Sidepodcast

F1 Racing magazine has come in for a lot of stick in recent months, exacerbated by the personal attack on Ralf Schumacher by The Bish. It was branded outdated and unnecessary, and generally written off by a lot of previously dedicated readers.

Personally, I’m a fan of the magazine. There are few periodicals I get these days that can hold my attention, and considering how much F1 already consumes my world, I’m impressed that F1 Racing can get me to read it from cover to cover. (Back to front, incidentally, always.)

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The usual process of including guest posts on a blog is for the owner to ask some of their favourite writers to come up with a piece or two to be featured. As you well know, Sidepodcast likes to do things a different way. The Facebook Group has plenty of fascinating discussions going on, and we want to bring those to the main site. The idea is for you guys to write your opinions and entries over on the group, and then we pick the best ones for feature over here on Sidepodcast. Sort of self-selecting guest bloggers, if you will. If you want to get your name in bright lights, just join the group and get writing. We read everything and everyone will be considered.

This second guest entry is by Dan Brunell, talking about Lewis Hamilton and the hype.

One of the good things about living on the west side of the Atlantic is that Hamilton-mania doesn’t reach my fair ears that much. Sometimes I will read someone lashing out on a blog, the random Telegraph/Times/BBC article or the occasional voice on the SPEED channel with unending praise. I consider myself lucky. The British press coverage of Hamilton is overwhelming sometimes. It’s to the point where it frays some nerves. On top of that, there seems to be some deeper resentment of not just his press coverage, but at the speed with which he has achieved his success. Is all this really Hamilton’s fault? Do the people who hate Hamilton hate him, the ease with which he achieved success, or his media coverage?

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The FIA finally got around to releasing the transcripts from the Renault hearing yesterday. Presumably the delay was related to printing out and then re-scanning a massive 77 pages of documentation, just to be sure no confidential information can be uncovered.

We predicted recently that “producing hard-copy, before digitising content” is the most likely way the FIA will release sensitive documents in the future. So inept are they in the ways of digital distribution that they probably figure that this sort of thing didn’t happen when they used fax machines, so why not stick with a tried and tested method. The net result of course is that everybody elses work is made a lot harder, and all because of an internal cock-up by the motorsport governing body.

This post is listed as The FIA Transcripts (Part 3). Parts one and two relate to the July and September hearings respectively, and as this case appears to be a continuation of that process it makes sense to reference them as three related hearings.

As an aside, Pitpass have noticed certain favoured sections of the media, are getting early access to these documents. Surely such a noble and upstanding organisation as the FIA would never stoop so low as to contemplate manipulating the media in this way, would they?

If you’re ever so slightly unhinged, or are suffering from acute insomnia you can download the PDF file and peruse the text at your leisure. Normally we’d use a screen reader to talk us through it, but sadly they struggle with faxed, photocopied and slightly-twisted pages… so read it we shall.

Contents Therein

The first point of interest is this case came about because an ex-Renault employee, now working at McLaren read Flavio’s comments following McLaren’s non-punishment in July. Briatore had said:

Just read the regulations. For intellectual property theft, the punishment is exclusion.

Priceless stuff Flavio. We doubt the guy regrets much in his life, but if he could change one thing…

Moving on, we learn from Mr. Ian Mill QC that Renault offered McLaren the opportunity to send in Kroll to search Renault’s workstations for incriminating evidence, but the team decided not to take up the offer because they were “engaged in other matters”. Ian Mill then proceeds to suggest that it should be Renault’s job to go and hang themselves, not McLaren’s business to prove them guilty. An odd approach for a lawyer, if ever there was one.

By contrast the team from Enstone turned up with their superstar-lawyer, Mr. David Philips. This guy introduces himself as “the new boy on the block”, something you don’t imagine Nigel Tozzi ever saying, then he proceeds to describe his witnesses as a “reserve football team”. If this wasn’t such a serious hearing, I think he’d probably prefer to be addressed simply as Dave.

Phil Mackereth

No question about it, you do not want Mr. Mackereth in your pub quiz team. The guy can’t remember a bloody thing. If McLaren employees suffer from selective amnesia, then what can you say about this guy?. He apparently has no clue what he did, when he did it or why he would have done so. His memory loss is so severe it’s verging on becoming a medical condition. In the end Ian Mill managed to coax out the following admission:

I was aware of [the file's] sensitivity. I must have been trying to disguise it.

No.freaking.kidding.

Annoyingly, just as Ian Mill got into the swing of things and pushed Phil into talking about Renault’s 2008 challenger, Max Mosely interrupted the flow. It seems a touch coincidental that at the very point the advantage appears like it might swing in McLaren’s favour that the president chooses to pipe up. Grr.

Further into the same discussion, things start getting a bit technical and the concept of renaming a file comes to the fore. At this point Max seems somewhat stressed by such a radical concept, and asked if if he understood. His reply was:

I do not think any of us do!

Bless him, it’s a complicated world isn’t it?

Getting Technical

From the details that have not been obscured we learn that McLaren are particularly proud of their seamless shift gearbox, but more importantly they’re concerned about the information Renault have gleaned relating to their cars weight distribution and steering angle. These are the very things McLaren are accused of learning from Nigel Stepney and Ferrari. By all accounts we should witness some pretty close racing at the head of the field next year then.

When it comes to how Renault staff learnt certain technical details relating to McLaren’s internal information, it would appear that many more members of the Enstone team have caught the memory loss virus. No-one appears have any solid recollection of any events at any time.

Selective amnesia is fast becoming a Formula 1 epidemic.

Closing

At times during this hearing it would appear that McLaren were on trial again. In fact Ian Mill’s closing comments sum up his team’s feelings well when he says:

McLaren considers that the very heavy sanction imposed upon in September 2007 was very harsh and, consistently with that, would not wish to see any other team put in the same position.

Max alludes to the real reason as to why this transcript’s release was delayed, when he references what he calls a third investigation into McLaren. Had that conversation come out before McLaren fell on their sword last week, it could have caused endless amounts of speculation and controversy.

In Conclusion

In all, this hearing seems less rushed than either of the previous two. There’s a very good argument to say that important cases such as these should be deferred until the off-season, just so that nothing gets inadvertently brushed under the carpet.

Should Renault have been punished? It’s a difficult call, because although there are many uncanny similarities between the two cases, and Renault don’t come across as being anywhere near as open and honest as they like to think they are being, the two-way flow of text messages and phone calls didn’t happen as it had with Ferrari / McLaren. The information that was gleaned, I’m sure, has many uses. Probably not much more than the teams discovered from the hearings earlier this year though.

One final point to make: There’s no sidestepping the fact that Formula 1 teams, much like canine lovers, pick representatives with similar characteristics as themselves. Compare if you will Ferrari’s Nigel Tozzi, a man who’s name even sounds Italian, Ian Mill a man so corporate he probably positions his sleeve so that the sponsors watch is visible at all times, and finally there’s Dave.

The spy hearings haven’t been much of a laughing matter, but the traits shared between a lawyer and his team is beauty personified.

Martin Brundle has stepped up to the plate and showed he’s not willing to sit quietly while the FIA take yet more liberties as motorsport’s governing body.

Following on from the FIA’s plans to begin libel action against The Sunday Times, Martin responded in his column with this declaration:

I’m tired of what I perceive as the “spin” and tactics of the FIA press office, as are many other journalists.

It’s been rumoured for a while that accredited F1 writers have felt unable to voice their opinions on key decisions, for fear that their paddock passes (and by association, their livelihoods) will be revoked or denied. This issue stems from the fact that the federation have control over who qualifies for passes and who doesn’t. You can read the official accreditation guidelines on their web site, but what the guidelines won’t tell you is who gets the final say on approvals.

Common sense suggests that in the interest of democracy, the process of allocating such passes should be handled by an autonomous body, one without any vested interests or axes to grind.

Going back to Martin’s column, one further quote that really concerned me was this nugget of information (emphasis mine):

I expect my accreditation pass for next year will be hindered in some way to make my coverage of F1 more difficult and to punish me. Or they will write to ITV again to say that my commentary is not up to standard.

For me, that line is the most revealing part of the article because it hints that the FIA’s desire to control and filter the way F1 is reported goes far beyond this simple lawsuit. Suggestions that the motorsport federation directly contact media outlets to deride their staff is bloody frightening.

For years we’ve assumed that ITV commentator James Allen managed to survive in his position because he’s the perfect foil to calm unhappy housewives when another minor-crisis-soap-opera gets delayed due to “those noisy racing cars”. It had never crossed our minds that the sports governing body may actually be encouraging ITV to keep the guy, because he poses no threat, has no opinion and offers no criticism. He is a safe pair of hands to paper over the political shenanigans and underhand tactics the world need not see.

Let me ask any ITV viewers out there, when was the last time that you thought Martin Brundle’s commentary was not up to standard? Think about it for a bit, because in a year that has been dominated by British media obsessing over Hamilton’s debut, Martin has for me remained the only person worth listening to on a Sunday afternoon. The only voice of reason in a sea of overbearing and suffocating obsession.

Earlier this year Sidepodcast was afforded the opportunity of Martin’s company at the GPLive event, where we were treated to almost an hours worth of racing anecdotes, knowledge and insight. If you have any doubt about the commitment that this man has to Formula 1, and the quality of his journalism then please listen to him and watch him in action. I defy anyone to question that man’s ability.

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation owns the Times of London, who, let’s not forget, are now the world’s largest media organisation. They, more than anyone, are used to doing battle with rogue states and authoritarian dictators who are keen to restrict democracy by manipulating the media to push their own propaganda. Some two-bit motorsport federation will be no problem for Newscorp.

I do however think it will be an issue for ITV.

The British broadcaster have, on more than one occasion, shown themselves to have the backbone of an anaconda. They will likely freak at the idea of employing a potentially libellous commentator and we will all suffer as a result.

The ‘FIA sues newspaper’ story isn’t just about free speech, it’s not even about exercising media control any more. It is about a supposedly neutral organisation actively trying to manipulate how the sport over which they preside gets covered by the media.

That it got this far is troublesome. That it should continue is unthinkable.

There’s been some unusual activity surrounding F1 sites these past few days. Yesterday, I read an article on grandprix.com relating to information that the FIA has about the impending Renault hearing. However, soon after reading the article, it had disappeared.

In the early hours of this morning pitpass.com reported a similar story, listing The Times newspaper as their source, and also making reference to the still missing grandprix.com article. Around 8am this morning, said article reappeared on grandprix.com, and as far as I can tell nothing has been changed.

Worth noting, is that the source of all these stories is a briefing memo leaked by McLaren. Here’s what The Times had to say on the subject:

The leak from McLaren was being seen as an attempt by the Woking-based team to dispel the impression within the sport that the illegal transfer of technical information from McLaren to Renault is of an altogether lesser order of importance than McLaren’s possession of Ferrari secrets.

Wait a second. McLaren are leaking documents to the media in order to raise the profile of its case? Does that remind you of anything? Like Ron Dennis bemoaning the way Ferrari handled the media during the summer spy scandal. Let’s remind ourselves of what Ron wrote in a public letter to Luigi Macaluso back in August:

In the period leading up to and since the WMSC hearing, McLaren’s reputation has been attacked by a series of incorrect press reports from Italy and grossly misleading statements from Ferrari itself.

Reputation, attacked, press reports. It’s amazing what a difference a couple of months makes isn’t it?

Manipulating the media is nothing new in the world of F1, but I do wonder what prompted grandprix.com to first remove and then restore an article McLaren clearly wants the to world to hear.