FORUMula1.com - F1 Forum

[racechick]

Sure the season opener involved a lot of drama... first Trulli being stripped off his 3rd place and then same thing with Hamilton....what i feel is that McLaren shouldn't be penalized rather Hamilton should....the FIA should have stricter rules....we know the rules this year with specs do also have loopholes....

He has been. he was disqualified from 3rd position.

Yes he has been...but a world champion shouldn't have done this....but again it can be a mistake as well...

He knows he shouldnt have done it. Regardless of whether hes a world champion.

[KyrosV]

nah, even I would be sad if they were kicked out. theyve been punished enough for oz.

plus I like to see them struggle

[f1usa]

The threat of further sanctions against McLaren are again being used to force them out of F1. Max and the FIA have seized upon this opportunity to force Mercedes to make difficult decisions. So far Mercedes who is a 40% shareholder in McLaren/Mercedes are still on board. Make no mistake about it, if the FIA can find a way to get at Brawn because of the Mercedes engine connection they will exploit it. IMO further sanctions against McLaren could affect Mercedes.

[Jensonb]

The threat of further sanctions against McLaren are again being used to force them out of F1. Max and the FIA have seized upon this opportunity to force Mercedes to make difficult decisions. So far Mercedes who is a 40% shareholder in McLaren/Mercedes are still on board. Make no mistake about it, if the FIA can find a way to get at Brawn because of the Mercedes engine connection they will exploit it. IMO further sanctions against McLaren could affect Mercedes.

I'm not sure what you mean. The FiA is putting the team under scrutiny, Mercedes is a separate entity.

[texasmr2]

If McLaren are kicked out the plot has definitely been lost.

[Jensonb]

If McLaren are kicked out the plot has definitely been lost.

Undoubtedly, they're at least as valuable as Ferrari and a 9team grid is a big no-no.

[Frosty]

They are not going to get kicked out and I don't think Mercedes are going to pull out if they are really loosing 1 billion a month then I'm sure they can afford another 100 Million a year on a F1 team. McLaren will probably just get another huge fine and if they feel really nasty take all of the constructors points away for the season.

[EwanM]

McLaren likely to face F1 inquiry
By Andrew Benson
The McLaren team are expected to face disciplinary charges after being found guilty of misleading race stewards following the Australian Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton and the team have already been stripped of their points from the race and the Englishman has issued an emotional public apology.

But BBC Sport has learned governing body the FIA is poised to order them to officially account for their actions.

A spokesman said the FIA was awaiting a report from its race observer.

It is understood that is expected imminently, and any further developments should become clear by Wednesday.

It is expected McLaren will be called before a meeting of the FIA World Council - but that this is unlikely to be scheduled before the Bahrain Grand Prix, the fourth race of the season, later this month.

The World Council is the body which disqualified McLaren from the constructors' championship and fined them $100m (£67m) for their role in a spy scandal involving Ferrari in 2007.

There is no limit to the action it could take in this instance if it deemed it serious enough.

Hamilton himself is expected to escape further censure.


The world champion has said he was ordered to give misleading evidence by sporting director Dave Ryan, who was with him at the hearings.

Ryan, who has worked for McLaren for 35 years, has been suspended by team principal Martin Whitmarsh.

The two were found guilty of "providing evidence deliberately misleading to the stewards".

Hamilton finished fourth on the road behind Jarno Trulli's Toyota, who McLaren accused of breaking F1 rules by overtaking while the field was under the control of the safety car.

Officials initially gave Trulli a 25-second penalty, promoting Hamilton to third after Hamilton and Ryan gave evidence he had not deliberately let the Italian through, and he had not been asked by the team to do so.

But McLaren's radio communication contradicted this - and after reconvening in Malaysia at the end of last week, Hamilton was disqualified from the Australian race and Trulli reinstated to third place.

Whitmarsh, whose own job is under scrutiny, has admitted the team made serious errors in their handling of the situation.

He took over from Ron Dennis as team principal only on 1 March and has admitted he did consider resigning at the end of last week.

"It wouldn't be true to say that it (resignation) wasn't (on my mind) because at a time like this, you think about what you got involved with the sport for, and it wasn't for this sort of thing," he said in Malaysia.

"It hasn't been a great experience for me and it wasn't what I started out 20 years ago to experience.



"In the longer term, I can contemplate my future. It's not self-determining.

"It's for the shareholders of this team to take a view and it's ultimately up to them to decide what's best for this team.

"I'm not resigning this weekend. We've made commitments to look at how we arrived at this situation.

"We've got to learn from it and we've got to be better in future."


Story from BBC SPORT:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/sport1 ... 985669.stm

Published: 2009/04/06 12:38:14 GMT

© BBC MMIX

[EwanM]

The next stage in McLaren-gate
April 6, 2009 by James Allen

As the teams return to the UK and the dust begins to settle on an explosive weekend, we start to contemplate the next stage in the saga over Lewis Hamilton and McLaren ‘deliberately misleading’ the stewards.

The feeling on Saturday was that Hamilton’s frank and astonishing ‘mea culpa’, held in the FIA press conference room, was enough to satisfy the FIA. McLaren, however, still have a lot more explaining to do.

“We recognise Lewis’s efforts to set the record straight today,” an FIA spokesman told Reuters.

“It would appear that he was put in an impossible position. We are now awaiting reports from the FIA observer and stewards before consideration can be given to further investigation of his team’s conduct.”

This is ominous. If I was McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh I’d be feeling the trapdoor beneath my feet starting to slip on its hinges a little.

On Sunday morning Whitmarsh revealed that his own future was on the agenda as part of a review of the whole episode, as McLaren prepares to face the music from the FIA.

“In the longer term I can contemplate my own future. Of course it is not self-determining, it’s for the shareholders of this team to take a view and that’s something they have to decide what’s the best thing. I’m not resigning this weekend. We’ve made a commitment to look at how we arrived in this situation and we’ve got to learn from it and we’ve got to better in future.”

The problem for McLaren is that Whitmarsh is the heir apparent, the man groomed by Ron Dennis for the last 20 years to take over. Below him there’s not another dauphin. Whitmarsh is only 50 years old - although he’s probably aged another 10 this weekend - and beneath him there are layers of management, but no-one with hands on racing experience or experience of dealing with FIA and FOM. The next in command is Jonathan Neale, a very competent COO, but not team principal in waiting. If Whitmarsh goes they will almost certainly have to recruit someone.

The list of questions Whitmarsh is likely to face from the FIA is examined by Ed Gorman in The Times blog. He raises some questions that Whitmarsh needs to answer about the scape-goating of Dave Ryan and about what happened between Sunday’s meeting with the stewards and his own appearance before the media on Thursday, when he denied that lies had been told.

Ed writes; “It is easy to imagine Hamilton and Ryan making things up between themselves and going into the room and saying something they should never have done. But the part that stretches credibility to breaking point is the idea that after Melbourne and before the pair were summoned back before the stewards on Thursday in Kuala Lumpur, that no-one else in the team was made aware of what they had said and what was going on. It is important to appreciate that when Ryan and Hamilton went back to the stewards in Sepang they both continued to lie and to stick to their story from Melbourne. This has been confirmed both by McLaren and the FIA. It beggars belief that, in a team like McLaren which has been taught by Ron Dennis to think in a complex and often self-defeating way about even the most simple problems, that this critical issue would not have been more widely discussed by senior management before they went back in and approved by those people (or maybe not approved by some of them).

“McLaren being caught lying through the actions of Ryan and Hamilton is one thing; if it turns out that they have properly scapegoated Ryan and lied again about who knew about what was going on, I would fear for the consequences on their behalf. The FIA is not going to like that at all. The Times does in fact have an admission of sorts on this issue but it would be improper to report it here at this stage.”

Whitmarsh said on Sunday that he had been on a couple of days’ holiday after Melbourne, his wife was with him, and that was why he’d not been on top of the situation. I think that he probably hadn’t realised the full picture and was a little complacent.

Expect word very soon from the FIA as to when the hearing will be set for a deeper examination of this episode. McLaren was warned about its future conduct at the end of the spy scandal in 2007.

Have you noticed how quiet FOTA has been on this issue? No words of support. The teams’ spirit of brotherhood and togetherness does not extend to defending a brother, who shoots himself in the foot as spectacularly as McLaren has done.

The other teams are upset with McLaren for acting with such stupidity. It has done nothing for their cause.

[FerrariFan63]

They are not going to get kicked out and I don't think Mercedes are going to pull out if they are really loosing 1 billion a month then I'm sure they can afford another 100 Million a year on a F1 team. McLaren will probably just get another huge fine and if they feel really nasty take all of the constructors points away for the season.

It's not just the amount of money spent on F1 that would be a problem. If Mercedes is losing money hand over fist, then all sorts of things may have to be done. They may have to slash their workforce and/or force wage reductions on them. They may have to ask for a bailout from the government. Both of these situations would make it very difficult for Mercedes to continue spending large amounts of money on F1. As workers, governments, creditors, etc. may not be prepared to accept that more "flexibility" (of various types) would be necessary if Mercedes is still spending big.

Though, I thought the point of the cost reductions was so that teams wouldn't have to spend millions of pounds on F1.

[bmwpower]

So you posted an two editorial pages from two writers

[Gaz]

So you posted an two editorial pages from two writers

whats wrong with that?

[Jensonb]

Back on topic

This could get ugly. Whilst McLaren were obviously supremely mis-guided in their actions, the FiA needs to be careful not to cause a major backlash.

Unfortunately, the FiA is never careful about anything.

[Gaz]

they need to just drop it its ruining the racing.

they had a punishment thats adiquet end of story

[2Del]

I was wondering if Lewis considered leaving altogether. If the FIA's goal (for whatever reason) is to get him to resign what would it solve? The world champ would simply walk away, one of the premier teams in mclaren would be gone, and there would be much less rivalry. I don't see how that will help grow F1 much less maintain its current draw. Plus if mercedes leaves that might leave Brawn w/ no engines or having to integrate a new one into their car mid-season.

The story says Max Mosely (of all people) convinced Hamilton to stay. Seems he knows how devastating it would be to the sport right now. Hell, I imagined all of Britain boycotting F1 if Lewis left but no chance of that now with Button doing so well.

All this reminds me why Montoya left couple years back too.