he stopped the alimony cheques $100M says you're wrong Put it this way, if you wrote some great code and someone gave that code to Apple and they made a winning app from it you'd feel aggrieved ..... not a great analogy as Ron is more of a hacker ..... can you tell I don't like him ?
Yes but Apple and I are not participating in a sport. You cannot have industrial non-copying rules in a sport because it kills competition. Copying has been a good part of motorsport since they day it began and F1 is suffering because of this stupid "treating F1 as a business cr@p", it isn't, it is a sport. Lets return to enhancing copied designs and get back to F1 being a sport and good!!! Pete
F1 stopped being a sport many moons ago, which is why last year blew me away !! If you want to have a close spectacle to bring in the punters then you need to make it close by allowing the players to improve their game when they have dropped the ball. What happened last year was like turning up for a new type of cricket match where the bat can be made out of anything you like, you think a special wood shaped a particular way is the go, then you get there and the Germans are using titanium bats 3 feet wide And then the referee says you can only run what ya brung for the rest of the season Then the next year you can use titanium but you have to keep the same shape you had last year
How can you have so much hate for an entire team and person that has no bearing on your life? (Unless you know him and he did something to you, then its acceptable) A guy like button is a class act and never pissed anyone off, just working for a living like everyone else and you wish ill upon him because of who his boss is. Just doesn't make sense to me.
I think the punishment dished to McLaren after the Stepneygate affair was very harsh. If it had been a lesser team, it would have eliminated it outright. Maybe that was the plan? Since we talk about the skulduggery at Brabham under Bernie Ecclestone that went unpunished but gave Nelson Piquet a world title, using illegal fuel. That was common knowledge in the paddock, but it never went further than Chinese whispers. Renault, the main victim of this trick, may have lost the championship because of it but never formally lodged a complaint at the FIA where Bernie had already a lot of support. To me, that was far worst than the Coughlan/Stepney affair.
And don't forget about the homicidal maniac, Aryton Senna. He should have been banned from F1 and criminally prosecuted for his first intentionally crash into another driver. If you or I did that on the street we would be.
It was a total non punishment. McLaren never had to put their hand in their pocket for one penny. They were allowed to pay the total amount from their cvc share. In other words it cost them nothing. Worse, after Ron admitted he'd lied and after the FiA committed to check the McLaren before the start of the 08 season they never went ahead with the check. Hence the 08 silver Ferrari and rhe anger of LDM after Brazil 08.
How can one say that inflicting a $100M fine is not punishment? It was amputating McLaren's yearly F1 budget by half, and putting its finances in a precarious position. $100M is a huge amount of money, even in F1 ! It's not Monopoly money we are talking about... In case you don't know, the CVC share received at the end of each year isn't a bonus to spend on champagne; it's a large share of the following year budget as well. That was not only an exagerated sanction, but it risked to jeopardise the livehood of hundred of McLaren employees, when it was alledgedly meant to punish the culprits. It could have threatened not only the team, but the road car division as well. If the FIA really wanted to punish the culprits (and I am not sure RD was a willing participant in this), a temporary ban for the actors, like in the case of the Piquet/crashgate incident) would have been more appropriate. But in F1, like in many areas of life, justice isn't done properly. McLaren's fine has to be seen as a vendetta among the main players more than anything else. The piranha club they call it ....
How far behind? It seems like they are behind just about everyone except the bottom of the barrel teams so I'd say they are very far behind. I expect Honda to figure things out by the end of the season which at least will result in no more DNF's by then. -F
What a relief for those that live in the real world that is Not seeing the difference between paying from a bonus versus having to stick your hand in your own pocket and really pay is like thinking you can be a little bit pregnant.
It does make a difference if you do not have the 100 million when being fined as you have to borrow them or sell part of your company but if you have them it does not make a difference as at the end you do have 100 million less one way or the other... If McLaren had to borrow the money from someone (I think they would have got them as they have securities) the fine would have been 100 mio plus interests...
The problem is that you consider that a $100M fine is just peanuts. I don't know any commercial organisation that would just shrug at that. I am just wondering in which world you are living. Think about it; if it was that painless, the FIA wouldn't have imposed it as punishment.
I'm starting to think it is some sort of trans-Tasman rivalary thing, ie. the ex-New Zealand McLaren team has been more successful than the ex-Australian Brabham team. It definitely is irrational. Pete
It's not a bonus, it would be part of the next year planned budget. Mate what are you smoking? ... WTF! It was all BS, started by a very small pissed off man called Stepney. He should have been the only one to have been punished. He stole the plans because he was upset that Ferrari were not going to promote him. What a wanker IMO. As I have said many times, every team has lots of details about the other teams designs but the only team punished were McLaren and they should not have been. Copying is VITAL for motorsport. Yes the line between business and sport is very blurred with F1 (and modern motorsport) but you cannot ban teams copying. Doing that immediately kills the sport that funds the business. And guess what you very one-eyed stubborn man ... that requires copying, ie. the teams that stuffed up look at what Mercedes did and COPY it. You can't have it both ways John. F1 NEEDS copying to work and the core of why it is not working properly now is because the token system is not allowing teams to COPY and make changes to their designs to catch up and move the goal posts forward. If you cannot see that then, heck mate you're hate for Ron/McLaren is clouding your ability to be rational, seriously. Pete
Surtees, like Gabriel (the archangel), was the favoured driver by Enzo ("god'') but when he drove sports cars and injured himself he was persecuted and driven out of the team much like Gabriel was driven out of heaven..... one is a myth the other fact Remember, the Italians loved Surtees, Il Leone I think was what they called him (my Italian is non-existant, 5th generation Aussie)
That technicality is lost on many here. The only thing I have against McLaren is RD, can't stand the man, don't hate him , just think he is a miserable git and control freak
Nothing to do with trans-Tasman rivalry, Brabham was better, Bruce was much loved by Jack, he helped and supported him immensely. If Bruce had survived he would have been the only other constructor/driver in the history of F1 to win the WDC/WCC
McLaren did not steal the designs, they were given to them by Stepney. Stepney stole the design documents. Why was he not punished? Toyota also had Ferraris designs, no punishments. Renault had somebody elses designs, no punishment ... This was just Max having a go at McLaren/Ron. Many other team mechanics have been caught pulling apart other teams engines or investigating something, etc., no punishment, just run off ... yes Stepney made copying easier but the end result is it was just copying. So the fnck what? Maybe Ferrari should secure their premises if they don't want somebody to copy that well. I still say that Ferrari only made such a stink about it to secure the WDC for themselves and Kimi. Very clever. Pete
Didn't Nige sell the docs to Mclaren? He was sentenced to prison time IIRC, but not sure he did it (wonderful system the Italians have...)
Stepney was punished too, he was banished from F1 forever. I always repeat the same quote by Jean Todt when talking about the Stepneygate: "everything could have been fixed with an apology". Toyota and Renault had to pay a compensation when got caught, but McLaren tried to sweep the issue under the carpet, giving Todt and Mosley the perfect excuse. I agree in that McLaren got too much flak for it, but they didn´t handle the situation with finesse. It seems that the lack of diplomatic skills is a constant in Ron Dennis´ management.
