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?

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.

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.