Over the past couple of days there have been rumours that McLaren’s explanation for the sudden loss of drive in Lewis Hamilton’s car is not true. Seemingly, Lewis Hamilton actually let his finger slip on the steering wheel. Apparently he hit the ’start’ button, which forced Hamilton into rebooting the system, a process which took around 20 to 30 seconds.

McLaren are denying this, just like they denied the incident where Lewis Hamilton swore at his boss in Hungary. Similarly they fell on their own sword in China when Hamilton retired with shot tyres, even though there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Hamilton himself was pushing the tyres way too hard.

Pitpass appear to be standing by their source with careful wording, adding, “you would not believe who it was that told him about Hamilton’s ‘error’.”

Meanwhile, the peerless F1Fanatic blog has come up with the goods that suggest that Hamilton’s problems were all of his own making.

Firstly, a quote which rather gives the game away. This is from Eurosport.

My finger slipped on the steering wheel and I accidentally pressed the button used for the starting sequence. The car went into neutral and I had to reinitialize the system, that is, reload the gearbox management program.

(Update 25/10/2007: The journalist who originally broke the story says that the quote did not come directly from Lewis Hamilton, but stands by his report.)

Then, F1Fanatic dredged up a video that shows Lewis Hamilton pressing a button just as he slows down. The replay is in slow-motion, so it is a little bit difficult to tell what speed he is going at. But note how going into the corner he keeps up with the cars in front. As he goes through the corner his hand slips over a button second from the left on his steering wheel. Soon afterwards, cars start whizzing past him.

Of course, the British mainstream media will completely ignore all of the evidence, preferring to believe that only bad luck and unreliable machinery robbed “our Lew” of the World Championship.

I can envisage Lewis Hamilton on the stage at Sports Personality of the Year. Sue Barker says, “And of course, if it wasn’t for that gearbox problem in the last race you would have been World Champion this year.” Hamilton smiles guiltily.

And that’s saying something!

And would you credit it, it was by ITV-F1. WHY LEWIS IS TAKING THE FLAK, the headline screams, stomping its feet.

The article by Mark Hughes (who is normally one of the more sensible ITV-F1 people) starts as it means to go on, by taking a true event and completely twisting it out of shape:

When Lewis Hamilton put his car into the Shanghai pit lane’s gravel trap there was a lot of spontaneous and ill-concealed cheering in the non-British sector of the press room.

Yeah, do you know why? Because it was a spectacular event that turned the season on its head, just like when Nigel Mansell’s tyre exploded or when Michael Schumacher’s engine exploded last year. Not cheering when Hamilton beached his car in the gravel trap would be like not cheering when a goal is scored in the 89^th minute of the football World Cup final. Only the most partisan of people would be unable to see this.

For an explanation from journalists — journalists who are British, but who aren’t hopelessly biased like the morons at ITV — of exactly why there would be cheering in the press room, just listen to the latest edition of the BBC (yes, that is British Broadcasting Corporation) Chequered Flag podcast.

David Croft: You mentioned a stampede in the press room. I hear there was quite a cheer in the press room as well when Lewis went out. Is that right?

Jimmy Roberts: Well, it was more a cheer of… Unbelievable scenes. We can’t imagine what we’re watching. The thing is, Formula 1 — it never fails to excite, it never fails to generate moments of sheer sporting drama. It reminded me of when Nigel Mansell’s tyre blew in 1986, and it was just one of those moments where you just have to shout. There was just pandemonium.

[...]

Maurice Hamilton: I remember the reaction in ‘86. It’s an exclamation! “Whoa, look at that! How did that happen?” And the same thing, there’s Lewis Hamilton stuck in the gravel trap. I think the vision of that McLaren beached with its rear wheels spinning in the gravel will just live with Formula 1 forever. It’s one of those emblematic shots that people will forever remember.

In short, history was being made in front of our eyes. How can you just sit there? Despite the fact that even British mainstream journalists can see this, Mark Hughes is playing the usual game that British MSM journalists have been playing. According to them, it’s Brits versus the world (and Spain in particular).

You could even see this in some of the press coverage of the Stepneygate scandal, where some consumers of news were left with the impression that there was golden boy Britain’s Lewis Hamilton keeping his nose clean. It was those dirty Spaniards, Pedro de la Rosa and Fernando Alonso, who were at the centre of all this!

Let us just gloss over the fact that the real people who were at the centre of the scandal — Nigel Stepney and Mike Coughlan — were both British. But this just doesn’t fit in with the story that the racist British media wants to project. In this ITV-F1 article, Mark Hughes is pressing all of the same buttons, albeit a bit more subtly. You ought to be able to expect better from the country’s biggest commercial broadcaster. But I have given up.

Mark Hughes carries on through the article. I really wish it was good, but I am afraid it is just straw man after straw man.

Even Hamilton’s summoning for the marshals to push him out of the gravel was greeted with jeering by onlookers.

Just as it was when Michael Schumacher did the same thing. British journalists weren’t too keen about Michael Schumacher got pushed out of the gravel either. But even Schumacher never used a crane to re-join the race. Interestingly, Mark Hughes makes no mention of the crane incident anywhere in his article.

He goes on to take a look at Hamilton’s “on-track etiquette” before going on to talk about a number of Lewis Hamilton’s moves. Unfortunately, he paints a picture that all of the complaints about Hamilton’s etiquette are about hard moves. This is simply not the case.

Even so, though, let’s not forget how put out Hamilton was when Alonso played a similarly hard move on Hamilton at the Belgian Grand Prix. It’s so different when the boot’s on the other foot, huh? The other drivers lived with it, while Hamilton just started moaning about it.

Mark Hughes then completely twists the tale of Hamilton’s erratic driving behind the Safety Car at Fuji, completely glossing over the real issues. He mentions the first re-start, when Alonso was behind Hamilton. There is one particular point about this paragraph that makes me laugh so much (emphasis mine)!

On the restart behind the first safety car in Fuji he was perhaps a little over-aggressive in getting the jump on Alonso, braking so hard that Alonso (technically illegally) passed him to avoid an accident.

I love it! When Fernando Alonso does something technically illegal it merits a mention. As one of Hamilton’s defenders, Tom, said in the comments on another post on this blog, this rule is really a grey area — particularly if the car in front is effectively brake-testing.

But when Lewis Hamilton does something which is actually illegal, it is completely glossed over or just downright ignored in this article. The incident that provided the most controversy — the one when Hamilton brake-tested Webber and Vettel — does not get a single mention in this article. Yet this is the incident where it has been proved that Hamilton broke two rules.

First of all, Hamilton was driving erratically. This is against the rules, and there is no room for games behind the Safety Car. Drivers are not racing, and the purpose of the Safety Car is to make the track safer and to stop drivers from doing dangerous things. Hamilton did the complete opposite — as we can see from the number of accidents that happened in Safety Car periods compared to during the race.

Secondly, Hamilton strayed more than five car lengths behind the Safety Car. This is not some technicality that the FIA put in there for the hell of it. The Safety Car is designed to bunch the drivers up. This is partly to give the marshals plenty of time to clean up on-track debris. If the cars are more spread out, the marshals have less time (and less safety) to do this. Hamilton had complete disregard for this rule.

The FIA have since changed the rules so that a leader is allowed ten car lengths. This trick of changing a rule after it has been broken is usually reserved for pro-Ferrari purposes. And oh, how many times the British media has lambasted the FIA for it.

Hamilton effectively brake-tested Webber. Webber slowed down to avoid being “technically illegal” just like Alonso was. This is what caused Vettel to go straight into the back of him. It was all Hamilton’s fault, and you can see this in the video. But the British media just aren’t prepared to admit this — and you can see this in the fact that Mark Hughes has completely ignored this incident in his article.

So anyone with some vague notion of “Hamilton being controversial behind the Safety Car in Japan” will have the impression that Hamilton was completely in the right after reading this article. In reality, Mark Hughes has skirted round the issue completely. Nice piece of obfuscation there.

I find the views expressed by Alan Permane and Steve Nielsen in the latest Renault podcast interesting. You could say that they had a vested interest in Hamilton losing the Japanese Grand Prix, although they also say that he shouldn’t have been disqualified from the race, but given a grid penalty for China. Besides which, I think you would struggle to find many sensible F1-heads (that is, F1-heads that don’t have a vested interest in a British driver succeeding) disagreeing much with what they say.

Steve Nielsen: During the race, the only time we became aware of it was when the FIA came onto the intercom to us and said that Heikki [Kovalainen] should watch his distance to Lewis. Which is very unusual. What was implied was that we were too close — dangerously close — and so we conveyed that message to Heikki. And it wasn’t really until after the race, talking to a couple of the other drivers, and then the now famous bit of film that was on YouTube, that we became aware that Lewis actually was far from innocent in all of that and that his driving was questionable — very questionable in a couple of instances. And my own personal view is that he caused the accident between Vettel and Webber.

Alan Permane: Yeah, I find it a bit odd that Vettel got penalised, then they realised that actually it was not his fault, but we’re not going to penalise anybody. To me it was Lewis’s fault.

SN: And at that very race on Friday in the drivers briefing, Charlie [Whiting] told both the McLaren drivers that their driving behind the Safety Car at Monza — which was two races previous — had not been good enough. It was too erratic. And Lewis had a kind of — not a problem with it, but he certainly raised concerns and said he thought it was okay and was surprised that it wasn’t okay. And yet here we are two days later and he repeated it. And as Alan’s just said, for that to go totally unpunished, I’m a bit surprised at.

AP: What I find strange is that they felt that punishment was needed. And Vettel got that punishment. And then when the blame was reapportioned, or it was figured out it wasn’t [Vettel's] fault, that punishment [should] still [be] there, so whose fault was it? I don’t think it was just a racing incident or one of those things. It clearly looks like Lewis stops the car and it causes a bit of a pile-up. I think to exclude him from Fuji would have been way too much. That really would have been unfortunate for the Championship. But maybe a grid penalty or something in China, I dunno. Anyway, that’s all history now.

It is painfully clear to me that the FIA were aware that Lewis Hamilton was driving dangerously behind the Safety Car. Not only had they warned him about his driving at Monza, but they were also aware that he was doing exactly the same thing during the Japanese Grand Prix. We know this because after the accident between Vettel and Webber, Heikki Kovalainen was told by the FIA to keep an extra distance behind Hamilton during Safety Car periods.

Yet, they didn’t punish Hamilton for it. Yes, Hamilton really is getting all of the flak, isn’t he!

Back to Mark Hughes’s article.

There was also some glee from his detractors when Ron Dennis revealed that the circumstances leading to Alonso’s blocking of Hamilton in the Hungary pit lane during qualifying had been triggered by Hamilton’s non-compliance with a team request at the beginning of the session.

This, for me — and many other F1 fans — is the defining moment of Hamilton’s career so far. Yet, once again, Mark Hughes completely glosses over it. He even implies that Hamilton’s actions were somehow mitigated by the fact that there was “glee from [Hamilton's] detractors”. Give me a break!

Why do we have to keep on putting up with ITV’s awful, biased coverage?

Sorry! Very late once again. Very busy weekend once again. I’m actually staying up well past my bedtime to write this post. (And not because I’m waiting to see if In Rainbows is released this evening, oh no!)

Anyway, the Chinese Grand Prix was just the sort of classic race that reminds you why you love F1 (that is, unless you actually hate F1). There is Lewis Hamilton, looking like a dead cert for the championship. Then, in an instant, the all-too-impatient Hamilton makes his first major mistake of the year. And what a mistake. And what a time for it to happen! This is what F1 is all about.

I simply could not believe my eyes when it was happening. First of all there was the fact that Hamilton beached it in a gravel trap — a gravel trap that most people probably did not know existed, given its obscure position on the outside of the pit lane entrance. What an irony, with all of these modern tracks shunning the old-fashioned gravel traps in favour of huge concrete run-off areas, and Lewis Hamilton got stuck in a tiny trap that was barely big enough for him to park in anyway.

There was an amusing moment when James Allen said, “He might not be allowed to get a push here.” Not that this minor quibble has stopped Hamilton from using a crane to get back into the race in the past.

After spending a while trying to persuade the nonplussed Chinese marshals to push him out of the gravel, Hamilton finally gave up. He pulled out his steering wheel, stood up and immediately turned round to look at the marshals in disgust. I wonder what he was trying to say to the marshals?

Don’t you know who I am? I am Britain’s Lewis Hamilton™! I am the greatest rookie ever (apart from Jacques Villeneuve)! Just three races into my career I was already the fifth-best Grand Prix driver in history — imagine how good I must be now! You know, in Europe they know which side their bread is buttered on — I usually get the crane treatment there.

All joking aside though, I actually felt a bit sorry for Hamilton. While he must shoulder the blame for going into the pits too impatiently, the McLaren team were obviously completely off their rocker to leave him out for so long on tyres that were effectively dead.

I was sitting here watching the race, along with Formula1.com’s excellent live timing service. The drop-off in Hamilton’s performance was dramatic. What’s more, it was getting worse. When Räikkönen was catching up with Hamilton, there was a point where Hamilton lost four seconds in two laps. The following lap, having been passed by the Finn, he lost seven seconds in one lap to Alonso.

McLaren say they were waiting to see if it was going to start raining again. But — uncertainty about the weather or not — you simply cannot leave a driver out there when he is losing upwards of seven seconds per lap. I guess it would have been a risk either way, but given the results the team ended up looking a bit stupid. McLaren made a huge error there and it could cost them the championship.

But before all those ITV viewers start sending those angry missives to the McLaren team, here is something to chew on — the dreadful state of the tyres could have been completely down to Hamilton’s over-aggressive driving.

At the start of the race, Hamilton absolutely blitzed away. He just sped off, leaving the others looking a bit silly. It turned out that Hamilton was the silly one. By setting his fastest laps when his car was heaviest with fuel, he completely ruined his tyres. Meanwhile, Räikkönen waited until lap 15 before he started putting his foot down — and those laps put Hamilton’s early ones in the shade. By that time Hamilton’s tyres had been ruined, and the game was up. The full analysis is at F1Fanatic, and it’s fascinating (if you like that sort of thing).

Questions have to be asked overall about the approach that Hamilton and McLaren took to this race. Remember, to secure the championship, Hamilton only needed to finish 5^th. Yet they were taking these risks with the tyres, Hamilton was just impatient to get away from Räikkönen at the start of the race. Then when Räikkönen caught up he wasted his tyres yet again by putting up a fight that he was always going to lose.

So why did he seem so desperate to take so many risks in order to win instead of playing it safe? A lot of people will say that it’s just because of the way Hamilton is. He only wants to win. Maybe so, but his approach only gave him failure.

A lot of people point out the fact that Hamilton is a real racer and a risk-taker, in stark contrast to many other F1 drivers. I can’t help wondering if the other drivers just have wiser, more balanced approaches to their races. if Hamilton learns from this race, perhaps in the future it will be seen as a turning point in Hamilton’s career — when he learned to be conservative like the other drivers.

There is another fascinating thing that I read on F1Fanatic, in the Ben Evans column. I’ve mentioned before about Hamilton not being so good in the wet, although Fuji seemed to put that to bed (if you decide to ignore his dreadful driving behind the Safety Car). But Shanghai has opened it all up again. This was without doubt the worst race of his F1 career so far, and it demonstrated his weakness in the wet. Ben Evans says:

Interestingly, following the European Grand Prix in July a racing acquaintance who ran a Formula Renault team at the same time Hamilton was in the series commented ‘He’s bloody quick, but has no feel for the car in changeable conditions’. Thus it was at the Nürburgring and again appeared to be the case on Sunday.

It was the reverse case for Jenson Button. What a superb drive he put in on Sunday. To get that Honda car into fifth position demonstrates just how good he is in the wet. It is amazing to see — after such a terrible season in a dog of a car — that he could put all that behind him and put in a solid performance. Button has gone up in my estimation a lot this season, particularly since he seems to have put Barrichello in the shade.

Big mention also for Toro Rosso. They really are having a strong end to the season now, and Sebastian Vettel is a revelation. When he moved to Toro Rosso, the joke was that Vettel had scored a point in his first race (for BMW), but by moving to Toro Rosso he was guaranteed to wait 18 months for his next one! Not when Vettel is at the wheel though. What a way to bounce back after his Fuji mishap.

Don’t forget also that Vitantonio Liuzzi scored three points for Toro Rosso as well. All-in-all, a brilliant race for Toro Rosso. I couldn’t help thinking to myself, “Forza Minardi!” Despite Button’s good haul of points, Toro Rosso leapfrogged over Honda in the Constructors’ Championship.

As for the Drivers’ Championship, Hamilton still has the best chance, but obviously it looks as though he has lost a lot of the momentum. Dead cert going into China, a bit shaky going into Brazil. It’s incredible how there seems to be some kind of mystical force that makes sure the championship is usually decided at the final round.

There are a number of mouth-watering possibilities. If any one of the three contenders win, they will thoroughly deserve it.

Hamilton has had a barnstorming début season. He has beaten everyone’s expectations. He has made some amazing overtaking manoeuvres that have made amazing drivers look silly. His qualifying performances have been nothing short of unbelievable. He has rattled Alonso. But, I still doubt that he is truly ready to be World Champion. If conditions at Interlagos are changeable (as they often are), he will be in big danger.

If Alonso wins the World Championship, it would be an equally amazing achievement. A back-to-back triple world champion is not something you see every day. Well, okay, apart from in 2004. But, Alonso would achieve it with two different teams, which is a real rarity. It’s not easy to move teams (and boy, has Alonso’s experience been proof of that!), but Alonso has put all the nonsense behind him and delivered solid results on the track. Also, I would love to see the look on Anthony Hamilton’s face if Alonso wins the Championship!!

But I would be happiest if Räikkönen won the Championship. Yes, I hate Ferrari. And yes, I generally like McLaren. But the conduct of both of McLaren’s drivers this year has put me off them both a bit.

Räikkönen is long overdue a World Championship. It is a long shot. Due to the bumpy nature of Interlagos, McLaren will have the upper hand. Räikkönen will be relying on Alonso getting a bit of the Iberian red mist descending, and crashing himself into Hamilton. Most importantly of all, I would laugh so much if Räikkönen won the Championship. It would be the funniest thing ever. Imagine the protagonists of the whole Championship, Alonso and Hamilton, being gazumped by Räikkönen. They they would both be pissed off with everyone and everything. I might never stop laughing.

Despite what I have written about Lewis Hamilton’s actions behind the Safety Car over the past couple of days, I think the FIA’s decision was the correct one (it’s not often I say that!). Hamilton broke the rules, but it was not the sort of thing that merited a serious punishment. A slap on the wrists or a fine perhaps, but not points deductions or anything like that.

But I don’t like the implication from the biased British media that Hamilton was found “not guilty”. Remember that Sebastian Vettel’s punishment was taken away from him. There has only been one major piece of new evidence since Sunday, and we all know what that shows.

Of course, the British media is absolutely unbearable when it comes to this sort of thing. Mark Blundell was on ITV this morning criticising the fact that the stewards have never driven a Grand Prix car before, so they’re bound not to know what it’s like. That’s funny, I don’t remember him making such a criticism before, but there you go.

It’s also quite amusing because Blundell would know a lot about not being qualified for your job. He is, after all, a broadcaster who has a shockingly poor grasp of the English language.

Funny also how all of the other Grand Prix drivers seem to have been criticising Hamilton as well. Mark Blundell conveniently ignored this point. After being grilled by his colleagues, Hamilton said:

It was a bit disappointing because I knew a few of the drivers there and I didn’t expect them to say certain things.

Perhaps it’s time to admit when you are in the wrong.

In a way, the FIA couldn’t really have risked giving Hamilton a larger penalty because they would have been accused of manipulating the championship. It’s a sign of the sorry state of affairs that the FIA has found itself in. It is constantly being accused of bias one way or another and of manipulating this and that.

There are a few measures that I would like to see the FIA bring in to help prevent this.

1. When the race result is announced, it should not be changed

   I think there should be a time limit on when the race result can be changed. This is not to say that teams should not be able to appeal or that stewards should be unable to punish bad driving. But there should be a time limit for when a team can appeal a result. Something like six hours for instance. This does not even necessarily mean that the result has to be set in stone — just that we know what is going on. For a race result to come under question several days after the event is simply unacceptable.
   (This would be the case for drivers breaking the rules, but should be different in case a car is found to be illegal. But illegal parts on a car ought to be caught during scrutineering anyway.)

2. Stewards in one race should not rule on something that happened in another race

   For the second time this year, the stewards have found themselves ruling on something that happened in another race. This week the Chinese GP stewards had to discuss something which had already been discussed by the Japanese stewards. This is not on really. It is like a referee at a football match giving someone a yellow card for something a footballer did in his previous match.

3. Make penalties more sensible and predictable

   Whenever somebody is in trouble, you simply do not know what kind of punishment they are going to get. I once saw somebody referring to ‘The FIA Random Penalty Generator’ and it really is true. Disqualification? 10 place grid penalty? Drive through penalty? Start the race from the pits? Points docked? Seconds added to your time? We just don’t know which of these punishments will be used at a particular time. The stewards appear to award penalties in a completely arbitrary manner. It is no wonder people wonder about possible FIA bias. This must be sorted out, as a matter of priority.

What happened during the Japanese Grand Prix is actually a good case in point. Robert Kubica was given a drive-through penalty for being involved in an accident with Lewis Hamilton. Now, Kubica’s move was quite ambitious and he was unlikely to be able to pull it off, but did it really merit a drive-through? After all, other drivers crash into each other all the time and never get so much as a slap on the wrists. It’s kind of seen as part of the territory of motor racing.

You have to wonder when Fernando Alonso got whacked pretty hard by Sebastian Vettel. Unlike Hamilton, Alonso sustained quite bad damage to his car. Did Vettel get punished? Of course not — the FIA is biased against Alonso and in favour of Hamilton.

I know some people don’t believe me when I say that the FIA is biased in favour of Hamilton and that he is the successor to Michael Schumacher in this regard. To me, it is clear in the FIA’s eyes that the departure of Schumacher has left a void, and they have decided that Wonder Boy Britain’s Lewis Hamilton shall fill that void. (I believe it is actually illegal to say ‘Lewis Hamilton’ without prefixing it with ‘Britain’s’.)

There is a resentment about the fact that Alonso was able to beat Michael Schumacher fair and square, when Schumacher had no excuses. Alonso is the only driver ever to have managed this (apart from possibly Mika Häkkinen, and he only did it once, not twice like Alonso did).

But don’t ask me if the F1 establishment favours Hamilton. Ask the F1 establishment itself.

Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone has hailed Lewis Hamilton as the saviour of the sport…

“Lewis Hamilton has been a real breath of fresh air and has resurrected Formula One,” Britain’s Guardian newspaper quoted commercial rights holder Ecclestone, who is not in Shanghai, as saying…

“We lost a big hero in Michael Schumacher but in Lewis we have another. But for him, I’m not sure where the sport would be heading.”

Straight from the horse’s mouth.

There is no doubt that the mess that the FIA and Formula 1 as a whole currently finds itself in is directly the fault of its power-mad President Max Mosley. A lot of people have been criticising the FIA’s bad management recently (not just the Hamilton investigation, but the bungled email to the teams about tyres at Fuji).

Max Mosley seems to do business on the basis of personal vendettas and the FIA’s institutional pro-Ferrari bias rather than anything to do with notions of fairness or merit. This year’s witch-hunt against McLaren is a case in point — all to do with Max Mosley’s personal dislike of Ron Dennis.

Then there are the extraordinarily offensive comments he made about Jackie Stewart, somebody who had the cheek to criticise the FIA’s handling of the Stepneygate row. Doesn’t he know that people are not allowed to criticise Mosley?

Mosley said: “There’s one particular ex-driver who because he never stops talking, never has the chance to listen — so he doesn’t know what’s going on.

“He said the FIA’s decision would not have worked in a civil court. He has no qualification to say that.

“Then he starts saying this is personal between me and Ron Dennis, at great length, because everything he does is at extreme length.

“It’s annoying that some of the sponsors listen to him because he’s won a few championships. But nobody else in Formula One does — not the teams, not the drivers. He’s a figure of fun among drivers.”

Mosley, presumably alluding to the tartan trousers and cap Stewart wears to races, added: “He goes round dressed up as a 1930s music hall man. He’s a certified halfwit.”

The comment about Jackie Stewart being a “certified halfwit” is seen as a reference to Stewart’s dyslexia. Damon Hill says all that needs to be said in his letter to Autosport magazine.

Update: Pitpass also has a good article on Max Mosley’s comments about Jackie Stewart.

With such contemptuous regard for his fellow inhabitants, one has to wonder what Mosley really feels about the diminutive former second-hand car salesman who not only facilitated his entry to Planet Paddock but has allowed him to enjoy the sort of totalitarian power trip his name prevented him enjoying in the real world.

You don’t often see professional media outlets referring to the fact that Max Mosley is the son of fascist leader Oswald Mosley. Some believe that Max Mosley really wanted a career in politics, but was advised against it due to who is father was. So rather than fucking up the country, Max Mosley decided to go into motor racing politics instead so that he could fuck up motor racing.

One of the most common criticisms about Formula 1 is the fact that often it is just the driver of the best car who wins. They’re only half right. The reality is far worse than that.

Not only did last week see the exit of Michael Schumacher from Formula 1, but it also saw the exit of the Michelin tyre company. With a control tyre due to be brought in by the FIA for 2008, it has brought to an end the tyre war for the foreseeable future.

With more and more restrictions being placed on chassis and engine development, most time can be gained through improvements in tyre technology. It is said that 2006’s tyres were 2 seconds per lap faster than 2005’s. The rivalry between Bridgestone and Michelin had become increasingly competitive over the past few years.

Here is an extract from an article by Paul Kimmage in The Sunday Times from a couple of months ago.

At a press conference the next afternoon at the [Istanbul] circuit, [Jenson Button] is joined on stage by fellow drivers David Coulthard, Kimi Raikkonen and Tiago Monteiro. A French journalist raises his hand and asks, “Question to you all: who will win the world championship? Schumacher or Alonso?” The four give the same reply: the championship will basically be decided by the team with the best tyres. The journalist is annoyed. What? No names? No opinions? “We’ve given our opinions,” Button insists. “We can’t see into the future. We don’t know what’s going to happen.”

We meet an hour later and I pull him up on it again. “What was all that corporate crap? Why couldn’t you give the guy a straight answer: Alonso or Schumacher? As a journalist and a fan, I find that absolutely infuriating.”

“Because it’s the truth,” he says. “It will all come down to the tyres.”

“The tyres,” I repeat, incredulous.

“The tyres, 100%,” he insists.

Kimmage might not have believed him, but it is true. Over the past few years if a driver won the World Championship the tyre manufacturer got the credit. If Schumacher qualified on pole it was because Bridgestone produced a good qualifying tyre. If Alonso won the race it was because Michelin had produced a good race tyre.

In reality, we no longer had a Drivers’ Championship or a Constructors’ Championship. All we had left was a glorified Tyre Championship in all but name. It’s not as heroic as a driver standing up on his seat to win a race. It’s not as sexy as a constructor pushing the boundaries of technology to make their car better. Formula 1 had come down to four — literally — black boxes. Elements that are peripheral to the cars became central to the championship.

Competition is good. It drives improvement. But the thing about tyres is that because they’re black boxes you simply don’t see that improvement. Today’s Formula 1 tyres look almost exactly the same as they did in 1998, even if what goes inside them has developed radically.

The only way we can actually see a tyre making a difference is by looking at a list of lap times. It’s not like watching a driver making an audacious overtaking manoeuvre, a team making improvements to their car design or even the crew executing a slick pit stop. Put simply, tyres are boring. End of.

At first the tyre war added another variable into the mix; a new angle to look at the Championship at. But by the end it had overwhelmed the entire Championship. It drowned out all of the other elements that make motor racing what it is.

Alonso ran away with the first half of the season. When Michael Schumacher made his comeback it was accompanied by a Toyota resurgence at certain races. That wasn’t because of anything Schumacher or Toyota did. It wasn’t not a coincidence that Ferrari and Toyota both used Bridgestone tyres.

Here is what F1Fanatic had to say on the morning of qualifying at the Chinese Grand Prix.

The Toyota drivers Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli, whose average starting positions this year prior to Japan were 10.38 and 11.19, are third and fourth. The swing in tyre performance is so great that its making a mockery of the endeavours of teams and drivers - just as it did to Michael Schumacher and Ferrari last year.

The tyre war has provoked some cripplingly dull races this year when either Michelin or Bridgestone have been miles ahead, handing Alonso and Schumacher some very uncomplicated wins.

I couldn’t agree more. This season might have had a topsy-turvy championship because of the competition between the tyre manufacturers. But a lot of the races themselves — particularly at the start of the season — were shockingly dull, simply because one tyre company would have such a huge and obvious advantage over the other.

F1Fanatic also makes reference to a piece by Mark Hughes in favour of the tyre war. Some F1 fans have relished the tyre war because it has often made things exciting. But that just shows up the big problem with Formula 1 at the moment. How many people can honestly say that they started watching motor racing because they were interested in tyres? Any takers? Surely not. Motor racing is about great drivers and great cars — not bits of rubber.

When Kimi Räikkönen lost the 2003 World Championship, it was blamed on 23 laps of the rain-hit United States Grand Prix when the Bridgestones had a 1.4 second per lap advantage on a drying track. Those crucial 23 laps were, so Michelin said in the December 2003 edition of F1 Racing magazine, the only laps where Bridgestones were faster than the Michelins. And it won Schumacher the championship.

It might have made that particular aspect of the championship interesting. But I don’t want to see a driver win the Drivers’ Championship because he has superior rubber. Nor do I want to see a constructor win the Constructors’ Championship because it happens to use the best tyres. It makes a mockery of the whole idea of racing. You might as well just take one Bridgestone and one Michelin and roll them down a hill to decide who wins the championship.

So good riddance to the tyre war. If it means that next year’s season has fewer twists and turns, then so be it. At least I will be able to see what makes a winning team — because it will no longer be concealed in those anonymous black boxes.