Surprise surprise! McLaren let off

Well, we all knew it was going to be a damp squib in the end, didn't we? Proving that McLaren had the goods was not difficult. An employee of the organisation was found with the stuff in his house and it was all genuine, therefore an open and shut case. What is much more difficult to prove is that they had used the stuff to gain an unfair advantage. Hellishly difficult. The only way I can see this being possible is if both Ferrari and McLaren were required to supply their cars for a mechanical analysis by the FIA. Even then you would struggle because the two cars would not be identical.

What is intriguing about the manner in which the story broke is that Coughlan, the McLaren engineer, and his wife were shopped by a photocopying clerk. Mrs Coughlan went to a photocopying shop in Woking, Surrey and handed over a bundle of 780 documents for photocopying. Technical bits of paper marked confidential with the Ferrari logo all over them would give the game away to even the dimmest photocopier operator. The shop phoned Ferrari to alert them and the game was up.

Now how stupid can Mrs Coughlan be? First, why go to a photocopying shop in Woking. Woking is the home of McLaren for God's sake? Even the cleaners in Woking know this. Anybody mooching around with a sheaf of Ferrari papers is guaranteed to raise suspicions. The stupid woman would have been far better advised to take the train thirty miles up the road to London where the chances of anonymity are vaster and the risk of raising suspicion significantly less. Second, could she not simply have bought a printer/copier and done the job at home? Tedious and back-breaking in the extreme, given the amount of paper, but safe from prying eyes at the very least. Third, and perhaps most importantly, why make copies at all? Keep the bally manual under your mattress and only retrieve it when you need it!

Had it not been for Mrs Coughlan's schoolgirl error, Coughlan and Stepney (his mate at Ferrarri)could have kept the game going for the rest of the season and then shared Coughlan's winning engineer's bonus. Now the pair will probably never work in F1 again because their names are mud. What a turn of events!

Gitau
26 July 2007

Rain and reality

You can only ride your luck for so long. Luck has a nasty way of running out when you need it most. Years ago, I was joining a motorway in Johannesburg at a speed that was downright absurd. Realising there was a heavy, articulated lorry coming up the lane I was joining - itself at a speed guaranteed to ensure curtains for Gitau - I yanked the steering wheel to the left and screamed out for Lady Luck not to desert me. She did not - at least not entirely. I found myself powerless as the car flipped over and began cartwheeling across the motorway. Next thing I knew a minibus taxi filled with Soweto natives had drawn up alongside me and people were shovelling dirt on the flames at the front of my stricken car. Someone undid my seat belt and dragged me to safety. I sat dazed and bleeding in the taxi for a little while and then saw a policeman pull up and inspect the wrecked vehicle. He then came up to the taxi, stared hard at me and declared "you must be dead!" I think this is when I passed out.

I had an eerie recollection of this horrible incident while watching qualifying on Saturday. Lewis Hamilton, on a blinder of a lap, suddenly suffered a front right tyre blow-out and found himself a mere passenger as his car flew off the track and crashed head-on into a tyre wall at 175 mph. The last time we saw this happen was at Silverstone in 1999 in a nearly identical incident involving Michael Schumacher. Hamilton was a lot luckier than Schumacher because all he suffered was a heavy pounding and lots of bruising while the German ended up in hospital with a badly broken leg. The impact was such that I was prepared to bet good money on Hamilton not being permitted to race on Sunday; but race he certainly did.

At the start, Hamilton made up six places from tenth place but got involved in the collateral damage which inevitably follows first corner crashes and suffered a punctured rear left wheel. This should have been the point at which the lad said, "okay, this is not my weekend and I am going home now to have a nice hot shower and some cocoa". But Hamilton is made of sterner stuff than that. Then, in what would define Nurburgring 2007, the heavens unleashed a downpour of monsoon proportions. Within seconds, there was so much standing water on the circuit that the cars had no grip at all. One after the other, cars (more like canoes really) aquaplaned off the circuit, through the gravel trap and onto the tyre barriers. Lewis Hamilton was one of the many who landed in the gravel but he managed to avoid the tyre wall and, crucially, kept his engine running. He was thus able to enlist assistance from the crane and rejoin the circuit. The lad fought valiantly and would have made it to a points scoring position but he chose to change from wet weather tyres to dry weather tyres way too early - youthful exuberance, you see - and thereby compromised his race. A fight to the end produced no better ranking than ninth place, so for the first time Hamilton walked away from a Formula One circuit without scoring any points at all. With a twelve point lead, Hamilton had one such disaster in his back pocket but his team-mate has now whittled the lead down to two points. The fairy tale had to end at some point with a good, hard dose of reality.

Fernando Alonso drove one of his best ever races. Timing his pit stops and tyre changes to perfection, Alonso only had to get past race leader Felipe Massa to clinch yet another race victory. With only four laps to go, Alonso aggressively went for Massa on the outside. A bit of wheel-banging resulted but it was Massa, not the world champion, who came off second best. The two Latinos exchanged words before the podium because Massa clearly felt hard done by but I think he was crying over spilled milk - Alonso definitely had the edge. For me Alonso's performance affirms his championship credentials and indicates to everyone, particularly young Hamilton, that he will be no push-over. Alonso's luck could just have turned. We shall soon find out.

Luck was also heavily ingrained on the mind of Kimi Raikkonen. The Nurburgring does not like him it seems. Getting to finish a race there seems like an impossible task. What had looked like another Ferrari one-two at the start ended midway with Raikkonen's car suffering mechanical failure. If there is ever any luck going for the Finn it is the wrong kind. With more than half the races now raced it will take some doing - and lots of the right sort of luck - for Raikkonen to redeem his championship prospects.

Now that the European Grand Prix is over, attention now turns to the industrial espionage hearings in Paris this week. McLaren have put together an enviably expensive army of lawyers to assist them at the FIA. I remain convinced that the FIA will throw the case out. But then again, I have been wrong in the past…

Gitau
24 July 2007

The Nurburgring's last hurrah

While I was at university in the 1980s, the United Kingdom was governed by a wild-eyed, semi-sane woman who was given to the often seen high tempered tantrum when in an excitable state. Her face would turn a curious shade of purple, her hair would defy all the careful ministrations of her hairdressers, her bosom would heave ominously and she would emit the most ear-splitting shriek ever produced by a resident of Downing Street. Nothing was more certain to bring on this terrifying state of affairs than mention of the word "Europe". As far as Margaret Thatcher was concerned, the United Kingdom had nothing whatever to do with what she deemed to be a vile continent somewhere near Mars. Europe was not anything as civilised as the United Kingdom in her eyes and it was an act akin to treachery for any European to suggest that it was. It was Mrs Thatcher's firm conviction that the European Economic Community was a cunning plot by the loathsome Germans to achieve what they had failed to achieve between 1939 and 1945. Ironically, the one piece of British legislation which did the most for European integration, the Single European Act of 1986 (which introduced the concept of a "border-free" Europe), was signed by one Margaret Hilda Thatcher.

Keen to discover why the whole European project was so anathema to the government of the country I inhabited, as a student I set upon various little journeys of exploration across Europe - each time after months of exercising extreme restraint by putting aside my little beer money and living a life of painful ascetism. If one took Mrs Thatcher's attitude, one would think there was a uniformity about Europe, a sameness which would grate on one's consciousness and cause such weariness as to make further enquiry deeply undesirable. I found that the contrary was the case. Cross a border from one country and sit in a hostelry ten miles into the next country and you are at once stunned by the sheer diversity of the old continent (if, like that American military and foreign policy genius Donald Rumsfeld, you think "Old Europe" has had its day, well, more fool you). It is to my mind, therefore, fitting that there should be a race on the Formula One calendar called the "European Grand Prix". For an event that should set the pulse racing, I remain unconvinced that its home should be Europe's passion vacuum: Germany. This has not always been the case. The event has moved from country to country over the years but has remained stuck at the Nurburgring in Germany - a once legendary but now ghastly circuit - since the turn of the century. At long last my prayers were answered earlier this year: from next season the European Grand Prix will be held in Valencia, Spain. I will not miss that race even if it means I have to crawl there!

I remember sitting in a Bierzelt (a large beer tent) during the annual Oktoberfest in Munich many years ago while chatting about various things with an earnest German fellow called Wolfgang. Chatting is perhaps an inaccurate description of the conversation; Wolfgang and I were philosophising while sipping from enormous 1 litre mugs of beer served by well-fed Bavarian wenches with generous forearms. In one enlightened phase of the conversation, Wolfgang and I bemoaned the mysterious death of the European Grand Prix and how much the project of European integration would be enhanced by its return (the event was off the calendar between 1986 and 1992). Observing that I was an impecunious student, Wolfgang - who said he worked as a street sweeper - matched each Mass (I litre mug) I bought with two of his own. The beer-fuelled conversation continued for a second day and was slipping into a third when I realised I was in the wrong company. Wolfgang had either trained his body to extract all the nutrition he required from Bavarian beer or was intending to drown himself to death in froth. I realised that my presence in Munich was no longer conducive to my continued good health and had to get out of the Bierzelt, leap on a train to Austria and thence recover from my ill-advised association with Mr Wolfgang!

It is to the Nurburgring that we must return this weekend for one more time. In the Schumacher years this was not a race that you needed to bother about watching with keen interest. The seven times world champion could win at the Nurburgring blindfolded and with one arm tied behind his back. This year promises to be a great deal more intriguing. The championship battle between Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen is heating up just as the season goes past its halfway point. I have always thought it safer to lead than to chase. The numbers seem to bear this out. If, for example, Raikkonen were to win each of the next eight races and Hamilton were to come second, Hamilton would be crowned world champion at the end of the season. An uninterrupted Raikkonen run won't happen because Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa are still on hand to muddy the waters. Also, there could well be a rogue race or two where a BMW or some such outsider ruins the party. The bad news for Raikkonen is that his tardiness early on this season looks likely to cost him and Ferrari dearly even if he carries on doing what he has so expertly done in the last two races for the rest of the season. To achieve a lock-out of Hamilton, Ferrari have to do one-twos for the rest of the season. But is this really possible? If it is, will it always be Raikkonen on the top step? These and many others are intriguing questions which add to the spice of an already flavoursome championship.

The side show regarding the industrial espionage charges levelled against McLaren by Ferrari has moved up a notch in the interest stakes. The FIA have summoned McLaren to answer the charges on Wednesday next week. The fear among the nervous media people is that McLaren - that is everyone in the team, including the drivers - will be disqualified. I reserve judgment on the subject but offer this: can you really see this happening? Can you see the FIA causing the world to be turned off Formula One so soon after it came back with loud cheers? I can't.

We haven't had a sodden race thus far this season. I would love to see one. It might just be the final test that shows us what Hamilton is really about. I pray for rain this weekend in Germany while I watch the race clutching an ice cold Lowenbrau. Whatever you do,

Enjoy the Nurburgring!

Gitau
18 July 2007

Raikkonen delivers a reality check

Something about home races is bad. Countless are the times when a driver has attempted a home race and had his hopes cruelly shattered by the fickle finger of fate. Usually the weight of expectation is such that a driver simply bottles out. To have every single grandstand filled to the rafters with people shouting "Go Lewis!" can turn a man's innards to water and his legs to jelly. We saw it in Spain this year when world champion, Fernando Alonso, simply couldn't handle the pressure. Never in the history of the British Grand Prix has there been as much support for a single driver as there was for Lewis Hamilton this weekend gone. It is a mark of the steel constitution of the young man that he did not allow himself to lose focus. Rather than be terrified by the responsibility placed upon him by his fans, Hamilton was positively buoyed by it.

When Hamilton snatched pole position in the last second of Saturday qualifying, I knew in my heart of hearts that this would be his ultimate glory moment at Silverstone in 2007. He reached deep within himself and found some nanoseconds of speed to be squeezed out of a McLaren which was clearly inferior to the Ferraris of Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa. The crowd at Silverstone to a man rose to their feet in a massive outpouring of genuine emotion. I have never seen anything like that at Silverstone. Grown men - stiff upper-lipped Englishman at that - had their faces wet with tears. Come Sunday it was always going to be a damage limitation exercise for the young McLaren driver but he had done enough forever to seal his place in the hearts of his massive fan base all over the world.

When Hamilton had to fight off Kimi Raikkonen at the start of the race yesterday it was clear that it was only a matter of time before the vastly superior Ferrari overhauled the McLaren. Hamilton fought valiantly to hold Raikkonen off but by the time he came in for his first stop it was obvious that the game was up. A lot has been made of a mistake Hamilton made during his pit stop - he began to move before the lollipop man gave him the all clear but stopped before causing any serious damage - when he lost a precious few seconds but I am unconvinced that this made much difference in the end. Both Raikkonen and Alonso were able to get ahead of Hamilton principally because of his inexperience. He got his car set-up wrong - a mistake which the more experienced Alonso did not make - and made the wrong tyre choices at crucial moments. Finishing a whole forty seconds behind second placed man, Alonso, showed he simply did not have the speed or the handling to match the men in front - pit-stop error notwithstanding.

One may feel emotional that the fairy tale ending did not occur but there is another way of looking at things. Hamilton would not even have finished on the podium had Massa not stalled his Ferrari at the start and been forced to start from the back of the pack. Massa did a Schumacher and sliced his way through traffic but was finally stopped by the superbly defensive driving of Robert Kubica in the BMW-Sauber who would not let him get past to take fourth place. I think this is good for Hamilton. A win at his first home Grand Prix could easily have given him the feeling of invincibility. "Come to Silverstone, nail pole and win the race, why, surely I must be able to walk on water!" A reality check is always a good thing. It is good also that Alonso was able to beat his team-mate at last. The Hamilton hysteria is detracting the world from just how exceptionally talented the little Spaniard really is. Alonso needed a boost to his ego and beating his team-mate at Silverstone must surely have delivered it; especially because he did so as a consequence of the latter's mistakes. This sets things up nicely for the remainder of the championship.

We are at the halfway point now. Lewis Hamilton is twelve points clear in the lead with 70 points (remarkable when you think about it) and Raikkonen has now taken over third place with 52 points - one point ahead of his team-mate. That gap may prove crucial as the pressure mounts. Hamilton enjoys the luxury of being able to fail to finish one race with no adverse consequences to his championship pursuit, which is more than can be said for the other three contenders. We go to the Nuburgring in Germany in a fortnight's time. With the resurgence of Ferrari and the laying by Alonso of the demons which were haunting him, it is all looking jolly exciting.

Gitau
09 July 2007

Hamilton heads home

There was a joke doing the rounds in 1998 after England were ignominiously turfed out of the World Cup by Argentina in a scrappy game which saw young David Beckham sent off for indiscipline. It goes something like this. Beckham comes back home to England and finds himself to be a national disgrace. Everything goes wrong for him - his girlfriend leaves him, he is sacked by Manchester United and he goes broke - and he eventually decides to end it all by leaping off the highest point on Old Trafford. Just as he is about to make the leap he hears a voice imploring him not to do it. He turns round to see the rotund figure of Father Christmas. "If you drop your trousers and bend over, I will make you a millionaire twelve times over, cause the English nation to love you again and restore Victoria to you," says Father Christmas. Beckham does as requested and takes what Father Christmas has to offer with fortitude. Later, while zipping up his trousers, Father Christmas asks "how old are you, David?" "23," says Beckham. "A little too old to believe in Father Christmas then!" says the fat, gay Manchester City supporter.

The point is that England craves sporting heroes like no other country on the planet. The simple reason for this is that for an economy the size of England's and a sizeable population to boot it is extremely surprising that there are so few. Consequently, those who achieve sporting greatness are treated like royalty. The world cup winning squad of 1966 are still spoken of with deep reverence - never mind that most football supporters were not born as long ago as that. Any English sporting achievement is blown out of all proportion by the English press. The England cricket team that won the Ashes from Australia in 2005 were treated like heroes for far longer than was reasonable. Jonny Wilkinson won his way permanently into the hearts of Englishmen by kicking the drop goal which ensured that England and not Australia came home with the 2003 rugby world cup. Conversely, it is extremely easy to go from hero to zero in England. Examples abound but a recent one should suffice. Freddie Flintoff, hero of the 2005 ashes series, is now reviled because he is seen as the reason England failed to win the cricket world cup this year. His drunken escapades in Barbados are said to have upset and demoralised the team and, thus, rendered its members ineffective.

Lewis Hamilton needs to be acutely aware of all of this as he arrives at Silverstone, the home of British motor sport; where a fan and media storm, the likes of which he could never have imagined, keenly awaits his arrival. He has already secured himself as many column inches in the English press as David Beckham was able to in his heyday. The worry is that it may all become too much for a young lad like him and he may end up losing focus. This time next year Hamilton will probably be worth upwards of £50 million. For a boy who did not by any means grow up surrounded by riches, this may drive him a little mad. Couple the vast wealth with the unrelenting fan and media attention and Hamilton may just be tipped over the edge. He may start buying expensive yachts and partying like there is no tomorrow. If he does this and then starts making a mess of races, the British media will turn on him like a hunting pack of hounds. If this happens it will be the point at which his blackness becomes an issue - a subject skilfully avoided for as long as we have had Hamilton in Formula One. The news reports will say something like "Hamilton, whose father was born in Grenada, was found slumped at the wheel of his sports car under the influence of a drug and alcohol cocktail". The good news is the McLaren team are highly experienced at media management and have managed to control Hamilton's exposure very adroitly since the season began. Also, Lewis's father, Anthony, seems to be a reliably calming influence on his superstar son. Long may this continue.

Silverstone is a superb racing circuit. I say this without a hint of bias - it just is. It suits the racers - as opposed to the mere drivers - and will suit Hamilton, who is a red blooded racer. His performance at Silverstone in GP2 last year should stand him in very good stead. The circuit is very demanding - as can be seen from the fact that nobody has ever "owned" Silverstone. The best anyone has ever managed is two consecutive victories there. I have been kicking myself all week because I was too slow off the mark to get tickets for this weekend. Hamilton hysteria is such that none are to be had for love or money. Still, there is the trusty old box in the corner of my living room (a blind friend of mine aptly described it as "the God in the corner").

What threatens to overshadow this weekend's racing is the news of an alleged dirty tricks campaign involving the Ferrari and McLaren teams. Ferrari have sacked Nigel Stepney, their chief engineer, and launched a criminal prosecution in Modena, Italy because of an alleged sabotage campaign by the British engineer. It is claimed that Stepney was attempting to contaminate the fuel in Ferrari's cars with detergent. In a related incident, McLaren have suspended their chief engineer, Mike Coughlan, because it is alleged that he was in receipt of confidential technical information from a mole at Ferrari.

The gist of the story is that Stepney - alone or in cahoots with others - was assisting McLaren on two fronts. First by sabotaging Ferrari cars and secondly, by feeding McLaren useful information which would help them beat Ferrari. This, Ferrari claim, is the reason McLaren have been so superior this season. I find this very difficult to believe. Nigel Stepney was part of the winning team which together with then world champion, Michael Schumacher, joined Ferrari from Benetton in 1996 and proceeded to make history. Why would a person with as impressive a record as that wish to sully his reputation in such a sordid fashion? There must be more to this story than meets the eye. More will come out in days to come. Meanwhile, the FIA is investigating the allegations. The worst possible outcome would be for McLaren to be found guilty of gaining unlawful advantage. This would probably result in the team being disqualified and the drivers being docked lots of points.

We mustn't allow these tales of skulduggery - or indeed anything else - distract us from what promises to be a fantastic British Grand Prix. Fernando Alonso seems already to have resigned himself to losing to Hamilton on Sunday. He has - ill-advisedly in my view - raised the British v Spanish hokum again and suggested that Hamilton will be favoured by McLaren this weekend. I think we just have to cut through all of this and allow ourselves to make the most of one of Formula One's greatest races. Doubtless, like me, you will,

Enjoy Silverstone!

Gitau
05 July 2007

Raikkonen wrings Magny Cours' neck

I once worked with a very religious Jewish girl called Sarah who had a knack for driving me up the wall. If asked to perform a task which she considered difficult, she would fly into a state of raw panic. Her first reaction would be to hyper-ventilate; eyes bulging like a bull frog's. Then she would get up and run up and down the corridor a few times. Next, she would shut the door of her office, sit down on the floor in the corner and cry while tearing at her hair and banging her fists on her temples. She would call on the God of Abraham, Isaac and David to tell her why she was so persecuted. But, amazingly, when the performance was over, Sarah would sit down and get on with the job. What came out of Sarah's office when she had finished was invariably a sterling piece of work. When up against it Sarah was brilliant. I was reminded of Sarah at the end of yesterday's French Grand Prix as Kimi Raikkonen calmly raised the winner's magnum of champagne to his lips and gulped down a healthy quantity. Written off by everyone, the flying Finn arrived in Magny Cours and shone. When up against it Raikkonen delivered brilliantly.

For the first time this season, the race was not won at the first corner. Raikkonen had qualified third behind Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton but perfectly timed his braking point at the start of the race to slot easily ahead of Hamilton. The young Brit did not like this even vaguely. It was the first time he had been overtaken in a race since his dramatic entry into Formula One and it came as a bit of a rude awakening to him. There will be other moments like this; he just needs to get used to them. It is important for the lad to face a little adversity from time to time so things do not feel like they are coming too easily to him. After that expert move on Hamilton, all Raikkonen had to do was maximise his lap times in the two or more extra laps he had after his team-mate came in for his pit stops and emerge ahead of Massa. He may be well behind the championship leaders but he is still in with a mathematical chance - particularly if the pace of Ferrari this weekend was indicative of a return by the Italian team to the form to which we were once accustomed to seeing.

I couldn't help a wry smile at the sight of some Spanish chaps holding up placards which said "Not today, Lewis". As things turned out they were right but not for the reasons they had in mind when they wrote up their signs. The Spaniards were asking Hamilton to leave off and let their home boy, Fernando Alonso, win for a change. Sadly for them and the entire Spanish population, it was not to be. The world champion's woes continued this weekend. A gearbox failure in qualifying on Saturday meant he started amongst the middle pack in tenth place and had to attempt to fight his way to a decent finishing position. Once he got up to seventh place he found himself stuck behind the BMW of Nick Heidfeld who repeatedly refused to be intimidated by the world champion. Lap after lap at the optimum overtaking corner, Alonso attempted countless aggressive moves on Heidfeld but was unable to make any one of them stick. His manoeuvres were ragged and, to my mind, unworthy of his exceptional talent. Contrast that with the rapid manner in which Hamilton despatched the second BMW of Robert Kubica on his out lap from the pits.

Disappointed Hamilton may have been by finishing third but he still maintained his consistent form in F1 racing thus far. He knows of no place to finish a race but the podium. Spraying champagne and taking questions in a major press conference is like water off a duck's back to Hamilton. I wonder how he will deal with the day when he does not finish on the podium. Until that day, nobody has quite yet been able to wipe the smile off the lad's face (sorry, Spaniards - you're nice chaps, we know, but we love Lewis more).

As we approach Hamilton's home race in six day's time, the lead at the top of the championship table tells a fascinating story. Hamilton is now fourteen points clear at the top, seventeen points ahead of third man, Massa and twenty-two points ahead of fourth placed man, Kimi Raikkonen. These figures should make every driver and his managers pay close attention. The momentum this lead gives Hamilton as he contemplates the madness that awaits him in England at the weekend should assist his progress no end. I have given up making comparisons when it comes to young Hamilton. I am content now to wait and be amazed from race weekend to race weekend. The word “rookie” has quietly been dropped from paddock-speak in relation to Hamilton. Deservedly so…

Bring on Silverstone!

Gitau
2 July 2007