To say that this troubled issue has blighted the
F1 scene would be a dramatic understatement. Life is all about perception, in my view, and the image of a sport dishing out a penalty which would be big enough to build a decent-sized NHS hospital is not only utterly tasteless, but the manner in which many people who should have known better were prepared to acquiesce in such a punishing fine indicated an almost wilful desire to prove themselves out of step with the day-to-day world.
Don't get me wrong here, even though this whole process kicked off with the maverick Nigel Stepney feeding confidential
Ferrari data into the communication chain which led to McLaren chief designer Mike Coughlan, there is certainly no doubt that Maranello was entitled to a scrupulously full and detailed account of how events unfolded over the subsequent weeks.
Unfortunately for
McLaren, the explanation they offered was not sufficient to persuade the
FIA World Motor Sport Council that they were innocent.
Max Mosley offered the view that McLaren's behaviour had 'polluted' the world championship and he believed that both
Lewis Hamilton and
Fernando Alonso should be stripped of their drivers' world championship points in addition to McLaren losing their constructors' points.
I have some sympathy for this view simply because I don't understand how, if a car is deemed illegal, a driver may benefit from its performance to score points. But set alongside the wider issues of the moment I'm delighted that Mosley's viewpoint did not prevail.
