Ferrari principals went apoplectic? Come round one of arbitrations and the powers that be deem there is not sufficient evidence to penalise McLaren. Inevitably, Hungary happens and pressed by his reigning-champion driver, McLaren bossman Ron Dennis informs the FIA that one of his race-drivers and his main test-driver both possibly had access to a lot of the details that he had originally claimed were never used to the team’s benefit. The World Sporting Council takes up cudgels this time, hauls McLaren over and promptly slaps them with a forty nine million pound sterling fine along with exclusion from the season’s constructors’ championship quest. FIA bossman goes public saying the punishment was too lenient, McLaren bossman does so saying it was too harsh, British media kept reiterating that Hamilton did nothing wrong. No big surprises, then.
I, in between life and work, am not too happy with the whole turn of events. My inherent dislike of everything Hamilton further stokes unnecessary, useless angst. But my grouse is this - why did the team’s drivers keep their points and stay in hunt for the season’s drivers’ championship? Why does local media in England make Ron Dennis out to be a blameless lamb caught up in an unjust, rowdy crowd of villains?
Being of an engineering bend of mind, I look at the issue this way.
- McLaren claimed, wrongly as it turns out, that receipt of information from Ferrari was the act of a “rogue employee”, an act that team-McLaren neither knew a great deal about nor used to their advantage.
- Alonso and de la Rosa discussed over emails facets of information they had received from their team’s chief engineer, of Ferrari’s plans and their cars’ technical details. Such details included aspects of their race strategy (at least Raikkonnen’s in Melbourne), weight distribution, gas used to pressurise Ferrari’s Bridgestones and how reliable the information being fed to them was. They also discussed, at least in part, of how they were putting such information to use - in the simulator, mainly, and in seeking fairly innocuous clarifications from FIA that put paid to Ferrari’s “flexible undertray” stunt. You see, ever since the genius of Murray and God’s brilliant ground-effect conjured up the Brabham BT46B “fan-car”, it had been ruled naughty to have movable aerodynamic parts in F1 cars. Ferrari wanted to flex the rules, quite literally in this instance, and ended up falling foul of the FIA technical team after McLaren cribbed. Help me here - would a team as well-managed as McLaren let their drivers play games in the midst of other preparatory work unless they were certain that the attempts were driven by solidly reliable information from the fox’s lair?
- Hamilton knew nothing of the information coming in about Ferrari. His lawyer’s impassioned plea to FIA - crucify Ron, save Hamilton, he is worth millions more in years to come - states that clearly. So, key developments and crucial simulator-work never involved Hamilton, did they? Either Hamilton didn’t have sufficient acumen to contribute, which I suspect is the case, or the team did not consider him relevant enough to participate. Alonso does have a case for being considered the team’s top driver, does he not?
- Max Mosely categorically states that information about incriminating ‘e-mail’ evidence, as it turned out, came to him from Bernie Ecclestone. Ron Dennis and the legions of rabid Hamilton fans have consistently kept up their allegation that Alonso threatened to rat on McLaren and claim that Ron volunteered the crucial pieces of information to Mosely. These two claims do not add up, except in British press and for Martin Brundle. Either Ron Dennis is LYING or Max Mosely is - it should be fairly simple to establish who.
- McLaren, if they think about it, will surely come to the conclusion that their course into the stinking creek they are half-way up now without paddles was mainly plotted by two of their employees - Coughlan and Hamilton. The former by being a blithering idiot and the latter, by being a haughty upstart. Hamilton did ignore plans as per his team’s strategy (do NOT confuse this with team ‘orders’) in Hungary deliberately. He then had to come into the pits behind Alonso having traipsed the extra lap that his deviousness afforded him. He came into the pits with just over 200 seconds left to cross the start-finish line knowing fully well that 165 of them were needed for the out-lap alone. There wasn’t anything illegal about the added five seconds Alonso remained on the blocks, or ten. Alonso was punished, Ron failed to discipline his wayward ward, threats were made and if Ron were to be believed, and I do not for a moment, information that would eventually lead to McLaren’s exclusion and penalty came to FIA’s notice.
The trouble, simply put, is that Ron has always had trouble managing huge talents with equally massive egos. Perceptions are all important to this micromanaging control-freak. No doubt his call on Hamilton was impeccable talent-spotting. His call on Alonso was equally impressive opportunism on both sides. His management skills - people and more importantly, talent - are, unfortunately, not as expansive as the rampant engineering skills of his team. He will never understand an Asturian and his way of doing things, cultural sensitivity being sorely missing. Were Senna alive, he would have borne testimony to this. His anger, at least this season, has been sadly misplaced and misdirected.
And now, Hamilton says his gloves are off in the face of Alonso’s provocation. Provocation? Really? I saw Hamilton sashaying across the track literally forcing Massa on to the curb in Italy. I saw him making progress without making the first turn, with the sickeningly partisan Brundle winging on about how fair the move was. Take a look at recordings of the two starts, mate, and stop whining. You finished where you did because there were others who were faster on the day. Take it in your stride and go on. But, I sense a dollop of threat in his comments to the media just before the race weekend in Japan. I am sure Alonso is shivering in his boots. After all, he has merely taken on Schumacher and Ferrari, and won two magnificent seasons. That pales in comparison to the heights that Hamilton and Brundle have climbed…
