This is an excellent article from BBC discussing the recent controversy boiling in McLaren team.

Last race weekend, commentator Steve Slater also mentioned that Alonso’s popularity has dipped after he has moved out of Renault. I agree to it, and if the blackmail episode took place between Ron and Alonso that it is a true shame. Shame on the game and World Champion. But I have my own doubts, Spy scandal as is happened was all wrong doings of McLaren + Nigel Stepney, then how did Alonso appear to be villain in complete story? Is this another McLaren strategy to shift focus from there spying to Alonso. Whatever rivalry is going on between Alonso and Hamilton, why is Alonso responsible for all the drama? Is this because Hamilton is playing press very well? British media has more audiences than any other?

Regarding the move made by Alonso at first corner in Spa, I would like to say I loved it. I know it was a dirty trick, but still I loved it because it did not involve any courtroom drama. And we audiences would appreciate more and more incidents like this and fierce competition if everything settles on track only. Kimi also sided with Alonso on this incident.

When I was informed of $ 100mn penalty I was shocked by the huge amount, but now I figured out that it would be meager $30mn. I had one more surprise that FOM (Formula One Management) pays each winner a particular sum of amount, which corresponds to $68.9mn in case of McLaren. I want to know, why is more money paid to richer teams, to make them better or what. What about the poorer teams whose budget is far lesser than tenth of Ferrari’s or McLarne’s? Don’t you think that FOM should provide a budget to smaller teams, so they can compete better?

Another thing that I am not happy with is that Ferrari is still pushing the spy scandal and wants to take it further. I guess the fine and punishment is fair enough and most importantly it has stopped any further damage to the game. I guess what Ferrari wanted (The constructor’s crown) they have got it and should stop now for sake of the game. (I know none of the TIFOSIs would be happy with me)

Spa also marked strong performance by Spyker team, I loved the way Sutil was racing his new b spec car and it’s a good sign for Mallya that his team might be competing in middle order next year. It is really appreciable that Super Aguri and Spyker are performing better than Honda and Toyota.

My Championship Predictions

Predictions prove that Kimi still have chance to win the world championship, but if Hamilton and Alonso always finish fourth or below and Kimi always finish first. It would be very hard to keep McLarens out on fourth always, so Massa will have to play a very crucial role if Ferrari wants to get driver’s championship. I did not take any and DNFs into account, as it can happen to anyone and definitely Ferrari has more chances of DNF than McLaren.

Complete transcript of the WMSC hearing.

Fans world over are slowly getting over the Spygate issue and the Judgement Day events. I was much excited starting Thursday last week till the end of the Spa race. It was mixed emotions for me:
- anxiously waiting for the decision, pressing F5 on atleast three F1 news sites
- reading race previews and checking out developments on the Ferraris
- reading about the decision on double the number of websites
- checking out practice times on Friday
- discussing with other friends about the issues

Amidst all this, we did forget to post our race previews and analysis. Well, I am not going to write about them all here. As far as the race weekend was, it was a pretty straightforward victory for Ferrari. Kimi mentioned that there were absolutely no problems anywhere. He is set to scare Alonso/Hamilton till the end of the championships. Ferrari secure the constructors title.

I was thinking of something different. I re-read the WMSC decision statement from the FIA website. I did read it once before on Sunday. I now have a lot of questions on my mind:

1. Drivers and technicians are shown discussing about a rival car design using their corporate e-mail facility. As members of the corporate themselves, don’t they know that this is confidential information that is being discussed and they shouldn’t do it over a monitored facility?

Assume that they know. It’s easy to assume this, as they are employees of a high business, one of the best in business. Then, one of the reasons that they still did it, could be that it’s something that happes and everyone does it anyways. One of the commentators on Sunday’s race was furious over the decision handed out to McLaren saying that this is something that goes on everywhere, be it over corporate e-mail or over the paddock chats. Then why should McLaren be punished so heavily?

If this is really true, then I would say that the WMSC did a wonderful job of bringing the axe on McLaren to curb any such activity in future. But, is there any monitoring mechanism to detect this? Can anyone be sure at all?

2. Why did Stepney do it?
I guess this question is answerd to an extent. I read somewhere that he wasn’t moved up the ladder when someone else whom he thought didn’t deserve it was moved up. Fair enough for him, maybe.

3. Why did Coughlan do it? Why did Alonso & Pedro support him?
I guess this is tied to question 1; maybe this is something that happens everytime and everywhere?

4. Was Hamilton really not a part of it? No one knows the answer to this.

I’m happy, along with all the fans of the F1 world that things came to a close last weekend.

Or have they, really?

It was humiliating, if nothing less. But, amidst all the pain, I could still see some relief, which makes me love the sport even more.

The prelude:

• There was scarlet everywhere. The grandstands, people’s clothes, even the special safety car was a Ferrari scarlet. There were Tifosi everywhere.
• The day was bright and sunny. But the spy scandal clouds loomed large over certain teams at the paddock.
• Kimi Raikkonnen pushes as hard as possible and crashes his car during practice. Massa plays a relatively conservative role till qualifying.
• The McLarens set Monza on fire all the way to find themselves on the front row of the starting grid.

The race:

• I loved Massa’s rage; despite being pushed onto the grass, he overtook Hamilton for the second spot. But wasn’t for long. Never mind. It’s part of racing.
• Mechanical failure for Massa. Tough to take on, hard to believe it could’ve happened at Monza, but still, it’s part of racing. Disappointment for the fans and the engineers too, but it’s some learning for Massa’s race engineers. Technology, testing, improvisation is all they think about. They sure would’ve been utterly disappointed, but still, it’s technology and mechanics they’re more interested in.
• Kimi, his car, his engineers and Ferrari’s strategy: I stand up to salute them. It was by far the bravest effort put up by the team. On such a tough and scorching track, going for the one-stop strategy, with heavier fuel and hard tyres on the second stint. I can’t find words to appreciate them! Look at the track; you have corners where you brake from 350 kmph! How tough it must have been on the brakes! Kimi’s done a wonderful job by taking the car in one piece across the start-finish line. The team knows they’ve done their best.
• Alonso. Look at the way he drove in the few laps before he was supposed to pit for the second time. Driven by his own instinct, further fuelled by the fact that Kimi is on a one-stop strategy, and more impeded by Hamilton behind he’s provided us some real good display of perfect racing. I hope he gets into the best team for him next year!
• BMW: going stronger by the race weekend. They should be serious competitors next year. Heidfeld is as consistent as ever. Kubica picked up in the latter half of this season.

The end:
Yeah, it’s humiliating. No Ferrari on top. McLaren 1-2 adds salt to the wound.

The future:

• Many sides are waiting with varied expectations for September 13
• Formula One fans are waiting for the treat of the season in Spa this weekend! If Monza is the “hottest” track on the calendar, Spa is not lesser! The settings, environment and the atmosphere at Spa are nonetheless fascinating. So, Spa Francorchamps it will be. In less than a week.

After following the Ferrari-McLaren espionage controversy I was feeling tired, but today when I read all new kind of allegations I am dejected, disappointed and sorry for the game. It all started with press reporting that the main aim of this scandal is to target Ron Dennis and FIA wants him to resign, and he has been offered this kind of deal too. This was followed by FIA denying any such thing.

But the most shocking news was that Ferrari and McLaren might have an out of court settlement before WMSC hearing. Till now Renault boss Flavio was completely supporting Ferrari to have sanctions against McLaren but some reports suggest Dennis has some evidences against Renault and if he reveals French team will be expelled out of championship. (Source)

In all this we see that English press is not commenting on anything now unlike when this controversy began. Along with the statement by Hamilton “we might be out of job next week” makes me think there is something seriously wrong somewhere. It is also suggested that Alonso is the whistleblower this time and this was evident at Monza after he finished the race.

Sir Williams is worried about the sponsorship loss due to scandal. But no one cares about the F1 fans and what they want. Fans want real competition without scandals, where just mechanics and drivers are involved instead of lawyers and courtrooms. It’s a shame on the game.

News: Probably no Indian driver for Spyker in 2008, a big blow for Narain.

It was shameful for Ferrari; on the home ground they could not provide the best cars to the best drivers. Kimi deserves to get full point for driving beautifully a car which was not up to the par. Many believe Hamilton made an exceptional move on Kimi on lap 44, but I would rather say it was just because of the car otherwise no one can overtake iceman in such a fashion.

Overall race was a dominated completely by Alonso; it never looked as if he will take a second position, I would say a brilliant performance by Alonso.

One more lesson to be learnt from the race was however good your strategy is, if car is not good, nothing matters. Ferrari and Williams, two most experienced and dedicated racing teams lost to McLaren and BMW just because of performance of car. I am really disappointed with Ferrari.

One more interesting thing I noticed during this season is, number of retirements each race have reduced drastically and that feels so nice. But because of that we don’t have much fun, hope rain in next race fulfills the dreams.

While it is true that I’m enthusiastically looking forward to this year’s Italian Grand Prix, I have to say that there is a cloud passing over my head. Let me say upfront that I am not able to exactly put my thoughts in a form that could be understood by many.

This year is definitely not the same as any previous ones. It is not positively different, but rather negatively. There are times in the past few days when I thought that this season should rewind itself and start all over again. Something is making me uncomfortable, and that’s none other than the scandal involving the top two teams ever in Formula One history.

I’m neither bothered about the scandal, its specifics, the people involved, the technicalities nor about the teams themselves. It’s the effect this has had on the sport that I’m bothered about. I would rather say, worried about. This is definitely not good for the sport. It tarnishes the image of the teams and the sport. Things will never be the same again, regardless of whether a penalty is awarded to the defaulting team or not. But there are rules; they’ve to be followed and I am definitely not against it. In fact the Tifosi side of me would want that anyway

What’s behind all this? Is it greed for money which prompted the actors to do this? Or something more that that? The Almighty alone has the answers. I’m also not sure that the investigations or the inquiries will really throw light on the motives.

If a penalty is awarded and McLaren is excluded from the World Championships, I’m not sure I’ll even watch the next year’s championships, because of two reasons: one is that there’ll be no real competition honestly, and the other is the belief that this highly “technical” sport is slowly changing to more of a business competition in a corporate world.

This year will be specially remembered by all Formula One enthusiasts. I sincerely hope that the scandal dies down soon in some way or the other and the coming years will show “healthy” competition on motor racing technology, which is all this sport is about.

This is a F1 weekend and not a normal one as it’s in the TIFOSI homeland. As soon as someone mentions Monza, we think of Parabolica and Variante Ascari, one of the best corners in F1 calendar. This is the circuit everyone likes. A circuit on which card drive on full throttle for 78% of the time, needs a very low downforce setting to give maximum speed and thus hampering the grip. Last year Schumi had announced his retirement just after winning the race.

Ferrari-McLaren spy scandal is back in news with new evidences coming into picture. McLaren is fined for using untested gearbox in last race. McLaren was fined before that race for a wrong team strategy. McLaren was under scrutiny for ‘team orders’ after Monaco. What is going on with McLaren, are they really throwing away everything to win the world championship? or FIA and media is against McLaren and they fine for whatever they do?

Link from Jose : Alonso sucked in McLaren spy row.