The teaching moment
September 14, 2007 by Grace
Filed under Prime & Option
Things I’ve learned from Stepneygate:
1. If you want to meet F1 personalities, hang out in airports. Apparently, this is where all the important stuff happens
2. Get all agreements in writing
3. That Alonso, despite being at McLaren for almost a year, doesn’t know that Mike Coughlan is McLaren’s chief designer or that Stepney is a pretty important person at Ferrari
4. That sending confidential information via email is bad
5. Sending confidential information via text message is even worse
6. It’s not easy being Lewis Hamilton
7. That McLaren must be a dream place for test drivers (“Tired of always being told what to do? Come to McLaren where we let our test drivers run the show!”)
8. Don’t trust employees to destroy confidential information on their own
9. That Bernie is a brilliant man because in one sweet movement he’s demonstrated that he and the FIA are in change, not the teams and that the governing body is nice and is going to let McLaren off easy after their appeal. I aspire to this kind of evil genius.
Hey if Michael Schumacher can crash and then take out his competitor to win the championship (Australia 1994) then I am sure Lewis or Fernando will have no problem winning this championship.
I believe it still counts in the record books–right?
We move on from here!
You forgot 10: If you’re name is Ferrari, you can do no wrong. Their close ties to the pope must pay off big time.
By “do no wrong” you mean things like get penalized for parking at Monaco and costing you a WDC or penalized for a previously approved car after your rivals mention it to the FIA or penalized for staging the finish of a race or having blatant team orders? Those kinds of do-no-wrongs?
You know its good to know that in the roughest of times we can still all bond together and bitch about Ferrari. Except for Todd, of course. I think Macca and Ferrari making peace is sign five of the apocalypse, right behind the Potomac turns red and JV wins another world championship. And the frogs.
I missed that one Todd. Yes, if there is an outrageous public outcry like in Monaco 2006 or Austria 2002 then they can be penalized. But to think Schumi lost the title in Monaco.. Sorry, you probably forgot his shunt in Bahrain, the needless DNF in Hungary when he acted like Sato and battled with shot tires and crashed with Heidfeld , or with the blown engine in Japan.
I understand Zash, but these are all things that are on-track racing issues that may or may not be questionable. Hardly the the type of events to create a case for the FIA to render a verdict on McLaren. McLaren are guilty by the letter AND spirit of the rules. Period. I, among all of you, wish it weren’t true because I would like to believe that Ron was not involved. Kind of like learning the truth about santa claus. I had very high regard for Ron and his team.