thinkCAR

I’ve been reading the motorsport press the last couple of weeks and it appears that Flavio, Pat and Bob are in for a bit of an ar*e reaming from the FIA; Legionnaire style. Moreover, it appears that none of the broadsheets who were so quick to condemn McLaren have even registered the potential enormity of the court hearing on Dec 6th

In short (all info gleaned from autosport.com and autocar mag):

- It is claimed that some 30+ separate files of McLaren-owned infomation (all stored on over 40 floppy discs) containing some total of 40+ MB of data were loaded onto Renault’s IT system in September 2006
- The data includes, but is not limited to: 700+ drawings of the technical blueprints of McLaren’s 2006 and 2007 cars (incl gearbox designs and weights, suspension dimensions and loadings, etc etc)
- These files were allegedly then loaded onto 10+ individual Renault F1 user account systems, and discussed by more than 15 senior Renault personnel.

Is it possible that this data played ZERO part in the design of Renault’s 2008 challenger (as Flavio would have us believe)? Oh pleeeease…..
If this is all true, then Ron’s *mere* $ 100M fine looks a paltry pile of “merde” compared to the enormous Eiffel Tower of poulet-poop that potentially faces Flavio and his crew. How will Carlos (tighter than a knat’s chuff) Ghosn feel when he gets whacked with a fine big enough to pay for a million new Laguna’s? I do seem to remember “Ze fraaaanch createurs des automobiles” pulling out of F1 on occasion in the past if it suits them.

But…..as severe as the potential penalties could be; (this may sound strange btw) I can’t help but feel sympathy for Renault and McLaren (huh?)
One one hand, they are/were *technically* in posession of intellectual data from another company.

But….

…on the other, in the context of a sport, does it really warrant civil litigation and monumental big_company fines? I think not. I have a book upstairs which regails readers of early day F1 antics: cars being sabotaged the night before a race in the pits: mechanics arriving the morning of the race to find wheels, brake discs and even engines missing. Did anyone blub about it or go to court? Nope. they just got on with it. Bring back the gladiators I say; Hunt (RIP), Lauda, Colin Chapman RIP, Ken Tyrell RIP - THAT is what the sport was founded on. Poor old Frank and Patrick (whom I would class with Ken, Niki, James et al) must be choking on their Veltins (as is Ron, poor chap). The whole current situation is glib, totally arbitrary and sh*te

And it’s all Ferrari’s fault.

No….seriously. (stop laughing)

Think about it - they’ve done a quite masterful job of covering the fact that:
a) They were cheating (with the flexible floor thing) ((and in fact escaped punishment) and…
b ) They had some employees who were clearly prepared to blow the whistle.

After all, it was hardly as if McLaren hired a team of crack commando’s to absail down the walls of Maranello at nightfall; overcome the guards, steal a CD “Mission-Impossible” style before escaping in a vapour of ninja dust is it?  It’s company/civil litigation and company-law being applied to a *sport*.  I mean, imagine if we take this to it’s logical conclusion - then teams wil start patent-ing designs so no-one else can use them. Wheels, wings, so on and so forth will not be able to be used by other teams. Can you imagine where we would be if Lotus did that with ground-effect?  It’s ridiculous.

It’s a shame really….and proof if ever needed that F1 whilst being a thrilling spectacle, is no longer a *sport* and is just a an enormous extended ad break for all of the glib sponsors (who wouldn’t dare say boo to a daring advert), during which some cars go round a track. I still love it, I just wish someone would take these annoying little prats like Todt to a far-off forest and give them a good shoe-ing.

</rant over>