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?