Thought I'd introduce myself.

Thought I'd introduce myself.

G'day All,
I'm a 50yo bloke (male) from the lucky country (Australia). I'm here
because I'm an ex-driver and enthusiastic follower of Open Wheel
(Real) Racing and sick of the incessant FIA v McLaren rubbish that
dominates most forums and groups around the web. I have been
considering setting up a moderated forum/group when I stumbled in
here. Apart from the odd "FIA hates McLaren" post for the most part
this group seems rather more rational, I hope I'm not wrong. While the
politics of F1 can be amusing, to me they are a necessary distraction
and not the main game.

So I'll state my position on the McLaren-Ferrari and Renault-McLaren
situation and a few replies, then I'm done ... after all this is in
reality finished, over, done with, the end "Bring on season 2008".

I'll start with the July transcript. The McLaren defense pretty much
relied on Ron Dennis's statement "The documents never arrived at
McLaren." and the FIA position is summed up by Max Mosley's reply
"This will probably be the main point in our discussion." Ian Mill
went on to say that in reference to McLaren "... complete in its
investigation of this matter." and further "... we have not withheld
anything ..." Despite some pretty shaky statements from McLaren staff
at the end of the hearing there was no conclusive proof against
McLaren. The judgment from the WMSC was fair, reserving the right to
reopen the case proved a wise decision in the end.

The Sept hearing proved that McLaren had not been "complete in its
investigation" and documents had indeed penetrated McLaren. McLaren
were guilty, full stop. The fine was an interesting political
statement as spying on competitors has been going on since the sports
inception starting from stop watches and what the eye could see and
progressing to multi-million dollar computational analysis of Sonic
and Image data. These are quite legal means however, but recruiting a
mole in a competitors team and using the data obtained to gain an
advantage is not and this style of acquiring data on competitors has
become all too obvious to the public over recent years. The FIA *had*
to send a message to the public and the teams, they did so loud and
clear.

The size of the fine had to be proportional to the teams position in
the championship and what they had to gain. McLaren being clearly one
of the top two teams stood to gain more than all others bar
Ferrari ... a championship worth more than US$100M. It also had to be
proportional to the teams resources and in McLarens case these are
vast, very vast, with Chrysler support which they have they could have
not only coped but advanced even with a larger loss than the US$100M.
Remember if this were say Aguri they would have gained very little
from the data as one they don't have the resources to take advantage
of it and secondly where would it get them? Eighth? Seventh? not far
at all, also their budget is minuscule so an equivalent fine would be
less than US$10M and even that could break the team, so maybe McLaren
got off lightly? Nah maybe not but you get my drift (I hope).

I can't help but wonder if Mr Whiting had an influence on the timing
(delay) of the FIA investigations at McLaren? It was with hindsight
quite astute.

Now Renault. Four pages of data one of which was used but not
understood enough to use in their own car (they must be embarrassed
about that). Renault immediatly went to McLaren and the FIA upon
becoming aware of the breach, they disclosed everything and hide
nothing. OK maybe they learnt from McLarens mistakes, maybe a year ago
the outcome would have been different but nevertheless they did act
properly and the FIA sent another message "We realise with increasing
numbers in teams rogue employees wanting to get ahead may emerge but
do the right thing and we'll be lenient".

The sport has cleaned up the espionage aspect with new clauses in
contracts for incoming and outgoing personnel along with routine
forensic type analysis of their systems and I doubt anyone will
actively recruit another mole for quite a while. So hopefully this is
now done and dusted and we can get on with the racing.

I have to admit I'm a bit of a McLaren fan and have been since John
Watson's famous burn from the stern in Longbeach (I think it was) and
I'm crossing my fingers that Ron can somehow keep the momentum going,
it would be one hell of an achievement.

OK that's finished. I'll follow this up with a reminisce about my
first live GP and a look at how will the teams shape up next year.
Looking forward to reading your reactions to those.

beers
build