Archive: conspiracy-theories

Well there has been a lot of controversy over who got penalised by the stewards at the French Grand Prix and who didn’t. And once again McLaren are at the centre of it all.

After the Canadian Grand Prix I pointed out that Lewis Hamilton was beginning to show a worrying inability to accept when he has made a mistake. They say you learn from your mistakes, but Hamilton would rather stick his head in the sand under the mistaken impression that this makes him “very strong mentally“.

Andy at Brits on Pole suggested that there are signs that a siege mentality is forming within McLaren. Asked about the three penalties that McLaren have been handed in quick succession, Ron Dennis said on ITV, “Draw your own conclusion.”

In fairness, Martin Whitmarsh quickly put a lid on the story. However, he still pointed out that it was the opinion of the McLaren team that the penalty handed to Lewis Hamilton during the French Grand Prix was not justified.

I can understand that the people at McLaren are a bit fragile these days after the FIA put them through the wringer in the way that they did last year. I particularly worry about Ron Dennis who is beginning to look like he constantly has to bite his tongue. He is probably trying to keep a lot of pent-up anger bottled in. This leads me to think that McLaren are slightly losing control of the situation and their ability to make rational decisions has been compromised.

Among all of the hyperbole, here are some facts. McLaren broke (or, more accurately, a McLaren driver) broke the rules three times in quick succession. First of all, Hamilton failed to see a red light in the pitlane in Montreal and caused an avoidable accident in the pitlane. Causing an avoidable accident is bad enough, but causing one in the pitlane — which is a highly concentrated area full of people — is simply unacceptable. The ten place grid penalty was fully justified.

Then in qualifying for the French Grand Prix, Heikki Kovalainen impeded Mark Webber’s qualifying lap. It was not intentional, but he did it nonetheless and the penalty was expected. Even McLaren expected this one, fuelling Kovalainen heavy for Q3 in an increasingly rare piece of clever quick thinking from McLaren.

Finally in lap one of the race Lewis Hamilton cut the Nürburgring chicane immediately after passing Sebastian Vettel. This is the most contentious one.

For Clive, Hamilton did little wrong. “Hamilton had gained the place before the chicane and so did not benefit from his slight error”.

However, this is far from clear cut. Undoubtedly Hamilton had edged ahead of Vettel. But was he completely clear of Vettel? It seems not. He was probably not far enough ahead to commit to taking the chicane properly. As Keith has noted, Hamilton has contradicted himself within a matter of a few words in one interview about the incident:

I believe I was ahead on the outside and I couldn’t turn in on the guy otherwise we would have crashed

So was he ahead or was he not? Hamilton says he was ahead, but at the same time he would have crashed if he turned in — which means that he was not ahead, but in fact side-by-side with Vettel.

The bottom line is that if Hamilton had tried that at a circuit like Monaco where skipping the chicane means going into the barriers, he would have been out of the race. Unless he is completely stupid, he wouldn’t have tried it at such a circuit. This means that he took advantage of the tarmac run-off at the chicane. For this reason he should have been punished.

For me, the fact that even the people on ITV were contemplating the fact that Hamilton was in the wrong sums up that this should not have been a controversial decision.

It is a well-known rule that if you gain an advantage by cutting the chicane (such as, for instance, taking a position, or keeping a position that was under threat) then you can expect to get a penalty. There are three possible penalties: drive-through, 10 second stop-go or a ten place grid drop. Hamilton got the most lenient of these penalties.

Of course, Hamilton could have avoided getting a penalty at all by simply giving Vettel the place back and trying to take him again. This is what drivers always do if they skip the chicane inadvertently. So why Lewis Hamilton did not do this puzzles me a lot.

There was always a risk following the incident that Hamilton would be penalised. Not a slim risk, but a significant risk. Given that, it would have been a lot more sensible for Hamilton to play it safe by handing Vettel the position back — costing him a few seconds at most — rather than waiting to be slapped with a drive-through penalty that would have cost him more like 30 seconds.

I can well understand why Hamilton didn’t hand Vettel the place back. It is because he simply cannot admit it when he is in the wrong. He simply does not have it in his bones to do the sporting thing even when doing so will be advantageous to him. For him, it is easier to sit back and imagine conspiracy theories rather than hold his hands up and say he was wrong.

This we know already. What worries me though is the fact that McLaren did not tell him to give the place back either. The team is there to — hopefully — make these judgements when a driver’s emotions get the better of him. Unfortunately, it looks as though the guys on the pit wall are also letting their emotions get the better of them.

There is another explanation. We saw McLaren take the safe option when Kovalainen was at risk of getting a penalty. But they failed to do so when Hamilton was in a similar position. Could it be that McLaren find it too difficult to tell Lewis Hamilton what to do?

We know for a fact that Lewis Hamilton doesn’t like being told what to do, even when the order comes direct from his boss Ron Dennis. We saw this in qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix. Hamilton’s petulant behaviour set in motion a chain of events that would eventually lead to the $100 million fine.

Perhaps McLaren found it easier to let the punishment come along rather than deal with Hamilton’s petulance and sulking after being asked to give the position back. If that is the case, it is deeply worrying for the future of Lewis Hamilton’s career. If anyone is in a position to kick Hamilton’s mental attitude into shape it is the McLaren team. But they appear to have given up.

There is another possibility — that McLaren have actually adopted Hamilton’s approach to racing. We can see this in Ron Dennis’s implication that the only possible explanation for their downfall is that everyone is out to get McLaren.

Now it is true — as Clive and Milos have both noted — that arguable two other drivers should have been given penalties in France.

One was Jarno Trulli’s “wheel bashing” incident. I am not so sure about that myself. Trulli claims that he did not bash wheels and Kovalainen hasn’t said a word about it. I think they probably came very close, but it was 50/50 for me. Kovalainen’s attempted move was extremely optimistic. Meanwhile Trulli was trying to take an optimal line into the chicane. It’s not as though Trulli swiped at him having come from the opposite side of the track. He just edged over to get a wider angle into the corner. It was aggressive driving from both drivers, but not dangerous in my opinion — and if it was then the blame is 50/50.

As for Kimi Raikkonen, the dangling exhaust pipe was simply unacceptable. It was a blatant safety risk. What if the exhaust pipe snapped off and hit another driver on the head? What if the exhaust pipe went into the crowd?

What on earth is the black and orange flag for if it isn’t for this sort of situation? I find it difficult to imagine how that car could have been more dangerous. Maybe it could have spurted fuel onto the driver behind. Perhaps the rear light could have turned into a death ray.

The FIA should take a good look at themselves for that one. But if there is a conspiracy, it is the same old Ferrari International Assistance rather than anything against McLaren if you ask me. And I say this as someone who thinks the FIA’s treatment of McLaren last year was nothing short of outrageous.

McLaren’s apparent paranoia bodes very badly for Hamilton’s career. Unless he and McLaren can become more pragmatic about the situations they find themselves in, this sort of thing will keep on happening.

But now in the face of the good old fashioned British media backlash, Hamilton now faces the biggest mental test of his career at Silverstone on the 6th of July. His first home grand prix was the scene of Hamilton’s first jitters, when he was impatient in his pitstop. Since then he has begun to look like a nervous wreck in high-pressure situations.

Hamilton calls himself “very strong mentally”, but in fact he is one of the least mentally strong front-end racing drivers I can ever think of seeing. He mistakes stubbornness for mental strength which is part of the problem. He needs to learn to be genuinely strong rather than just petulant.

A full race review will come later. But I have to talk about the stewards’ investigation because it is so pressing.

I was hoping — as was everyone else who loves sport — that the World Championship would be decided on the track. I was hoping that there would be no irregularities found after the race. After the year Formula 1 has had, to have the World Champion decided in a private room between three men was the last thing we needed.

Unfortunately, the nature of the sport means that it is not always that way. Sometimes the scrutineers find something on the cars that causes a result to be changed after the fans have left the circuit. It happens a few times a year. This is a regrettable reality of Formula 1, but it is the reality. It was just unfortunate that it had to happen on this of all days.

Once it was announced that the Williams and BMW cars were being investigated for fuel irregularities, it was clear to me that the FIA were stuck between a rock and a hard place. If they disqualified the four drivers, they would be accused of handing the Championship to Hamilton. If they didn’t (as they haven’t), then they would have been accused of stealing the Championship from Hamilton.

Surprise, surprise, now that the decision — that the drivers will not be disqualified — has been confirmed, sure enough I can hear Stephen Nolan on BBC Radio 5 Live doing his nut about it (luckily David Croft is rather more balanced). There is no doubt in my mind that the reaction from some other people would have been equally angry had the decision gone the other way.

Earlier on this evening I was listening to the 606 phone-in, and everyone seemed to have a different conspiracy theory about the race. Depending on who you listen to, the FIA are pro-Ferrari, pro-Hamilton, anti-Hamilton, anti-McLaren. McLaren are pro-Alonso, anti-Alonso, anti-Hamilton, pro-Hamilton.

It is a sign of the bad management at the FIA that this could happen. Here we were in a situation where the stewards’ decision, whichever way it went, would have been criticised. And whenever anything slightly abnormal happens there is somebody out there ready with a conspiracy theory about it.

Murray Walker always used to say, “Anything can happen in Formula 1 — and it usually does.” Today it would be better to say, “Anything can happen in Formula 1 — and when it does, point the finger at the FIA.”

This has come about because Max Mosley has politicised the sport to a poisonous degree. The FIA has created far too many ridiculous rules, making the sport more convoluted than it should be. And Max Mosley does business on the basis of personal grudges rather than what is good for the sport.

It is sad — but understandable — that people can not have confidence in the decisions made by the FIA. It is yet another sign for me that the sooner Max Mosley is removed from his post as President of the FIA the better.

For me, the worst aspect of this Formula 1 season has been the hopelessly biased media reporting. I have railed against the British media’s love affair with Lewis Hamilton many times. But it is worth pointing out that, if anything, the Spanish media are probably even worse when it comes to Fernando Alonso.

Let us not forget that before Alonso burst onto the scene, Formula 1 was not even televised in Spain! (Apparently this is inaccurate — see the comments.) At least prior to Hamilton F1 was a regular fixture on British television screens. So it should be no surprise that some Spaniards are pretty rabid Alonso fans. This has led to some rather colourful goings-on on the internet.

One of the strangest was the mass invasion of nationalist Spaniards on Ed Gorman’s rather good blog for Times Online. The rabid one-sidedness of the Spanish commenters was quite a sight to behold, and it became all the more entertaining when they began to adopt Anglophone names in a bid to disguise their favouritism.

I suppose it is always possible that someone called George posting on the internet can have terrible English. Have Your Say is testament to this. But seeing Victor screaming to Ed Gorman, “I WANT TO SEE THE EVIDENCES!! GIVE TO ME THE EVIDENCES!!” doesn’t quite convince.

Of course, Ed Gorman did not help himself much by being so blatantly biased (in the opposite direction) himself. And this is the very problem. The British media talks through its arse on one end, and the Spanish media talks through its arse on the opposite end. It is no wonder that different groups of people have ended up with such radically differing views as to what has happened during the season.

In Britain, Fernando Alonso is viewed as a moaner, while Hamilton’s own moans (post-Monaco and post-Belgium) have been downplayed. While Alonso’s comments about not getting equal treatment at McLaren have often crossed over into the realms of the ridiculous, let us not forget that Hamilton was the first to run crying to the media about his treatment at McLaren following the Monaco Grand Prix, long before Alonso hinted at any such levels of discontent.

Meanwhile, in Spain, this season has been viewed as one massive conspiracy against Fernando Alonso. As Keith Collantine notes, the claims are easily debunked.

Why would McLaren want to sabotage the efforts of their own driver? Moreover, why would they go out of their way to upset him when he is a double World Champion? If McLaren were acting in their own self-interest to sabotage the season, it’s not exactly worked out well for them, has it? This season has been one long PR disaster for the team.

This is why I have such a short fuse when it comes to nationalistic sports coverage. I suppose being a Scot I am naturally wired up to have a sensitive bullshit detector when it comes to nationalistic sports coverage. But while for most of my compatriots it stops at pro-English bias in sports commentary, I find myself equally exasperated by all biased commentary — pro-Scottish, pro-British, pro-Spanish, pro-whatever.

Part of me really hopes that Lewis Hamilton fails to win the Championship today just to burst the ridiculous bubble that the British media has blown up. The ridiculous “weekend of British supremacy sporting success” was already dealt a blow yesterday with England’s failure in the Rugby World Cup. With all eyes on Lewis Hamilton today, I really hope the media ends up with egg on its face.

The bias exists in team sports as well. Holyrood Watcher wrote about it today in relation to the rugby. But at least I can understand it with team sports. International rugby is one sport where a team is set up specifically to represent a country.

Formula 1 is a team sport — but the teams do not represent countries. It is also an individual sport, and in no way does it make sense to constantly make references to “Britain’s Lewis Hamilton” or “Spain’s Fernando Alonso” as though their nationality made a blind bit of difference to anything. You might as well talk about “blond Kimi Räikkönen” or “the right-handed Felipe Massa”.

Because you can bet your bottom dollar that Lewis Hamilton doesn’t want to be World Champion “for Britain”. He wants to be World Champion for himself. For an explanation, I wrote here about sportsmen and nationality some months ago.

The recent obsession with F1 drivers’ nationalities particularly saddens me because every single one of the drivers who will be racing at Interlagos this afternoon is an absolute hero. They all do extraordinary things, putting their lives on the line. I can never get my head round how these drivers can travel at 200+ mph, routinely experiencing forces of 5+ gs, yet still manage to hit the apex of a corner, inch-perfect, and complete lap times consistent to a couple of tenths of a second.

It astonishes me. These drivers are super-human. Extraordinary achievements are being made routine. Yet, what is the media coverage reduced to? “Let’s support Lewis Hamilton because he’s British, and let’s throw stones at Alonso because he’s foreign.” It sickens me. To do certain drivers down because of where they happen to come from, when they are every bit as much of a hero, is just not on.

The media’s fixation with nationalities offends me. To me, “Britain’s Lewis Hamilton” (as the media apparently has to call him, by law) does not exist. Nor does “Spain’s Fernando Alonso”, “Finland’s Kimi Räikkönen” or even “Japan’s Sakon Yamamoto”. They are Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, Kimi Räikkönen and Sakon Yamamoto: extraordinary, super-human, heroic motor racing drivers. Every single one of them. No matter where they came from.