by Rob Wilkins
The battle between
Ferrari and
McLaren this season was intense and both teams produced top cars in the shape of the F2007 and MP4-22 respectively, which easily had the edge over the rest of the field. The fact that battle boiled over into the court room with the spy row was unfortunate, but it certainly gave proceedings an added ferocity.
Here
Crash.net columnist,
Mark Blundell discusses the impact of that - and gives his verdict on the performances of Ferrari and McLaren and the nine other teams in the sport.
Which car was best – the Ferrari F2007 or the McLaren MP4-22?
Read on to discover MB's take...
Crash.net:
Mark, there was a lot of politics this year in
Formula 1, with the spy row dragging on for what seemed like an age. How much did that mar the season or is it a case of any publicity being good publicity?
Mark Blundell:
I don’t think it was a great thing for
F1. OK, on the publicity side you can look at it and turn a negative into a positive, but underneath all that, it was very difficult for people to understand what was going on.
The sport should be easily understandable and it is difficult to follow when results happen on the circuit and are then overturned at the end of it. Not many sports are like that. You wouldn’t expect, for example, to watch 90 minutes of a football match and see a goal scored and then an hour or so later come back and find out it has been disallowed. It just doesn’t happen.
The overriding factor now though is we have to make sure F1 comes out positive and comes out fighting for next season. We have got to make sure all the new fans are still on board with us and all the old fans still want to either be present or watching.
What has gone on over the last seven or eight months has been quite damaging to the sport. It is something that is over my head a bit and now it is up to the powers that be to review it and see whether they think it is an injustice or whether it has been fully justified.
Crash.net:
Ferrari obviously took the constructors’ crown, although after McLaren were excluded it was handed to them on a plate. Did that take anything away from the Scuderia’s achievement?
MB:
I don’t think it did. There would still have been a big fight and you just had to see the performance of the Ferrari to see that the Scuderia was still deserving of winning that title. But that was what the whole thing was about - it was all about a straight fight between McLaren and Ferrari and unfortunately we didn’t get to see that with the same levels of pressure applied. That is what happened though and that is the end of it. It is history.
Crash.net:
Which driver-car package was best this year - McLarens or Ferraris?
