Suspended sentence

In The Godfather, Amerigo Bonasera, a Sicilian born New York undertaker, goes to seek “justice” from Don Corleone. Bonasera’s daughter had been raised respectably in New York in the American fashion. The girl was lured out one night by a couple of thugs who attempted to take advantage of her but she kept her honour. Upset, the thugs beat her mercilessly, smashed up her face in the process and forever destroyed her once attractive beauty. The American court system chose, in its wisdom, to deliver a suspended sentence to the thugs as a suitably appropriate punishment. As Bonasera sorrowfully observed, “suspended sentence! the bastards walked free that very day”. He decided, therefore, that the only method by which he could obtain justice was to go and see Don Corleone.

Jarno Trulli, a passionate Italian Formula One driver, drives for Toyota and when in the right mood can be brilliant. I use the word “passionate” advisedly because Trulli’s breast is richly infused with the Latin temperament. Trulli was wronged at the season’s opening race in Australia by the McLaren racing team. They chose to lie to the race stewards about the Toyota driver’s behaviour during the race so that he would suffer a penalty and their treasured driver, Lewis Hamilton, would be able to assume Trulli’s rightful place at the third step of the podium. And so it came to pass. Trulli was penalised by the addition of an extra 25 seconds to his race time and Hamilton usurped him on the podium. The lies were quickly discovered by the stewards, Trulli’s penalty was rescinded, Hamilton was disqualified and McLaren were required to explain themselves. The team promptly did as required and apologised profusely in the process. But Trulli and Toyota were not satisfied. For justice, they thought it best to seek the help of the FIA. In a hearing in Paris this week, the FIA announced that they had chosen to punish McLaren by imposing a three race ban on them but that the sentence would be suspended. McLaren walked free that very day.

You may recall that Jarno Trulli used to drive for Renault. He had an extremely successful season in 2004 and went as far as winning the most prestigious of motor races, the Monaco Grand Prix, in that year. Unfortunately his season – and his career at Renault - ended in ignominy in the same year when he was sacked by his boss, a scaly Italian called Flavio Briatore, for losing concentration during the last lap of the French Grand Prix and thereby gifting a guaranteed third place to the chasing Ferrari of Rubens Barrichello. Trulli and Briatore had such a massive argument after the race that it became clear the pair would never be able to work together again.

I recall this because I feel certain that Trulli will be far from happy with the “justice” delivered by the FIA. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that Trulli may be compelled, like Amerigo Bonasera, to seek satisfaction elsewhere. For justice, Trulli may have to go and see a man like Don Corleone.

Gitau
30 April 2009

Button battles the blaze and wins again

When a driver complains about having burned his arse, you know something is not right. On his way to his third win of the season so far, Jenson Button found that the intense heat of the Sakhir circuit was doing more than cause him to perspire. His buttocks were being slowly cooked inside the cockpit of his Brawn car! I now understand the reason why Arab men wear long dresses. The temperatures experienced in that part of the world are literally bollock burning! It is so hot in Bahrain at this time of the year that people are driven to extremes of behaviour. We were told that a Hungarian chap called Merlini had been dipped into a water tank where he held his breath for half an hour before the start of the race. When he emerged, instead of scream “Alhamdulillah!” he kissed Bernie Ecclestone on the forehead. So you see my point: racing in Bahrain is a bad idea.

It is such a bad idea that even drivers outdo themselves in madness. When was the last time you saw team-mates crashing into other? It is perhaps permissible if the team in question is Force India and the drivers have to pay for the privilege of driving the crappy cars. But you do not expect it from any of the top teams with professional drivers who are paid millions just to get out of bed. Still less do you expect it from a team on the brink of a Mafia red alert for shaming the Italian nation. But it happened in Bahrain yesterday. On the first lap Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa had a coming together which forced Massa into the pits for emergency repairs and killed his prospects of earning any points in Bahrain. Ferrari seem to have forgotten the old adage: if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging!

The race yesterday was all about the first lap. Button knew that his failure to clinch pole position on Saturday meant that to win the race he was going to have to perform some kamikaze overtaking manoeuvres. And so he did in thrilling style, taking on and beating world champion Lewis Hamilton and Chinese race winner Sebastian Vettel. When Button got onto the podium to receive his trophy from a sheikh in a dress you could see every single one of his teeth – he was that happy. Three wins out of four and non-stop podium places this season, the question “Jenson who?” will never again be asked. When he got to his motor home for a much needed shower yesterday he was presented with a very long list of women who wished to have his babies. Why don’t things like that happen to me I wonder?

Jenson Button is now where everyone expected him to be when he first came into Formula One nine years ago. His father, John Button, must scratch his head in disbelief every day. He used to assist Lewis Hamilton’s father with helpful advice and tyres during Lewis’s early carting days and must have felt bittersweet emotions when Hamilton achieved the world championship last year ahead of Jenson whose own racing career then seemed gravely in danger. Now, the boy he named after an old (now dead) English car company, Jensen, is at the top of the tables and looking very good. It must feel rather special to be John Button now

I think it is reasonable to say that the diffuser issue is behind us now. The advantage enjoyed by Brawn Williams and Toyota is negated by the fact that Red Bull – one of the teams which did the most complaining about the “illegal” diffuser employed by the three teams – has enjoyed solid success in two consecutive races. First place in China and second place in Bahrain for Sebastian Vettel say a lot about the team’s performance notwithstanding the handicap of a less than clever diffuser. It also says a lot about the talent of the young German driver who is vastly looking like being a contender in this years drivers’ championship.

Speaking of the championship I hesitate about making predictions this early but it is not looking terribly good for any of the three world champions we have in the F1 paddock this year. Lewis Hamilton managed to get himself up to fourth place but it was a struggle. Fernando Alonso has never looked happy in his Renault since leaving McLaren and was only able to salvage one point from the Bahraini desert by fighting his way up to eighth place. Kimi Raikkonen managed to recover from his first lap incident and squeezed into sixth place (I suspect he was informed that some Sicilian chaps had been instructed to sharpen their weapons and make their way to Maranello if things did not begin to look better for the blood red racing cars). So we could well be swelling the list of past champions by a new name at the end of this year. Let us see. At least will have a great deal of fun along the way.

For everybody – Mafioso included – a return to Europe in a fortnight should bring welcome relief. By then Buttons buttocks should have healed.

Gitau
27 April 2009

Furrowed brows in Bahrain

Finding myself with time on my hands at Heathrow Airport last year, I decided to treat myself to a meal at the Oyster Bar in the middle of the terminal. At the recommendation of the enthusiastic Italian waiter, I ordered the “seafood surprise” and was soon tucking into a toothsome medley of lobster, crab and prawns washed down with a delicious, chilled Chablis. So engrossed was I in my meal, I all but failed to notice a pair of eyes fixed on my face from the other side of the bar. I only noticed the eyes when I came up for air and a sip of wine. They were the most hauntingly beautiful eyes I had ever seen. Green and piercing like those of a jungle cat and surrounded by an elegantly formed face of unblemished complexion and ringed by a mane of luscious auburn hair, the eyes seriously unsettled me. I found myself almost thrown off my stool in my state of discomposure. I let go of my fork and felt my breath proceed from my lungs in short pants. Things were not good.

Noticing my plight, the waiter ran to me with a glass containing a shot of Remy Martin and instructed me to drink it. The cognac brought some relief but the eyes never left me. I was rescued by a tannoy announcement that the British Airways flight to Bahrain was ready for boarding. The owner of the eyes – an elegantly formed, slim young lady with legs extending all the way to Iceland – got up and made her way round the bar towards where I was sitting. I thought she might want to speak to me but she instead swept past me towards the toilets somewhere behind me. Presently, the eyes returned but this time nothing else about their owner was visible. She was covered from head to toe in black Islamic female clothing. This time she paid no attention to me. All she did was pay her bill and depart from the Oyster Bar.

I was thinking about that mysterious woman as I considered what to write about the Bahrain Grand Prix which takes place this weekend. In many ways she was representative of the Kingdom of Bahrain. Unlike its loud, overly glitzy cousin, Dubai, Bahrain has maintained a calm sophistication for a very long time while retaining its roots as an Arab country. Dubai shouts “we are an international financial centre!” with little evidence beyond the shouting. Bahrain has had international banks operating out of Manama for decades. Importantly, while Dubai’s illusory wealth is built on a notion (“if we build it they will come”), Bahrain’s prosperity rests on real wealth: oil. Although I am disdainful of the notion of a desert Grand Prix, after five years I have come to accept that if there has to be one then there can be no better place for it in the Middle East than Bahrain.

The Bahrain Grand Prix arrives at a crucial point in this most topsy-turvy of Formula One seasons. Jenson Button is leading the world drivers’ championship ahead of the big guns at Ferrari, McLaren and BMW. This fact alone restores one’s faith in Formula One. For the first time in I don’t know how many years, the words of Prince’s thoughtful song “Money don’t matter tonight” make a great deal of sense in the weird world of Formula One (and perhaps in the straitened circumstances in which we all now live):

Money don't matter tonight It sure didn't matter yesterday Just when you think you've got more than enough That's when it all up and flies away That's when you find out that you're better off Makin' sure your soul's alright Cuz money didn't matter yesterday, And it sure don't matter tonight

Despite Max Mosley’s best efforts, the credit crunch has not yet been felt in certain parts of the F1 circus (although you can bet your house that it soon will be!). The big teams, in their arrogance, never expected that they might be wrong footed by the minnows – but they have. Kimi Raikkonen has gone as far as admitting that this season is pretty much over for Ferrari because they are at least a second behind the leading cars and can’t possibly breach the gap in time to make a meaningful difference. For the highest paid man in Formula One this is not exactly calamitous news. He has proved his talent already by winning a world championship and won’t particularly mind being let off for a few nights of “gentlemen’s entertainment” each week.

It will, however, be galling for Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton. There is unfinished business between them from last year. Hamilton won the championship by playing the points game adroitly but it cannot have escaped any keen observer’s notice that, outside the UK, Massa was the people’s champion. Not only did he win more races overall, he won the championship deciding race at his home in Sao Paulo but was denied the championship by McLaren mathematics.

It isn’t only Hamilton and Massa with reasons to be anxious this weekend. There has probably never been as talented and youthful a Formula One paddock as we have the privilege to be admiring today. The list of names is staggering: Jenson Button, Robert Kubica, Lewis Hamilton, Felipe Massa, Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen. Each of these chaps has it in them to be world champion in the right car and the right set of circumstances. I still think the best driver of these is Fernando Alonso but I am happy to view evidence to the contrary. It is too soon to say who among these worthy drivers is likely to gain an unassailable lead this year but I have a feeling that we are in for something of a surprise.

It’s not a great circuit and has never been a great race but in an unpredictable season like 2009, I would rather be watching the Bahrain Grand Prix than doing anything else. I hope you too will,

Enjoy Bahrain!

Gitau
24 April 2009

Vettel shows how its done

“It’s important to have a close relationship with a car,” said Sebastian Vettel before climbing into his car, driving imperiously through rivers of water and never-ending rainfall and winning his second ever Grand Prix (he won his first last year at Monza in Red Bull B car, Toro Rosso). Later, having been doused with winner’s champagne, Vettel expanded on the theme. "Like a ship, a car should be named after a girl as it's sexy," he said. "My original car was called Kate. But then it got smashed at the opening race in Australia. So we called this one Kate's Dirty Sister because it is more aggressive and faster." He is a man after my own heart this young driving genius. Until I decided to burnish my environmental credentials and give up automobiles, I had a series of sexy motors. One of them, Keiko, was so selfless that she gave up her life so that I could live. Another, Gretchen, guaranteed me lifelong notoriety.

It was clear last year that greatness beckoned for young Vettel. He seems to do things so effortlessly that it is very surprising to learn that he is yet to see his 22nd birthday. Pole position was secured without breaking a sweat on Saturday and he took command of a difficult race in atrocious conditions yesterday as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Between Vettel and Lewis Hamilton, one wonders who would have the measure of the other if put in the same car. After four years hard graft Red Bull seem finally to have a competitive car which Vettel and Mark Webber are putting to good use this season. I mean to say, what can be more satisfying than occupying the top two slots at the end of a race which could easily have ended up with both cars wrecked against a barrier? Contrast that with Ferrari who, with Force India, are yet to score a single point this season and the scale of Red Bull’s achievement comes sharply into perspective.

The race itself was weird. Heavy rain and standing water meant that it was deemed too dangerous to have a normal start and the first eight laps were driven behind the safety car. This irritated me a lot. What’s wrong with a decent crash at the first corner? That usually makes for excellent entertainment. This obsession with health and safety is emasculating the sport methinks…

Yesterday was all about grip. The cars with the best grip – Red Bull – easily stayed well ahead of the opposition. Rain master Lewis Hamilton found his car to be such a dog that no amount of kicking it would help. Lap after lap he would charge through the field and then aquaplane messily on standing water, spin and have to do all the hard work again. He even managed to get past Kimi Raikkonen three times. Raikkonen, meanwhile, was having one of those days when he could barely wait until the chequered flag came down so that he could pour himself a restorative martini.

If things were bad for Ferrari and McLaren, they were better than acceptable for Brawn GP. Although Jenson Button struggled to keep up with the two Red Bulls he was able to salvage third place and thus stretch his lead at the top of the championship standings. The man closest to him in points, team-mate Rubens Barrichello, squeezed in behind Button at fourth place so as to underline the supremacy of the Brawn cars in this year’s barmy season. Consistency is everything in Formula One. Race by race, Brawn are underlining their supremacy. If they keep this up they will be impossible to catch.

There is a chap who seems to have annoyed the Gods at some point in his life. Remember when Adrian Sutil in a crappy Force India was only four laps from finishing in an incredible fourth place when he was rear-ended by Kimi Raikkonen at Monza and forced to retire? Well, Raikkonen didn’t do it to him again but Sutil managed to aquaplane and smash his car against a barrier six laps from a brilliant sixth place. This was doubly cruel because it would have left Ferrari as the only pointless team.

So onward and upward. Three races into 2009 and Formula One does not look likely to give up on the thrills. As they say down my local pub, I am loving it!

Gitau
20 April 2009

Nerves in China

China is a country that makes people nervous. To the ear of the average non-Chinese man in the street, the language spoken by the people of China sounds incredibly strange, spooky even. When a Chinese woman serving you in a restaurant fixes you with a stare at the meanness of your tip, you instinctively reach for your wallet for fear of what might befall you at night. If you ask a Chinese man for help because you have blood pouring out of your arse, he will probably stick a couple of needles in your heel and miraculously solve the problem. And then there is the politics. While the Europeans decided after seventy odd years that Vladimir Lenin had been wrong after all, the Chinese hung on to communism but allowed themselves to rake in capitalist money with much gusto. Consequently, in these hand-wringing, awful recessionary days, the only chap who seems to be smiling is the man wearing a collarless jacket and eating spicy noodles. The Chinese, you see, live in a class by themselves.

A few years ago, I attended a celebratory luncheon with some bankers in Amsterdam at the conclusion of a much negotiated big loan transaction. The champagne still fizzing away inside me as I waited at Schipol airport for my flight back to London, I decided to continue the revelry by downing some more fizzy stuff. The barman I approached happened to be Chinese. “Shome more of that ekshellent fizz from Veuve Clicquot, if you please, my good man,” I said. The man looked at me with concern and shook his head. “Stomach will cause you trouble today,” he said. “Nonsense,” I said. “My lunch was shuperb, if you musht know, sho apply yourshelf to the task at hand and look sharp about it!” There rested the matter until the early hours of the next morning when a major explosion occurred in my tummy. I’ll spare you the details. Suffice to say that the Chinaman knew exactly what he was talking about.

So it is always with a touch of nerves that I contemplate the Chinese Grand Prix. This, the sixth year of this mysterious race, will probably be the most nervous Formula One outing for many a team principal. Squarely in the frame are McLaren’s Martin Whitmarsh and Ferrari’s Stefano Domenicali. For at least the last decade, the two teams have dominated the Formula One world almost to the exclusion of everybody else. Now, the racing world has been turned on its head. A little team called Brawn cleverly visited the Chinese oracle a year ago and have stolen a march on the big boys. So much so that it may take until the first European race (Barcelona) for the playing field to be levelled. By then Brawn in the hands of Jenson Button could be too far ahead to beat.

Like a man donating blood by slicing through his jugular vein with a carving knife, McLaren have chosen to damage themselves worse than any racing steward, FIA official or appeal court judge ever could. For a team with the numbers 1 and 2 on its 2009 cars, McLaren’s current self-destructive streak is impossible to understand. First they began the season with a car that was clearly not fit for purpose. So much time was spent celebrating Lewis Hamilton’s nail-biting championship win last year that insufficient attention was devoted towards the development of the 2009 car. Then, panicked by the bullet-proof reliability and sheer speed of the Brawn GP cars, the big brains at McLaren chose to engage in “rule engineering”. Seeing an opportunity to squeeze in six handy championship points for the team and Lewis Hamilton, the McLaren heavyweights decided forcibly to instruct the world champion to lie to the stewards at the Australian Grand Prix about the conduct of third placed driver, Jarno Trulli, under safety car conditions. This was stupid in the extreme and the team was rumbled pretty quickly by the conflicting evidence supplied by the tapes of Hamilton’s conversations with the team as the race progressed.

The fall-out at McLaren has been huge. The chap who issued the instructions to Hamilton has been sacked and Ron Dennis has announced an end to his career in motor racing. The latter action was probably taken to save the skin of Martin Whitmarsh who took over from Dennis as team principal this year. The damage to the reputation of wonder boy Hamilton is yet to be discerned. I think the lad will recover from this in the long term – Formula One has had many dishonest bastards in its time (think Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher) but their individual careers were never harmed. I doubt, though, that there is much more of a future at McLaren for Lewis Hamilton. Watch this space.

Ferraris woes may not be as gut-wrenching as McLaren’s but the team’s abysmal performance so far this season is causing a proud team to suffer dreadful anxiety attacks and receive heavy brickbats from angry Italian tifosi at home. I cannot remember when Ferrari last began a season so badly. They had hoped for the usual FIA favouritism they have enjoyed for years by being the prime movers behind the appeal against the Brawn cars, but this has backfired badly. The irony of the situation is that Ross Brawn, the man the Ferrari team now love to hate (they described him in court as “a man of supreme arrogance”) was the architect of Ferrari’s most successful period in Formula One. Ferrari know that the work required to remodel their cars is such that they could be a quarter of the way into the 2009 season before they win a single point! Domenicali may soon be looking for a home in England at this rate…

Meanwhile, the teams which didn’t go the way of Brawn, Toyota and Williams have frantically been working on new diffusers (part of the rear wing) back at their factories so as to stand a chance of being competitive. This is part of the disingenuousness that goes on in Formula One - they were doing this at the same time as launching court proceedings challenging the diffuser used by the three clever teams!

All of this amounts to a jolly interesting spectacle for us, the fans. There is so much unpredictability on and off the circuit that Formula One now feels like a new, more exciting sport. Who would ever hanker after the soporific, processional Schumacher days? Long may current form continue. When I think about the weekend ahead of us, I know I am safe in the knowledge that you will,

Enjoy Shanghai!

Gitau
17 April 2009

STOP PRESS!

Having evicted the Furious Fucks the police proceeded to board up the empty building behind mine (the words "Stable", "Door", "Horse" and "Bolted" spring to mind). But the Furious Fucks weren't going to leave without having the last word.

I am sure most UK taxpayers would empathise with what happened next. Last night, one or more of the more poetic Furious Fucks returned to the building with a can of spray paint. Across the new wooden boards the following words are now emblazoned: "Police + Bankers = Fucking Wankers".

It has a certain charm to it, wouldn't you say?

A Malaysian deluge

It is not unusual to have the timing of sporting events dictated by the demands of a wealthy audience. Perhaps the most famous example of this was the “Rumble in the Jungle”. To fit in with prime time American television, the Muhammed Ali v George Foreman fight in 1974 was held at 4:00 in the morning in Kinshasa. Similarly, Bernie Ecclestone has decided that European audiences are so important – particularly now when everyone is peering into a huge abyss where all the money disappeared – that races must be scheduled with their convenience in mind. It is for this reason that the race organisers scheduled the Malaysian Grand Prix for a 17:00 start rather than its traditional starting time two hours earlier.

Unlike the ’74 fight, which worked beautifully for everyone, choosing a 17:00 race starting time in the Malaysian monsoon season was an act of madness. Rain in the late afternoon is virtually guaranteed in that part of the world. But the rain in Malaysia is no ordinary London afternoon shower; it is a deluge akin to that visited upon the earth in the time of Noah. I listened to Sir Jackie Stewart express incredulity at the timing of the race. In his view if everyone knew that the heavens would open half an hour into the race, somebody ought to have rethought the idiocy of a delayed start. It’s like driving along, seeing that you are guaranteed to drive off a cliff but motoring ahead because the sat nav tells you to. So, for the first time since I saw a woman fly out of a window because she had dared question Ayrton Senna’s driving ability at the Australian Grand Prix in 1991, we had a race terminated prematurely because of impossible driving conditions.

The omens weren’t good for this Grand Prix. When women catapulted themselves out of the ladies’ lavatories at the Sepang circuit at the sight of a large snake on Thursday, the organisers should have gone back to the drawing board. They should have realised that the God’s of Sepang were in a bit of a bad mood.

Sure enough, half an hour into a race which Jenson Button was leading after having made a poor start from pole position, the Gods turned on the taps. By the time the safety car came along, you could see that it was pointless carrying on with the Malaysian Grand Prix. Within minutes the Sepang circuit became a lake. It was impossible to carry on – everybody could see that. Still, the race organisers had the drivers sit soaking in their cars for an entire fifty minutes while they contemplated what to do. Barmy. Eventually, the race was discontinued. Because it had not gone beyond the three quarter distance full points could not be allocated and the top drivers received half the points they would have received on a normal day – exactly what happened in Adelaide eighteen years ago.

While everybody sat pointlessly waiting for the inevitable, Kimi Raikkonen – a chap for whom behaviour is never dictated by rules and regulations – abandoned his Ferrari and could be seen eating a chocolate ice lolly in the Ferrari garage. Even in adversity the man has some style.

Yesterday’s extraordinary result means back-to-back wins for Jenson Button – a man I had long considered to be yesterday’s man. Button is the Lazarus of Formula One. I am sure he wakes up each morning and rubs his eyes in disbelief. Ferrari are yet to score a single point. McLaren have only one point and are in disarray since the stupid shenanigans in Australia. And the two Brawn GP drivers are first and second in the world championship battle. The only negative (if that is the right word) aspect is that Button and Barrichello received only half their allocation of points for coming respectively first and fifth yesterday and are, therefore, not as far ahead in the championship as they would otherwise have been.

Before I get carried away about Button and Brawn GP, I must remind myself that there is a real risk of him being stripped of every point he has earned this year. The other teams have protested that Brawn and Toyota (first and second yesterday) have exploited a legislation loophole in the design of their rear wing which has allegedly given them an unfair performance advantage. We shall have to wait and see what the decision of the FIA will be in Paris next week.

Meanwhile, one can only sit goggle-eyed. What a strange season this is turning out to be…

Gitau
06 April 2009

Malaysia ought to bring welcome relief from the G20

The G20 was in town this week and England’s loafers seized the opportunity to have a party. They weren’t content with standing on each others shoulders hoping to catch a glimpse of Barack Obama and his babelicious wife, Michelle, as the President’s unbelievably enormous limousine (nicknamed “the Beast”) swept into Buckingham Palace for an audience with Her Majesty the Queen. What they wanted was “red meat”. The idea was to burn a few banks, crucify some bankers, disembowel Sir Fred Goodwin (the former boss of the Royal Bank of Scotland) and generally have a jolly old knees-up in the City of London. These worthy individuals (let’s call them the “Furious Fucks” for convenience) had not quite factored PC Plod into their well worked plans. Plod phoned his mates from up and down the Kingdom and offered them a pint, a sandwich and a guaranteed punch-up. Plod’s mates liked the plan. The game was afoot.

When I arrived at work in the City yesterday, the building in which I work was surrounded by police vans and armoured vehicles. After verification of my identity, I was allowed in to join my colleagues in observing the battle between PC Plod’s mates and the Furious Fucks from a good vantage position. A division of the Furious Fucks had occupied an empty office building behind ours and were planning on using it as a sort of “operations centre”. PC Plod’s mates had other ideas. Dressed in full combat gear – black, battle suits, shields, helmets, everything – about a hundred of Plod’s mates moved in. The battle was short. The Furious Fucks appeared to be somewhat lacking in arm-to-arm combat training (someone should have words with their commanders). One by one we saw the Furious Fucks emerge in the company of Plod’s mates. Calmly, the Furious Fucks were offered a few free nights in one of Her Majesty’s institutions. They considered this, thought it to be a splendid idea and gratefully accepted. Battle over.

Unfortunately, the Furious Fucks had scattered themselves about the City in disparate groups. As I tried making my way home I found my speed somewhat slowed by a complete absence of public transport in the City. Bus drivers did not want to drive through the City and underground stations were closed in case the Furious Fucks decided to help themselves to useful things like ticket machines and turnstiles. I trudged home feeling increasingly infuriated by the Furious Fucks and hoped for a distraction. Thankfully, I did not have long to wait. This is the weekend of the Malaysian Grand Prix; a race I have invariably enjoyed since the first one in 1999.

After the revelation of the extraordinary promise of the Brawn cars last week in Australia and the stunning driving skills of Lewis Hamilton MBE, the stage was set for a thriller in Malaysia. But, once again, McLaren have managed to balls it all up for their highest paid employee. Hamilton has been disqualified from the third place he earned at the Australian Grand Prix because the team “deliberately misled” the race stewards about an overtaking manoeuvre Lewis Hamilton performed on Jarno Trulli. McLaren are spinning this as being down to their sports director, Dave Ryan, and nobody else. McLaren hardly need this. Only two years since an employee of the company, Mike Coughlin, was caught stealing Ferrari designs and having them photocopied in a branch of Prontoprint in Woking by his ignoramus of a wife, this is stupid. But that is a problem for McLaren.

Plenty will be said about this by the experts this weekend but my reaction has less to do with the incident and more with the manner in which these things are dealt with in Formula One. I am extremely irritated – and not for the first time.

Why oh why can we not have certainty at the end of a race? We whoop it up, crack open the bubbly and feel excited if our choice of driver does well in a race but are then told days later that, “er, actually chaps he’s been disqualified”. This after-the-fact stewarding is going to ruin the sport we love if these cretins aren’t careful. What do these idiots want: the fans to puke out the champagne, cork it up in the empty bottles retrieved from the dump and serve it up for the next race? Come on!

Which other sport treats its fans so shabbily? When was the last time you heard of a football or rugby match result altered days later because of a refereeing mistake? If this were the case in football, England would have been stripped of their 1966 world cup win and history would be different. If a driver or a team is deemed to have infringed the rules as a consequence of what is discovered by inspection of video evidence, that driver or team should be punished, but the race result should never ever be interfered with. I mean, for pity’s sake, is nothing sacred? I despair, I really do.

So here we are then; no points for Hamilton and McLaren and the Brawn team at the top of the table. Only a week has gone by since the last race, so the teams will not have had very much time to develop their cars. The performance and pace of the cars should, therefore, be pretty much the same as it was last week. Assuming the Brawn cars have no reliability issues – and anyway, why should they? – they must be the team to watch this weekend.

Ferrari don’t look too shabby either. Their history at Sepang is second to none since Michael Schumacher christened the track ten years ago, four months after breaking his leg, and taught everyone else a driving lesson. Kimi Raikkonen – one of three world champions this season - chose to sit out last season and I suspect will want to cement his reputation at a circuit he enjoys. He won at Sepang in a McLaren in 2003 and again – this time in a Ferrari – in 2008. I should think he’s the chap to be reckoned with.

The weather is always unpredictable in Malaysia and nothing gets the pulses racing better than a sometimes wet/sometimes dry motor race, so I can safely put this week behind me from Saturday morning and have a marvellous weekend. I hope you too will,

Enjoy Malaysia!

Gitau
03 April 2009