You know, I didn’t think the FIA or the World Motor Sport Council had it in them, but they’ve managed it — they have actually made the right decision. Moreover, they have made a decision that has angered Ferrari! Blow me down!

While the media has been tempted to spin this as motorsport’s governing body letting McLaren off the hook, this misses an important point. There isn’t much evidence that McLaren have done anything wrong. The saga remains an issue concerning two rogue employees — Mike Coughlan of McLaren and Nigel Stepney of Ferrari.

There is no evidence that McLaren have benefited at all from the Ferrari documents. Indeed, there is not even evidence that the documents were ever in the possession of any McLaren employee except for Mike Coughlan. And while, as chief designer of McLaren, he was a pretty important figure, he can not have had the time to do much with the documents anyway.

Somebody yesterday said to me that it was a bit fishy that McLaren have come up with a fast car this year. But Mike Coughlan came into possession of the documents in late March — long after this year’s McLaren was designed; even after it first raced. And it is not as if it is unusual for McLaren to design a fast car. Indeed, it has been overdue, as they have experienced an unprecedented drought of success in recent years.

You only need to take a glance at the Ferrari and the McLaren to appreciate that they are not similar cars. The joke normally goes that if you gave all of the F1 cars the same paint job you would be unable to tell them apart. But the chassis of the Ferrari and the McLaren are very noticeably different to each other. Seemingly, nothing on the inside of the cars has rung alarm bells either.

There is the possibility that some Ferrari information was used in the development of the car as the season has gone on. But McLaren’s incredibly open offer to hand its car over to the FIA for inspection shows just how confident Ron Dennis was that his team had not broken the rules. The fact that the FIA have seemingly found no evidence of copied Ferrari parts vindicates this. Ron Dennis is a meticulous and honest man, and McLaren’s record is about as unblemished as they come.

Furthermore, a careful reading of the saga as it has drawn out has revealed that McLaren was never going to be the team where the Ferrari documents would have come in handy anyway. The most likely scenario is that Stepney approached Coughlan with a view to creating a “dream team” of engineers who would approach Honda.

Stepney in particular, and presumably Coughlan as well, were disillusioned with their employers for whatever reason. In Honda they would have seen the perfect opportunity: a team with a big budget and in desperate need to extra engineering and technical expertise.

They were looking for a boost in pay and status, and saw Honda as their best option. The Ferrari documents merely formed part of their arsenal. Honda are in the clear though, as they did not hire Stepney or Coughlan.

And Stepney’s involvement is important. GrandPrix.com has suggested that McLaren may have argued in court that if McLaren are to receive a penalty because of Mike Coughlan’s actions, then Ferrari ought to receive a similar penalty for Nigel Stepney’s actions. Given the lack of evidence of McLaren actually benefiting from the documents, this seems like a sound argument to me.

Given all of this information, it would have been pretty difficult for the WMSC to justify any draconian punishment for McLaren. Yes, Ferrari are livid. But this is typical of Ferrari. It is tough to think of a year in the past decade or so where Ferrari have not resorted to the rulebooks and the courts in an attempt to win the championship.

I will pluck just a few examples from the top of my head. The illegal bargeboards at Sepang in 1999: cleared by FIArrari. The sudden appeal against Michelin tyres towards the end of 2003, despite the fact that they had been used for almost two years: upheld by FIArrari. Last year’s claim at Monza that during qualifying Massa was being “impeded” by a Renault that was half a kilometre further up the track: supported by FIArrari.

Usually Ferrari’s whining succeeds because the FIA are Ferrari lackeys. This is why Jean Todt’s claim that Ferrari would have been punished if they were in the same situation is so laughable.

This latest saga is yet another example of Ferrari trying to win the championship through the many grey areas of the rulebook rather than the grey surface of the race track. What a breath of fresh air for the FIA to go against Ferrari’s wishes. It further demonstrates how little evidence there must have been of McLaren wrongdoing.

It is also worth remembering that McLaren have not gone completely unpunished. The FIA will be keeping an eye on them for the next two years to check for an evidence of the Ferrari information being used by McLaren. If McLaren step out of line, they face immediate exclusion from the championship. This is surely a fair verdict. As Ron Dennis said yesterday, “the punishment fits the crime.”

Keith Collantine has come to a similar conclusion to me, and makes a number of interesting points.

Ferrari claimed that the verdict creates a damaging precedent. They’re wrong. Imagine if McLaren had been docked points, even banned from the championship, simply because Coughlan was found to have Ferrari documents in his possession, without having used them.

We would then have a scenario where any disgruntled employee could hold their team to ransom by claiming they possessed similar confidential documents about another team.

In all legal systems, there has to be a dividing line between the companies’ responsibility and the individual’s.

Now for a bit of tin foil hat stuff. Where has this all come from? Many observers have noted how difficult they found it to believe that such well-regarded figures as Nigel Stepney and Mike Coughlan would get involved in this kind of behaviour. Whatever their motives, there is little doubt that it has not paid off, as their reputations are in tatters and they both face lengthy bans from motorsport.

There is, indeed, a real whiff of fish around this entire saga. Sidepodcast outlined a number of the aspects that just didn’t add up. A good point is made about the whistleblower who contacted Ferrari, said to be a worker at a Woking photocopying shop:

here’s a challenge. pretend you’re the copier guy, try and call the Italian team, see how many hoops you have to jump through to get in touch with them. then see if they even respond, let alone believe what you’re claiming.

i’m damn sure if it were me the first call i’d make would be to the police…or failing that, the Daily Mirror. this guy could be worth a fortune now!

final point. where is this mysterious tipster and why isn’t he talking? what a great story he would have. the tabloids would love it, especially on the weekend of the British GP. we’re not getting half the story here.

Here is something else that has got me scratching my head. It is this month’s ‘Friction Circle’ column in F1 Racing, written by Peter Windsor. He is a bit of an FIA / Ferrari lackey, but he is also a wise man whose word and experience are surely to be trusted. Here is what he said:

…espionage is alive and well in F1 and has been for the past couple of decades. I’m not talking about ‘cloned’ cars such as the Benetton–Ligier or the current Newey or Honda chassis. I’m talking deliberate industrial espionage — and I speak from the experience of having worked in F1 teams for a total of eight years during that period. I saw it with my own eyes — the evidence of senior employees sending drawings to destinations that could only be described as arch-rivals. It was blatant, obvious, but the F1 world just seemed to take it for granted.

…

A big thank you, then, to Ferrari, McLaren and Honda — and especially to the FIA — for giving this most recent matter the publicity and sincerity it deserves.

Now this is surprising to me, because almost every other experienced observer that I have read has written about how unbelievable they found the entire situation. Yes, they say, spying is normal. Taking photographs of rival cars is standard practice. But industrial espionage on this scale? “I’m shocked, just shocked!”

So is Peter Windsor right? Is industrial espionage the norm in F1? If it is, why has nobody said anything about it before? Why hasn’t Peter Windsor himself ever said anything about it?

Assuming Peter Windsor is right, this just adds on another question to the never-ending list. Why have Stepney and Coughlan been singled out, while similar behaviour has been “taken for granted” in the past?

Ralf Schumacher is probably the most deluded driver in Formula 1 today. Before the season began, he claimed that he is among the top three drivers in Formula 1, on a par with Fernando Alonso and Kimi Räikkönen.

It has taken us all these weeks to wipe away those tears of laughter, but just as we have recovered he has done it again! Now he claims that the Toyota he drives is the fourth fastest car in Formula 1!

Okay, so Ralf Schumacher is the third-best driver in the fourth-fastest car. So how on earth does he explain his shoddy performances and lacklustre results?

His Australian Grand Prix was not too bad, finishing 8^th. But how does he explain the Malaysian Grand Prix where he finished 15^th, behind the Hondas and mixing it with the Toro Rossos and Super Aguris? Or the Bahrain Grand Prix where he finished 12^th out of fifteen finishers?

Schumi jnr had better stay this deluded if he wants to be among the top three drivers. The only place this will happen is in his dreams.

Unfortunately I was unable to liveblog today’s Bahrain Grand Prix, so I will dump my thoughts on the race here instead. It gives me a good chance to write at length about the events so far this season, as I haven’t written anything about it here yet.

There was a slightly topsy-turvy feel to the whole race weekend really. I guess most people, like me, expected Räikkönen to race Felipe Massa off the park. But in Malaysia and Bahrain, Kimi has looked a little bit half-arsed. Massa grabbed pole on both races, and he was well in control of today’s race.

Räikkönen did beat Massa in Malaysia, after the Brazilian made some typically Massa-esque mistakes — the sort that we had thought we’d seen the last of from him — when he was under pressure from Lewis Hamilton. But apart from that, Kimi’s races this year have been pretty anonymous.

Today’s big “doh” moment was at the restart when Räikkönen was caught fast asleep. He must have done plenty of restarts by now, so he must know the drill. But he obviously wasn’t paying attention. That could have been his chance to take Alonso. As it was, he ended up being stuck behind the McLaren until his first pit stop.

Linksheaven has already asked what a lot of people must be thinking to themselves: Have we over rated Kimi Räikkönen for all these years? Räikkönen is no Kimi Räikkönen, as Linksheaven says.

After all, who have we had to compare him to? Nick Heidfeld — who actually did better than Kimi at Sauber. Then an ageing David Coulthard, who also did better than Kimi. Most recently he has been up against a distinctly average Juan Pablo Montoya. Now he is being made to look plain by the scrappy Massa.

When Räikkönen started Formula 1 in 2001 he was seen as the potential heir to Michael Schumacher’s throne. Since then, he has merely won a handful of races. Some of them have been mighty impressive performances. But a lot of the time he just looks like he isn’t there. In the intervening period there was the small matter of Fernando Alonso, who was able to win back-to-back World Championships while Kimi just rolled his eyes (drowned his sorrows) and blamed his car.

But while we are talking about Alonso, he too was looking distinctly off-colour this weekend. All of the hype currently surrounds his team mate, Lewis Hamilton. Despite the obvious difficulties the McLarens faced in the first two stints, Hamilton made a strong comeback in the third stint, to the point where some wondered if he could actually win the race.

Meanwhile, Alonso languished behind. In the first stint he held up Kimi Räikkönen to a chronic extent. Then, once Räikkönen got past him after the first pit stops, Alonso got overtaken by Heidfeld on the outside. To be fair, it was an astonishing move from Heidfeld — really great, impressive, gutsy driving. But Alonso shouldn’t even have been in a position to be overtaken by a BMW.

Having said that, the BMW is clearly a handy car. In fact, it is undoubtedly the third-best car after the Ferraris and McLarens. Heidfeld has finished 4^th in all of this year’s races so far, which is good going. Today, Kubica finally joined him on the scoring sheet. The jury is still out on Kubica, but Heidfeld has been very impressive this year, especially with today’s overtaking move.

But the best move of the day for me was David Coulthard’s on Giancarlo Fisichella. The Red Bulls had a pretty bad start to the year — the car is unreliable, and it looked as though it didn’t even have the speed to compete for regular points finishes. But today, at last, the speed was there.

Coulthard was doing a fantastic job, particularly considering his grid position of 21^st. DC was on course for a points finish, and his move on Fisichella underlined just how well the Red Bull was performing. It was a similar move to the one that went so disastrously wrong with Wurz in Australia. This time, though, Fisichella let Coulthard by.

It was almost difficult to believe that Coulthard had pulled it off, but he had. And it has to be remembered that the two drivers were using the same Renault engines. So that shows you have far back Renault now find themselves in the chassis department.

Unfortunately for Red Bull, the reliability still eludes them. Coulthard parked in the garage with a hydraulics failure, while Webber — who was also having a brilliant race — also had to pull off due to a mechanical failure. For much of the race the Australian also had to cope with having his fuel flap stuck open. That seems to be an Achilles heel of Red Bull. A strange Achilles heel to have if you ask me.

Toyota are having a funny time. On the one hand, Trulli is clearly able to challenge for a low points score, pretty much on a par with Renault. Meanwhile, Ralf Schumacher struggles in the lower midfield with the Hondas. Honda are supposed to be having a really embarrassing time at the moment. Well Ralf Schumacher must just be one non-stop blush. He reckons he is one of the top three drivers in F1. I think he is a bloody overpaid fool.

It is difficult to analyse Super Aguri. They certainly look as though they are there or thereabouts. Both Davidson and Sato were able to get some impressive positions over the weekend, but those engine problems are a big worry — for both Aguri and Honda? (Although what’s the odds on it being sabotage to minimise the embarrassment caused to the works Honda team? :D)

I think the main lesson from the first three races is that we are going to be in for a really tight championship. There is currently a three-way tie at the top. Alonso, Räikkönen and — amazingly — Hamilton share the lead on 22 points each. Technically though, Hamilton is actually third because he hasn’t won a race whereas Alonso and Räikkönen have.

Is it too much to ask if Hamilton could be the World Champion this year? I know I am getting sucked into the mad hype that is surrounding him. But he has been seriously impressive in these first three races, and he well and truly showed up Alonso today. A race win is surely just around the corner.

Outside of the top three, Massa could also be in with a shout of getting the Drivers’ Championship. Today showed that the supposed “number one” drivers should not take their status for granted. Massa and Hamilton well and truly beat the supposed title protagonists. It really is difficult to know who is going to win a race.

Finally, I have to admit that I was a sceptic of these new tyre rules, where each driver has to use a different compound at least once during the race. I thought it would end up being rubbish, but we have seen how it has the potential to completely turn the race on its head.

The way Hamilton came back in that last stint showed what can happen under these new rules. It adds a certain amount of predictability to races which all too often in the past have felt as though they were over by the first pitstop. Fantastic.

In short, I am mighty excited about this season! Bernie totally bollocksed up the the calendar this year, meaning that we have to wait a whole bloody month until the next race in Spain. It’s going to be a long wait.

Here is how I voted in the F1 Racing magazine awards.

• Pit crew of the year: Ferrari
• Most improved team of the year: BMW Sauber — Undoubtedly the surprise package of the year. In some races — notably at Monza — this was probably the second fastest car!
• Team principal of the year: Flavio Briatore (Renault) — What a colourful character, and what a great job he’s done at Renault over the past four years
• Drive of the year: Kimi Räikkönen, P22 to P3, Bahrain — Kimi is quite good at making his way through the field. This effort at Bahrain was particularly impressive
• Start of the year: Fernando Alonso, P7 to P3, Malaysia — Watch the way Alonso overtakes those two Williams cars into turn one. He makes it look so effortless.
  
• Overtaking manoeuvre of the year: Fernando Alonso on Jenson Button for P1, lap 4 (restart), Australia — On the restart you are not allowed to overtake until you have passed the start / finish line. Alonso times this move perfectly. I remember watching this and enjoying it so much
  
• Car of the year: Renault R26 — Even with the FIA trying its best to ban all of the good bits, the Renault R26 was still the class of the field
• Driver of the year: Fernando Alonso — Michael Schumacher might have been impressive, but it’s difficult to argue against Alonso being the fastest driver in the world currently
• Qualifier of the year: Kimi Räikkönen — In an average car, Kimi has pulled a few impressive laps out of the bag from nowhere, and he’s had more than a few great grid slots
• Rookie of the year: Robert Kubica — Rosberg was impressive to start with, but he completely tailed off. Kubica, on the other hand, had an extremely impressive race to make the podium at the Italian Grand Prix. He made Heidfeld look plain.
• Friday driver of the year: Robert Kubica — I’ve not seen much Friday action of course, but Kubica seemed impressive enough
• Personality of the year: Flavio Briatore
• Technical director of the year: Bob Bell (Renault)
• Man of the year: Fernando Alonso

A special mention, too, for Alonso’s first few laps at the Hungarian Grand Prix. Simply incredible.

Not a very action-packed race. For a period about two thirds of the way through it looked like it was going to be one of those rare races that actually get closer towards the end, but it was not to be. I didn’t fall asleep though, so I’m becoming expert at surviving these races that are on at funny times.

I think the biggest thing to point out is how confusing qualifying is these days. Qualifying in Bahrain may have been a success, but yesterday’s session was a bit of a shambles. We had Steve Rider and Mark Blundell standing there on ITV’s coverage going on about how Michael Schumacher had been knocked out when he actually hadn’t. You could actually see the moment when Mark Blundell was told through his earpiece that Schumacher was actually still in; his face fell!

But the confusion wasn’t to end there, because there were several engine penalties. I really think this is the most idiotic rule in Formula 1 at the moment. They say that if a car breaks down 50 yards after the finish line then the car has done its job perfectly. Well, not any more. David Coulthard was given an engine penalty after his engine expired after the race. But if it blew before the chequered flag he wouldn’t have got a penalty.

Massa’s engine problems were confusing as well. We were told that he wasn’t even going to take part in qualifying because of his engine penalties. Then he did, but only in stage one — he qualified for stage two but didn’t take part in it. Why? And then there was the issue of Michael Schumacher. ITV and BBCi were both reporting that he would start 10^th because of his engine penalty. I didn’t understand that. Today Martin Brundle said he asked three different Ferrari people and got three different answers — none of which ended up being correct!

Bernie and chums go on about how important it is to entertain fans during qualifying. But what is the point when nobody knows what the grid is actually going to be like until just before the race? Formula1.com has this to say:

The official provisional grid, as released by the FIA on Sunday morning, follows below. Further changes are still possible prior to the race

Ridiculous! They almost may as well determine the grid order by plucking names out of a hat. And the FIA want to have engines lasting for six races! This engine rule is meant to be a cost-cutting exercise, but at this rate everybody will be starting at the “back” of the grid, and just making as many engine changes as they want anyway. And the grid will probably end up be determined by the fastest times.

So here’s a bright idea. Why not just forget the whole engines business — and the race fuel loads while you’re at it — and let’s have the fastest drivers at the front of the grid. What a novel idea!

I can’t help wondering if some teams are actually taking advantage of the engine rules. If you’re starting from the back of the grid you can fuel heavily and have fewer pit stops. This is how the somewhat average Felipe Massa beat his seven-times World Champion team-mate from further back on the grid today. Unusually, Ferrari opted not to swap the drivers around — but it’s only a point, eh? That could come back to bite them!

It doesn’t help that with the new V8s, engines are most teams’ achille’s heel at the moment. The Ferraris seem particularly bad. I know nothing about engines, but that Ferrari engine sounds seriously rough. It cackles away. Sometimes it sounds like Michael Schumacher’s dragging along a tub that’s scraping along the ground. Both Cosworths also blew, which was a particular shame for Nico Rosberg. Nick Heidfeld was also looking good when his BMW went.

Apparently Juan Pablo Montoya’s engine wasn’t in too great nick either. That’s just as well recently, because he was looking seriously mediocre. 4^th might be a respectable result, but we’ve seen what Kimi Räikkönen can do with a McLaren and he ends up making the “fiery” Montoya look quite mundane. Sometimes I wonder if Montoya has enough drive. He often seems to settle for finishing fourth or fifth rather than making that effort for a podium finish.

Rubens Barrichello was once again a disappointment. He is used to driving a car that does all the work for him, and he’s finding his new Honda hard work. Meanwhile Button is racking up the points. For the second race in a row Button has said that he could not get anything more out of the car. Clearly the Honda is not quite up there with the very best cars. And looking at the huge gap between Button and Barrichello, maybe Button is better than we thought all along? Apparently no driver who has yet to win has started so many races. That surprises me, but it just goes to show that a win from Button is overdue.

Fisichella was brilliant today though. Alonso’s qualifying fuel mishap may have gifted him the clear winning opportunity, but you don’t win a race from pole by accident. As for Alonso, my favourite moment was his move at the very start of the race. It’s one of those overtaking manoeuvres that looks like it simply should not be possible — an effortless move from nowhere around the outside of the two Williams cars. Brilliant.

Alonso’s already opened up quite a wide gap at the top of the championship standings though. I hope we don’t end up having a Renault-dominated season. The next race is another tough one for the body clock. It’s properly in the middle of the night, not merely early in the morning like today’s race was. Hopefully it will be worth getting up for.