20 Things McLaren Have Learned In 2007 Friday 23rd November 2007 McLaren may be the second oldest team on the grid, but they're still learning. Here's what they found out this year. * Lewis Hamilton is probably ready for a full race drive. * When you have a driver with the fragile ego of one of the world's biggest divas, it's better to be extremely careful what you say after the race i.e. "we were racing Fernando" uttered by Ron Dennis after the Chinese GP would sound much better if it came out as "he was racing Fernando". * Mike Coughlan's wife shouldn't be trusted with any important photo-copying. Come to think of it, Mike Coughlan shouldn't be trusted with anything, full stop. * When you can see the lining of the tyre for a couple of laps, it may be time to change that tyre. * If you find out that one of your employees has the full specification for your main rival's car, look up a mafia hitman in your Yellow Pages and get them to spend some quality time together. * Don't make any Mercedes commercials that involve friendly rivalry between your two drivers, when on the track they want to knock lumps out of each other. (As we recall the "I can do anything better than you can" C-Class television commercial came out after their Monaco contretemps.) * Equality isn't everything. * Max Mosley's idea of "sporting fairness" is McLaren playing by the absolute letter of the law, and Ferrari telling him what that law is. * Kimi Raikkonen IS a World Championship-winning driver. * The year may have been a complete bummer, but it could have been worse. Juan Pablo Montoya could have been in the team. * The idea that the FIA were serious about saving costs in F1 and encouraging customer teams - such as Prodrive - had the shelf-life of a bunch of bananas. * A driver that stays in his cockpit while being hauled out of the gravel by a crane ( a fate that befell Lewis Hamilton at the Nurburgring) looks remarkably silly. Perhaps a future punishment should NOT be a $5000 fine or five grid places, but to suffer the humiliation of a lap of the circuit hoisted on that crane. * Norbert Haug looks better WITH the moustache. * Renault had 11 floppy discs of McLaren technical data for over a year before someone decided to own up (if this is true at all, some say it was McLaren who found out, not Renault admitting it). * The team will be meeting some new faces and making new friends at the far end of the pitlane next year. But given the upcoming FIA investigation, it's highly likely that their old friends Renault will be next door. * When following the Safety Car, the idea is actually to follow the Safety Car and not to pretend to be a water-skier, and zig-zag from side to side. * Lewis may be one of the coolest drivers on the grid, but Anthony Hamilton is definitely the coolest drivers' dad. Felipe Massa would be best advised not to ask where his father comes in the ranking, while David Coulthard is old enough (and Mark Webber is grumpy enough) to be Sebastien Vettel's dad. * Never ever ever ever ever ever let ITV run a feature on past British F1 World Champions until the trophy is mathematically won. * When appealing - never take the stewards at their word - do everything by the book. * The Vodafone McLaren Mercedes official body-warmer jacket looks about as chic as a Japanese marshal's disposable rain jacket. Stocked any good refrigerated cabinets lately, Ron. END OF PLANET F1 ARTICLE
21. You can fool most of the people most of the time and you can fool some of the people some of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.
23) Ron Dennis: " Nobody like me, everybody hates me, I'm gonna eat some worms" (Those of you without young children will not understand this at all)
24) Evaluate your ability to handle drivers in light of losing 3 top-grade drivers in the space of a little over a year.
