New delay for ‘Stepneygate’ scandal
Quote selected text Published by clive December 8th, 2007 in Formula 1
McLaren will have to wait to discover if its 2008 car will be given a clean bill of health by F1’s governing body.
The FIA World Motor Sport Council was on Friday expected to announce whether Ferrari intellectual property has been used in the British team’s new design, and - if so - apply any sanctions.
But while the Paris based body has concluded the investigation into the MP4-23’s legality, and submitted a detailed report to the World Council in Monaco, the long-lasting ‘Stepneygate’ saga now faces a new delay.
“The WMSC considers that McLaren, Ferrari and the other competitors in the FIA Formula One World Championship should be afforded the opportunity to make considered representations on the report at an extraordinary general meeting of the WMSC to be held on Thursday 14 February 2008 in Paris,” a statement on Friday revealed.
Bookmark to:
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- Dennis rejects calls to quit McLaren
Not the Sword of Damocles trick! So the team is meant to wait until a month before the start of the world championship to know whether the car shares any ideas with Ferrari (legally it’s obliged to share a great many ideas, but we’ll leave that aside for a moment). It is also going there not knowing what the case is to answer, or indeed if any case will be there (there will, if only because of the combination of those obligations and of the theory “great minds think alike”). This is surely against any reasonable judicial process. This makes the appeals court for my university look good, which is worrying considering how many more resources and how much more thought went into the FIA court systems.
What more can you expect from an organization that accepts the word of one team but disbelieves everything another says? And Bernie says it was a fair decision!
Mum reckons that if the FIA carries on like this, it will find itself in the EU Court, being found guilty of differential punishment, with Ron Dennis silently laughing his head off at the sheer irony of it all (and getting a giant financial boost at the same time).
I can only hope that your Mum is right…
I cannot believe that an international body of supposedly astute and experienced men can make such contradictory and transparently vindictive (in the case of McLaren) decisions and expect to retain respect and credibility.
What I and many friends wonder is: what did Ron Dennis do to piss off Mosley and Ecclestone sooo much? I wasn’t reading this or any other forum back then, but was he a ringleader in the GPMA (Manufacturers’) proposed breakaway racing series? Clive, what do you know?
Ron was a leading figure in the GPMA proposal so that definitely has something to do with it, Mike. But others suggest that Max’s dislike of Ron goes back much further, to the days when Max was involved in the March team and getting soundly beaten by Ron’s McLaren outfit. I am not so sure on that one - just about everyone was beating March in those days.
I think it’s essentially a personality clash. As Max is ably demonstrating these days, he doesn’t like it when anyone questions his decisions or argues against him - and Ron has always been one to stand up and say what he thinks, without fear of whose feelings get hurt in the process. Stoddart is another who enjoys the dislike of Max thanks to his willingness to argue against the FIA’s unfairness - but Ron has had much more time to amass a huge amount of Max’s bad feeling.
Bernie is a different matter - I don’t think Bernie takes anything personally. He just cares about the money and will support whatever cause he thinks will bring in more cash. Hence his arguing against McLaren’s exclusion in the WMSC hearing - he knew that it would seriously affect F1’s earning power to have a major competitor kicked out of the competition.
Thanks for your views Clive.
Purely on memory, in the era of MARCH wasn’t McLaren still in the hands of the late Bruce McLaren (of my adopted homeland, New Zealand) his friend and partner Phil Kerr (whose book on the “orange” McLaren F1, Indy and CanAm years I was just given) and after Bruce’s death Denny Hulme? I thought the Ron Dennis takeover was later, post-Yardley sponsorship, when the Kiwi influence withdrew.
McLaren owned McLaren at the beginning of March’s first appearance in F1 (1970-1977; March has been in F1 on more than one occasion), and Phil Kerr took charge for the remainder of March’s first stint of F1. However, Ron Dennis was in charge of McLaren when March was there for its second (1981-1982) and third (1987-1992) attempts, and Max had a hand in both of those teams.
Ah, I see Alianora has answered for me - thank you for your excellent response, Ali. The only thing left for me to add is the irrelevant fact that Teddy Mayer owned and ran the team between 1970 and 1982, the era of the customer car to end all customer cars, the M23, and championships for Emerson Fittipaldi and James Hunt. By the time Ron Dennis’ MP4 outfit bought them, they were on a downward slope and it was Ron who made them winners again.