A bad day for Hamilton and for McLaren

Lewis Hamilton has been disqualified from the Australian GP for "deliberately misleading the stewards" as to whether or not he was asked by the team to let Jarno Trulli pass him when running behind the Safety Car and whether he actually let Jarno past. From the recordings of a post race interview and of the car-to-pit radio from the official FIA ruling, it seems pretty obvious that he did both and yet told the stewards he did neither.

In any sport you simply can’t have lying to the officials, or withholding information, or misleading or any other softer description.

McLaren needs to follow the old adage "when in a hole, do not dig". Right now Martin Whitmarsh is trying to strike oil from a pit in Malaysia by further arguing that Lewis didn’t let Trulli past anyway because he was doing the same speed on the lap in question as the previous lap. That is too mealy-mouthed. For Lewis’s speed to be relevant we would need to know that Barricello’s and Glock’s (those in front and behind Hamilton and Trulli) cars were also doing the same speed sinceas the previous lap. Without knowing that Lewis could have been going slower than everyone else on a faster lap behind the safety car. Apparently Hamilton was doing as little as 15mph at one point.

It is difficult to see what Lewis and the team actually hoped to gain by any of this. Lewis was in a very surprising fourth place, far better than he could have hoped for when the lights went out. For a short period in the final laps he gained third when Trulli went off the track. Even if he did let Trulli back past, the Italian should not have passed him and, therefore, the most likely outcome may not have been the 25s penalty initially handed to Trulli, but he almost certainly would have his placed swapped with Hamilton.

In short without resorting to any chicanery (sic) Hamilton would have had fourth and possibly had third. McLaren would have gained valuable constructor’s points for a season that could be very difficult for them without attracting the ire of the FIA.

So, why behave like this? The only thing I can think of is hubris. The idea that somehow the number 1 on the car gives inherent legitimacy to the bearer’s actions. To paraphrase Richard Milhous Nixon "When the World Champion does it, that means that it's not illegal."

Misleading the stewards cannot be tolerated and the FIA have to come down hard on Hamilton and the team not only as a punishment, but as a deterrent. I don’t believe a post race disqualification is enough. Lewis should not take part in the Malaysian GP either and the team should be unable to take constructors points from Heikki Kovalainen’s result either. Anything less of a punishment would risk F1 becoming like football, where deceiving the referee is rarely punished to the letter of the law for fear of "ruining" a game yet so many games are ruined as cheats get away with things.

Melbourne '09 – So many great performances with a few notable exceptions

It was a great race, a great showing from Brawn GP, from Jenson Button and Rubens Barricello. I haven't been a great fan of Button, but he put in a flawless performance this weekend.

Another great performance came from Lewis Hamilton – he got a podium from nothing with a good, safe, considered drive whilst many around them fell off the island and cost themselves points.

The ending of the race saw the coming together of Robert Kubica and Sebastian Vettel in an incident that took them both out of the race. As has become the current tradition, Vettel has been punished with a 10-place grid penalty for the Malaysian Grand Prix.

Now, it was an unfortunate end to their races and Vettel has admitted to an error. The question is, was it made in isolation? After having run deep into the chicane at turn one, Vettel correctly took up a defensive position and then braked early into the "car park". Kubica had the run on him down into that corner and was alongside and ahead but he had not won that corner when he turned in. Vettel had no more room without going off the track, they touched, both cars were damaged and ultimately out.

After the race Vettel quickly swapped his Nomex vest for a hair shirt and did the whole "mea culpa" bit. All very commendable – all possibly misguided. Both men were racing (which we will come onto in a minute) and if Vettel wants to get more room next time (which we will come onto in a minute) he needed to be shouting at Kubica as to how dare he turn in on him (which we will come to in a minute).

Kubica on the other hand made it clear that he thought that Vettel made a stupid mistake by saying that he was going to get past the German anyway (which we will come to in a minute). In short Kubica has let it be known, in future "I will be turning in, you will be leaping out of the way".
In other words Vettel lost more than points in that race, he lost status for what will not be the last wheel–to-wheel battle with the BMW man from Poland.

And so the minute has passed.

Vettel braked early and hard on worn super-soft tyres from a defensive position. He was on the inside of the corner and turned in on the kerb edge. Realistically he had nowhere to go, but equally Kubica knew he was there and knew he had nowhere to go. The Pole didn’t leave him enough room. Both men were racing hard, neither gave ground and expensive bits of carbon-fibre took the brunt of the disagreement.

Not only did Kubica know Vettel was there, he knew his super-soft tyres were no match of the Pole’s medium compounds at that stage of the race. So as much as Vettel was naïve for holding on to the fight, so was Kubica for not giving him room as he would have had the inside for the exit of the "car park".

Isn’t this, though what we want to see? These were two men on the very limit of their own and their cars’ capabilities, racing in failing light on a track surface offering changing grip as it cooled and in one of the cases on worn tyres off the racing line. How can that really lead to a penalty?

It was a racing incident if ever there was one. So why, when two cars touch, does their have to be a penalty nowadays? This doesn't even happen on the roads where two cars should never come into contact! Why, in a sport, must there be someone to blame?

Recently we have had innocuous incident after incident punished with penalties that in no way serve to improve the racing. It wasn’t that long ago that drivers were hailed for moves that forced their opponent to choose between leaving the track and letting them through, or leaving the track and ending up on fire in the grandstand. No penalty offered, none asked for. Now if two cars come within a length of each other someone must be penalised.

Don’t we want to see drivers struggling to control their cars? Don’t we want to see guys on worn tyres versus those on fresh ones? Don’t we want to see guys off line, with the cars on the very limit, with them squirming under braking or acceleration – very definitely not pointing in the right direction. But if they are going to suffer a 10 place grid penalty at the next race if their car gets sideways and there is an incident why would they take the risk?

Next year, won't we see even more of these penalties? If the plan for the 2010 championship is that the guy with the most wins is the champion regardless of points (unless a tie on wins) to encourage drivers to take risks, won't there be more mistakes and more penalties affecting the next race? In other words "I might win this one, but I won’t win the next".

Of course you could argue that if Vettel had been shouting at Kubica and trying to assert that he needed some space then perhaps the stewards would have seen it for what it was, a great peice of racing then ended in a crash, but no penalty was needed.

Not then a great day for the stewards and perhaps on reflection, not a stellar performance from Vettel. If he had jumped form the car shouting and screaming at Kubica then maybe he would have gained more respect from his opponent and the sport’s overseers.

Is “New” the new “Tried and Tested”?

Can we please get one thing straight for the 2009 season? Brawn GP is not a new team, despite what their PR people and even what the title documents say in their FIA lodgings. Brawn GP (and their new car) follows a direct lineage from Honda Racing of last year, through British American Racing and to Tyrrell Grand Prix. That’s over 40 years.

Of course they have done wonders following the announcement that Honda was to pull out of F1 – however given the PR spin that the team in Brackley simply must be saved, the hundreds of talented workers etc it’s increasingly difficult to see them as a new team. The car started design 15 months ago. In essence they have changed the name, and terminated a manufacturer’s involvement – which is what dozens of teams over the years have done when they have changed engine supplier.

Of course this idea of a "new" team isn’t itself new. Red Bull Racing, in an effort to manage expectations described itself as a "new" team despite being the previous Jaguar team, which itself was a "new" team formed from the race-winning Stewart Grand Prix. Red Bull can trace its history back a dozen years. Red Bull Racing’s B-team, Toro Rosso, wasn’t new either. It was the former Minardi team – that’s nearly a quarter of a century of experience.

Renault was a "new" team that belied it being a straight take-over of the championship winning Benetton team which was itself a take-over of Ayrton Senna’s first F1 team, Toleman, which was formed in 1981. In fact Renault was a brand "new" team twice, because it also raced as itself between 1977 - when it really was new - to 1986.

Force India? Well, of course that was Spyker F1 nee Midland F1 nee race-winning Jordan Grand Prix – which was a new F1 team in 1991.

BMW-Sauber occasionally referred to themselves as new but no one really peddled that sincerely seeing as they hadn’t even finalised their name change from the previous Sauber F1 team that dates back to 1993.

So what is the most recent, genuinely new Formula 1 team that is on the 2009 grid? I say Toyota. A team built from the ground up – yes they discontinued other motorsport efforts and re-used their sites – but F1 is very different from rallying. Did someone mutter Super Aguri? Well can a team that used four year old Arrows chassis and was a direct B-team of Honda (see above) really be new?
Of course this reference to a "new" team isn’t itself new or even novel. Prost was the "new" team that sprang from nowhere, in the same sites, using the same chassis and many suppliers as the race-winning Ligier team that the four-time world champion had bought 1997. A thirty-year old "new" team.

So, why do they do it? Well to be fair the owner is new, him and his assistants, and are new to the team which has got new logos. They may have new engines, new drivers and new sponsors too, but they can’t count as F1 teams frequently change sponsors and drivers and engines. The real reason they do it is that the newness is normally generated by some PR firm – one that probably doesn’t have any real F1 experience and anyway wants to peddle the "plucky new boys" image while the team potters around at the back of the grid. This might be true for Williams in 1978, but it simply isn’t for Brawn, Red Bull and the biggest exponent of it, Jaguar.

Jaguar really went for "new" as the new image making. Their marketing dream for Jaguar racing was huge. Backed by Ford (for whom Stewart were the works F1 team) they wanted a see of British Racing Green to be as common at Grands Prix as scarlet is for Ferrari. They brought their huge marketing budget to bear. But, given that the Jaguar name was indeed new to Formula One they made much of being a new team.

This isn’t as yet likely to happen with Brawn GP. At the moment, the largely unsponsored cars are evidence of a lack of marketing machine to really hype their efforts. As long as Brawn GP is not subsumed by shouty, pushy marketing people, we will be spared the fiction of their "newness".

On an unrelated note Brawn GP and Sir Richard Branson have announced a sponsorship deal with the quiet and reserved Virgin brand …

Alonso – running home scared?

After reading the news that Fernando Alonso has done the predictable, and returned to Renault, I was disappointed by the idea that part of the deal may have been moving Heikki Kovalainen to one side.

Flavio Briatore manages Heikki, so it’s unlikely that he will fall too far (rumour has it straight onto his feet and into a McLaren), but in essence this seems to have been to ensure that Alonso does not have to battle another really quick team-mate.

Clearly this makes some sense; no one wants to see Renault suffer the same nightmares that centred on Alonso as he struggled to come to terms with being beaten by Lewis Hamilton. It was an important enough concern to the Regie that they were prepared to compromise their original desire of a 3-year deal with the troublesome Spaniard.

It is also nothing new, all through history big name drivers have had the veto over a fast team-mate to secure every advantage. The most recent has of course been Michael Schumacher, whose policy largely forced him out of F1. He could probably have had another year or two but Ferrari had to think longer term and hired Kimi Raikkonen - a man too quick for Schuey to want to battle, a man that would necessarily divert team focus away from Michael, so used to absolute number one status. Before him, though, there was Alain Prost (vetoing Nigel Mansell and Ayrton Senna for Williams in ’93), Alan Jones or Mario Andretti to name but three more.

However Alonso has been exceptionally wary by their standards, so much that he has compromised his own, long term aims, rather than battle. Those men above were focussed on the immediate chances of a title and essentially got it. The rumour mill is currently grinding the idea that the Spaniard is heading to Ferrari for 2009 (as a replacement for Kimi one would assume since the Finn is as fast as Alonso, is bedded into the team and will have at least one world title). This would have to be delayed to 2010 assuming he sees his Renault deal out.

No, rather than go to Red Bull for one year then into a scarlet car the next, his ego clearly wanted to get him in with the chance of a podium. Unlike other top drivers such as Schumacher and Prost, he is vetoing drivers who might thwart him for third place, not first. Third may even be optimistic with BMW Sauber performing so well and whilst Alonso believes the McLaren 2007 pace was down to him (maybe he was right after those infamous e-mails) he needs a bigger improvement from the Regie to get them to the front.

Improving the Racing

Whilst I applaud any effort to increase overtaking in F1, and certainly support methods that are not artificial (i.e. I don't want to see power-to-pass or success ballast penalties), I am not totally convinced by either Gary Anderson's (Autosport 22/11/2007) or the FIA's proposals.

I defer to Gary's far superior knowledge of F1 design than my own, however my first impression of the Anderson spec F1 car was that it reminded me very much of the grid of the second half of the 1994 season. The cars of '94 had larger diffusers, lower front wings, wider and slick tyres and ineffectual air rams (due to a slot cut into the air box). There wasn't a great deal more overtaking then than there is now.

The FIA's approach is similar to Gary's but I agree with him, the idea of a driver adjusting his brake balance forward and cranking up the front wing while alongside another car into a braking area doesn't sound very successful to me. Neither does him cranking both settings down again as he tries to accelerate out of the corner.

Whilst I have reservations about Gary's approach I certainly think there is plenty of merit in them as a starting point. However I think any serious attempt at improving the racing in F1 should address the single biggest factor that has reduced overtaking - re-fuelling.

Banning re-fuelling would add several factors to a race :-

• The variability of the car's performance over 200 miles is greatly increased, rather than over 60 miles as at present
• Tyre changes can be made optional again, thus giving genuine strategy differences along the grid and placing the success of that strategy where it should be - in the hands of the driver. Softer tyres may be faster but less durable. Harder tyres, slower but might need conservative car control to succeed
• Provides a genuine end of race difference in performance between cars (hard, very used tyres, versus softer less worn tyres)
• A much more readily realisable benefit to fuel economy - leading to spin off technologies for road cars
• A driver can no longer rely on pit-stops and therefore his mental attitude to overtaking extends beyond the first corner (something that today we only see from rookies)
  

In summary - lower the front wing, remove all the chassis mounted aerodynamic devices, stick slick tyres on, but for heaven's sake get rid of re-fuelling.