Captain Fantastic wrote:
Is there a summary for those of us without the Onspeed facility?? I'm still not entirely sure what exactly he's supposed to have done!
Hi Martin, It was explained on 'telly' this morning before Sepang Qualyfying. I have 'found' this 'bit' for you:-What is the true cost of McLaren's mistake?
Jonathan Legard | 15:13 UK time, Friday, 3 April 2009
A single point can be priceless in Formula 1.
Lewis Hamilton lost the championship by just one point in 2007 but captured the drivers' crown by the same margin the following season.
Now a single point - the difference between third and fourth place at last weekend's Australian Grand Prix - has cost Hamilton and his McLaren team dearly.
First of all, it looks to have cost sporting director Dave Ryan his job. After 35 years with the team, he's been suspended.
It has put a severe dent in the world champion's reputation and has also called into question once more the integrity of McLaren.
Martin Whitmarsh has only been installed as team principal in succession to Ron Dennis for little over a month and already he is in the eye of a storm entirely of the team's own making.
Hamilton was disqualified from the Australian Grand Prix on Thursday after he and McLaren were found guilty of "deliberately misleading" the race stewards in the aftermath of the Melbourne race.
As a result of Hamilton's explanation, Toyota's Jarno Trulli was demoted from third to 12th for passing the McLaren under safety car conditions and Hamilton promoted to third from fourth.
But new evidence from the McLaren pit radio has revealed the team had instructed Hamilton to let Trulli re-pass him, contradicting what Hamilton and Dave Ryan had told the stewards during the original hearing in Australia.
The world champion and McLaren boss Whitmarsh have now apologised for the deception - but the damage has been done, with no prospect of repair.
Less than a month ago, Whitmarsh insisted; "In this team, we operate a responsibility culture, not a blame culture."
But there are plenty in the Malaysian paddock who believe Ryan has been made a scapegoat by McLaren and that he's been made culpable for an error of judgement - to put it mildly - that should never have happened.
Ryan's suspension does not reflect well on the hierarchy within McLaren.
According to Whitmarsh, it was Ryan's decision alone to go into the stewards with the story they chose to tell.
Where was the collective responsibility from a team - which prides itself on its ability to win together and lose together - to establish what had happened and what should be said to the stewards?
Whitmarsh may well have been experiencing his first race in overall control but Dennis was right next to him on the pit-wall.
Would Ron Dennis, whose attention to detail is renowned, or his successor have expected his sporting director to take such an important decision without referring upwards?
Whitmarsh claimed that Ryan had been upset by the stewards' decision at last year's Belgium Grand Prix, when race director Charlie Whiting had given Hamilton's move on Kimi Raikkonen the green light only for the stewards to take a different view.
Ryan was concerned, he said, that there was no repeat in Melbourne and that the team played by the rules.
Instead old wounds have been reopened in the face of authority.
McLaren came through a desperate year in 2007 when they were immersed in the spy row, which saw them found guilty of possessing Ferrari technical information.
As the row dragged on, so McLaren's integrity - such a touchstone of the Dennis regime - was eroded.
Winning the 2008 championship appeared to restore the team's good name. Now it has been sullied once again.
Hamilton's reputation has also been damaged.
The public may well perceive him to be a liar, even though he has apologised for his behaviour.
The fact is, he has still been seen to mislead the stewards deliberately and many people may now turn against him.
The relationship between the Hamiltons (Lewis and his father Anthony) and McLaren has also been strained.
Hamilton was told by the team to tell the race stewards a particular line and if those were team orders he had to obey them.
All drivers need to look after number one but Hamilton's long-term future with the team may have been compromised - that will all depend on how McLaren recover from this latest scandal and how much they can improve the car this season.
A key fact to this tale is that Hamilton did nothing wrong on the track in Australia.
When Trulli went off at the penultimate corner in Melbourne, Hamilton had to move forward and take his place because he didn't know Trulli was going to return to the track or if the Toyota was suffering from a mechanical problem.
Hamilton had to keep going behind the safety car; he was under no obligation to let Trulli re-pass him.
As I understand it, if Hamilton had finished the race in third and been honest about the circumstances and the discussions on the team radio then the chances are that the stewards would have reinstated Trulli in third ahead of the Englishman and that would have been the end of the matter.
That in itself would have been a great tonic for the team. He started from the back of the grid to finish fourth place in a car, which the team have openly admitted is nowhere near good enough.
As it is, this story is unravelling and may continue to do so.
Whether the apologies from Hamilton and McLaren draw a line under the affair remains to be seen.
The sport's governing body, the FIA, could yet decide that the team have a case to answer in front of the World Motor Sport Council.
On a final light note, here are my top-eight predictions for Sunday's race.
1. Jenson Button (Brawn GP)
2. Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari)
3. Felipe Massa (Ferrari)
4. Rubens Barrichello (Brawn GP)
5. Mark Webber (Red Bull)
6. Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull)
7. Robert Kubica (BMW Sauber)
8. Nico Rosberg (Williams)
Brawn are still the team to beat in Malaysia but the Ferraris do well here, especially Kimi Raikkonen.
Mark Webber has to have a change of luck sooner rather than later and, even with his grid penalty, I expect Vettel to be on fire, so I'm tipping the Red Bulls to do well.
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