Rambling on…

Kimi’s done it! He’s done the seemingly impossible, and won this year’s world championship! They say anything can happen in Formula 1, and it usually does! The curse of the commentator strikes Lewis Hamilton as James Allen mentioned:

He’s not had a mechanical failure all year, which is remarkable, but he has had three strokes of bad luck: the tyre mistake in Germany, the tyre failure in Turkey and the tyre disaster in China.

While not exactly a mechanical failure, but a mechanical problem nonetheless. James Allen could well be the next Murray Walker…

Ferrari have walked away with a 1-3 result from the Chinese GP. Woohoo! Wet races always produce the best racing as teams and drivers gamble with their strategy and tyre choice. Fuji and Shanghai are classic example of this. The FIA should consider artificially wetting a track at random every season!

Lewis Hamilton didn’t score at all this race. And I personally think it is a result of McLaren hedging their bets again, just like they did with Kimi when he had flat spotted his tyre back at the European GP in 2005. Lewis admitted as much, telling Louise Goodman that he was waiting for the right time to switch over and was in fact coming in for a fresh set of tyres when he slid off at the entry to the pitlane. A case of being a little too late?

The current championship tally of Hamilton – 107, Alonso – 103 and Raikkonen – 100 means that we head to Brazil with 3 drivers still in contention for the World Championship. It is still an uphill task for both Alonso and Raikkonen with Raikkonen needing another (preferably) Hamilton DNF, which we all know is quite impossible. But this is still F1, and stranger things have happened. The last race of the season is gonna be electrifying.

Special mention goes to Sebastian Vettel who redeemed himself quite well after Fuji. And to Scuderia Toro Rosso, who got both cars home in the points, ahead of their ‘A team’ Red Bull Racing.

Luca di Montezemolo wants an apology from the FIA for not making all teams properly aware of the extreme wet tyre change just before the start of the race. I’m curious. While it is true that the way they informed the teams may have been flawed, but it was Ferrari’s choice to pick the wet instead of extreme wet tyres.

In those conditions, and from what they saw (James Allen commentated that it was raining 36 hours nonstop), was it likely that they would need wets (for all intents and purposes, the intermediates)? I wouldn’t have thought so. So, equally Ferrari is at fault.

The FIA has already said they will amend the way the delivery of the information will be made in the future. But what’s an apology going to do? Give Raikkonen 10 points?

I hope Ross Brawn is coming back next year. Ferrari misses him.

… and calls him a recluse.

That’s how strained relations have been between the McLaren boss and Alonso. Now, who still believes that Alonso will be seeing out his contract?

If you’re interested in reading the WHOLE transcript, get it here. Go to ITV-F1 for a summary.

Does Alonso need to behave in this manner? No. I really don’t know what he’s thinking. But McLaren are one of the best teams to be in. Renault is not McLaren, and neither is Toyota (which are also rumoured to be interested in Alonso). A different driver would’ve done his ‘talking’ on the track, by beating Hamilton. Many people question Michael Schumacher’s greatness, because he was never in a situation where his teammates were allowed to race him equally. Well, if Alonso was expecting that sort of treatment, I doubt McLaren are the team for him. Maybe if his name was Ayrton Senna…. I think Senna was the only driver that Ron Dennis ever gave any leeway to. Oh, and Mika Hakkinen.

Now it appears that Ron Dennis was the one that notified the FIA of the email exchanges between de la Rosa/Alonso and Coughlan.

This says a few things:

• Ron Dennis wants to show that the spying scandal happened without the knowledge of the top management, and by extension, McLaren itself.
• By showing that Alonso was part of this exchange, McLaren has further distanced itself from Alonso. Alonso will definitely not be seeing out his contract with McLaren

I don’t think this is over.

As for the actual details of the case, here James Allen sheds some light:

• McLaren would have received around $60-70 million in prize money for their constructors’ championship position, so that money goes directly from Formula One Management to the FIA and McLaren will have to write a cheque for the remaining $40 million or so themselves.
• But in terms of net cost to them, it is $100 million because that is the hole it will leave in their budget.
• They will also have to spend more money next year on freight and travel costs because they will be the 11th team on the grid.
• In addition they will find that instead of their current allocation of five garages, they will have two, and instead of their generous allocation of VIP paddock passes for sponsor guests, they will have a limited amount.

He goes on to say:

This episode does illustrate that both Jean Todt and Ron Dennis have become quite remote from their teams; Todt did not know that Stepney was plundering Ferrari’s secrets and Dennis did not know that McLaren’s legendary sense of fair play was being so badly breached.

And critically:

Alonso’s relationship with the team has now totally broken down and it is impossible to imagine him driving a McLaren next year.