I think it's hard to judge one era against another...the Schumie era was different, the rules were different, the teams were different and the cars were different. But Hamilton is an amazing talent, nonetheless, against the backdrop of all eras because his success is so convincing today.

 

^I agree. There's no question that Hamilton is talented. He's performing better than the 2 time world champion in the exact same car.

 

What's with Hamilton and tires?? Same side as he lost in qualifying a few weeks ago. Bad luck!!!

 

A mere five points better.

 

Yes, but 5 points better than a 2-time defending champion driving the same car is a bona fide achievement for anyone, let alone a rookie.

 

Five championship points and a million ego-busting points.

While five points is not an impossible margin, it is substantial and would have been bigger had Hammy not had a tire failure on Sunday.

Fred knows this too, he realises that he was beaten this weekend and he could not run with Hammy and the Ferrari's. Fred had settled for 4th and it was only a question of luck that he made some ground on him.

For some reason Fred is reminding me a lot of Prost these days.......

 

Well, we are now seeing how LH will be dealing with set backs and failures.

In any other team in F1, Fred would have gone in with the WDC in his pocket, and automatically been Supreamo Numero Uno. He reasonably expected this to be so, when he arrived at McLaren. Ron Dennis is galactically stupid in terms of driver management. I do remember the Prost/Senna era of those two being team mates, and what an unholy disaster that was.

Bruce is rolling in his grave.

 

I think the telling this is that for Frenado he's always been fastest on his team. He just hasn't coped will with someone out driving him. In his dual with Shumi he had a team to compete against. I think it's really rubbing his ego the wrong way. Ron Dennis can't tell Lewis don't drive fast. That's how Ferrari got in trouble a few years back with "team orders". It's drive time. The number one driver isn't the one with the biggest salary but the fastest driver on the day.

 

Obviously none of us know what is going on inside of Alonso's head. If he gives up and goes back to Renault next year, however, we'll all have a very good idea.

Running back to Renault would reflect poorly on Alonso in my opinion. He needs to stay and fight!

 

Fred's been more than a little flustered, no doubt.

Hamilton has impressed, and I suspect he has the potential to be remembered as one of the greats.

 

The latest. McLaren gets hand slapped by the FIA for their alleged indescretions.

Now, "New Evidence" has come to the attention of the FIA to warrent another hearing on September 13.

This is really beginning to sound contrived! Where was this new evidence before, that is only now brought out to take another shot at McLaren?

It's like political scandals that only surface before en election.

 

So, did anyone watch Quali "Live" on Speed this morning while watching Live Timing on Formula1.com?

The first session just ended on Speed, and Live Timing shows just over 10 minutes left in Q2. So the live broadcast on Speed is at least 5 minutes behind. I know sometimes there is a delay so the producers can bleep out the BLEEPS and the BLEEPS but doesn't this seem to be a little much?

EDIT: Q2 just started on Speed 12 Minutes behind Live Timing.

 

Speed's telecast is delayed so that they can put the commercials in when they want and not miss anything. I don't remember the exact issues, but I remember there were scheduling problems back when knock-out qualifying first began. By delaying the telecast they have time to insert their own opening segment and control the telecast better. It's like watching a show 5 minutes late on Tivo so you can fast-forward through the commercials.

 

That makes sense.

Do they do the same with the race?

 

Thanks, Fernando!

LOL

 

Can anyone else imagine Hamilton screaming, "BANZAI!!!" as he dove past Kimi?

According to Alan Henry on Wind Tunnel, sounds like McLaren has the keys to some skeleton closets, and can create SERIOUS havoc if the FIA tries to land on them because De La Rosa had the gall to send emails to Alonso, and two other drivers, and Ferrari. When was the last time Peter of the Rose drove for Ferrari?

 

Great display from Hami although I really have to feel for Kimi.

Having witnessed last year's race at Monza at that first chicane, I can testify that their eyeballs are indeed popping out of the sockets under braking. I can't imagine what it would be like with a sore neck.

Had Kimi been fit I think he would have held 2nd and perhaps even been able to ultimately challenge Alonso, but you can't take anything away from the McLaren duo.

Who knows what Stepney and Coughlin stood to gain, but it appears that Dennis knew of the "breach," regardless as to whether McLaren used the info for competitive advantage.

That's the issue, in my mind.

What was he thinking? Is this such standard practice that he thought it would simply blow over?

 

I firmly beleive that the whole thing has been engineered by Ferrari.

I believe that the motives include.....

1) Preventing the 'dream team' from joining Honda
2) de-stabilizing McLaren
3) attempting to get Alonso (or possibly Hami) into a Ferrari
4) Getting rid of an expensive and 'done' employee (or two)

The chain of events is possibly something like this.....

Ferrari sent Stepney on gardening leave - there are enough precedents for this in the past, it basically means that you stay on the payroll, but have no access to confidential information.

While he was home, twiddling his thumbs, they realized that he was still in communication to his old mate Coughlan, and that the duo where talking to Honda regarding the possibility of re-joining forces and taking numerous people with them.

Now at this point, Ferrari wanted to

a) Protect their real data from Stepney
b) Not run the risk of the Stepney/Coughlan combo arriving at Honda.
c) Trash their closest rivals in the process if possible.

So, a set of slightly doctored, but highly convincing documents, probably from a previous generation car, where put together and a 'close friend' of Stepney mentioned how nice it was in Asia.

As soon as he booked his ticket, through the Ferrari travel office, which was not recorded, but instead hedged to a local travel agent by a Ferrari employee using a suspiciously fake English accent and Stepneys corporate Amex, meanwhile the document was sent to Coughlan this was sent also using Stepneys Amex.

Meanwhile Coughlan, who had planned on Stepney negotiating on his behalf while 'holidaying' in Asia received the package. He assumed that this was Stepneys insurance against things going wrong.

Deciding that this was too big to fit in his Safety deposit box, sent his with to Kinko's to get the documents scanned and put on CD.

In his mind this was to be used only if Ferrari tried a dirty trick and sacked Stepney for a made-up reason.

Once the story broke about the coke deposits on the fuel tank, Coughlan figured that it was time to play Stepneys' ace.

Unfortunately he did not realize it was a setup and he made exactly the move that was expected.

Now, Stepney is innocent of everything other than looking for a new job, Coughlan is innocent of everything other than trying to help his friend (and looking for a new job).

Ron Dennis is clueless, he not only did not see it coming, he did not benefit from it either.

Herr Schumacher meanwhile has a wry smile........

 

Max, I don't know what to say.

Entertaining comes to mind, but to quote the Bard: "There art more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

When it comes to the FIA and Ferrari, stranger things I think have happened.

 

so . . . Stepney and Coughlin are sharing secrets to take to Toyota?

I'm curious, who is the alpha dog?

 

... and who's the b*tch?

 

ooops - it was Honda, not Toyota that the duo where looking to join.

It will be a very interesting hearing.

 

. . . yes, but wouldn't anything be a letdown after your detailed analysis?

Given your skill at weaving a little bit of assumption within a vague understanding of chronological relevance . . . I'm now more than curious to see what is revealed, if anything, but would prefer the entire matter be dropped.

I just find it impossible to believe that Dennis was clueless, especially considering how tightly he runs that entire organization. De la Rosa and Alonso are firing e-mails and Ron is in the dark? Really?

Did Mclaren benefit? I doubt it . . . but that's beside the point.

When I look back on '07, my prevalent memory won't be Stepneygate.
It will be Alonso's absolute refusal to wear that stupid sponsor jacket instead of his overalls in the post race press conference.

Now if he'd only let the facial hair grow back

 

While some of my 'theory' was tongue in cheek (see my .sig), much of it is based on snippets of information that have been reported and inside knowledge of how the F1 world works - or rather used to work. I worked for TAG back in the late 80's and spent five years at McLaren.

There is a massive pit-lane 'network' of information and mis-information sharing. This network passes snippets at all levels from team principles down.

This so-called information package may or may not be useful, personally I would say that its value to McLaren is limited. They have developed a very different car to Ferrari and would have to spend an enormous amount of time looking at it and not really gaining a great deal of information, the expenditure in terms of man-hours of analysis would be a terrible investment.

This is, of course, assuming there is nothing radical in there.

The one thing that McLaren did raise really early on was the flexible floor, now this was backed up with photographic evidence, despite the fact that Ferrari where said to be the biggest loser here, it would seem that many teams had to adjust their floors to accommodate the new ruling, including McLaren. So, there are two schools of thought here, Maybe McLaren used the data that they obtained from Ferrari to add the flexible floor to this years car in which case they did so in an incredibly efficient and with very un-McLaren type speed, or maybe this was a solution that many teams had figured out, perhaps this was via the pit-lane network ? McLaren said that they where tipped off but have never (publicly) mentioned the source.

OK - so, on to the information packet and the surrounding information.

Stepney is adamant that he did not send the package to Coughlan, he has presented evidence that apparently shows he did not send it, I have no idea what this evidence is however.

What is certain is that prior to this news breaking Stepney and Coughlan approached Honda and met with Fry with a view to 2008, they also intimated at that time that they had several other colleagues that would follow them to repatriate something of a dream team. Fry reported the meeting to both McLaren and Ferrari. This is of course common practice in F1, everyone watches everyones back.

At this point both Stepney and Coughlan where pretty much excluded from meaningful work. At Ferrari Stepney's vacation was approved.

There is doubt as to the exact chain of events after this, but, Coughlan received a package of documents which I believe he took as 'insurance' from Stepney, while I am not sure of the exact nature of the package it has been widely reported that this is essentially an 'owners manual' for the 2007 car.

The white-powder makes no sense, nobody seems to know what it was what is was supposed to or even who put it there. This was the first piece of news that broke and was the official reason that Stepney was put on gardening leave, although this was later said to be because of the Fry meeting. I find it incredibly hard to believe that he would have anything to do with such obvious sabotage, as the matter seems to have been swept under the carpet, I can only conclude that this was an excuse to get him away from the factory - remember this came a few days after the Stepney/Coughlan/Fry meeting.

At the first hearing, McLaren showed evidence that every single feature on their 2007 car has been documented through their change management process, every change has an origination, and none of those originations seem to say 'hey this is on a Ferrari, lets copy it'. (tongue in cheek), in fact there was nothing that was originated by Coughlan and he had very little impact on any of the changes, mainly because of the 'Fry' meeting.

The 'new evidence' that has come to light may be one of several things

1) E-mail conversations between Fred and Pedro - now I have no idea what these are concerning, but if they really are forwarded information from Coughlan and they really do concern Ferrari setup data, then this would explain Freds cryptic 'I gave McLaren 1.5 seconds / lap' comment recently, if not then I expect that this is just the anti-Fred British press.

2) Stepney has proven that he could not have been the person that sent the package. I know that he has hired a detective agency to help clear his name and that Fry has offered him and Coughlan jobs based in them clearing their involvement. What if Stepney has proven his whereabouts at the time that the package was mailed and has somehow obtained evidence (CCTV footage) that it was not him that mailed it ?

3) Some combination of 2+3 ?

Now I jokingly said that Ferrari are looking to snag Fred, but I wonder if their target has changed? I wonder if they are now looking to snag Hammy and allow Fred to go back to Renault?

Fissi's contract will not be renewed until the fate of McLaren and Fred in particular is known, Hammy without a drive would be offered massive amounts of cash to join Ferrari. That does leave an issue of the current drivers, I suspect that they are now fighting over the remaining race seat, with the lowest placed finisher being consigned to testing / gardening duties in the event of the team being able to obtain Hammy / Fred's signature.

So, what is going to happen ?

I really do not know, If the new evidence fails to dirty McLaren, and Fred goes on to win the WDC, I expect him to take a sabbatical in 2008 rather than face Hammy. There is so much tension between Fred and the team that I cannot see how he can stay there and be effective.

If McLaren are ejected from the WCC, but the drivers are allowed to keep their points it all comes down to if they are allowed to continue to race. Again a Fred Sabbatical if he wins the WDC or if he can get himself out of the contract, he will be in Renault or Ferrari in 2008/

If they are ejected and prevented from racing the rest of the season and for 2008, then I guess that that sees Hammy in a Prodrive (I believe that he is loyal enough to Ron) and Fred in a Renault or a Ferrari (FIAT are pushing for this).

Whatever happens, this is terrible for the sport and the longer it goes without a resolution, the worse it gets.

comments ?

 

Remember that the email chats were between De La Rosa, Alonso, and two other drivers. I just don't remember the other two names that were given. I do remember the other two drivers named were not McLaren drivers.

I think if the FIA isn't VERY careful, the damage done to the sport could drive away fans by the legions.