Cruise Control

Wednesday's announcement by the FIA that it is to take no action against McLaren regarding the Monaco GP was a logical and timely outcome to what could have become a very messy situation. The decision might not have pleased those who'd bet money on a maiden Lewis Hamilton win in the principality, but it was the only sensible solution.

The storm may have blown over in 48 hours, but nevertheless it generated some interesting questions, and leaves us intrigued us to how McLaren will manage the delicate balance of power between Hamilton and Fernando Alonso in the future. I say McLaren, but as the man himself made clear on Sunday afternoon, Ron Dennis has the tricky task of managing the situation.

Nineteen years after he first gave himself the job of juggling Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, he faces just as difficult a challenge. One that just a few months ago he probably felt would not become a headache until at least 2008 ...

The times they are a changin'

The big difference is that much has changed in the F1 regulations since those days, when two team-mates could in essence do their own thing and race each other without too many compromises getting in the way. Nowadays we have Safety Cars, fuel stops that cannot happen on the same lap, and qualifying with race fuel, all of which combine to make it very hard for a team to treat two drivers equally.

And this year especially, the Safety Car issue has become much more complex. In the recent past teams traditionally split their drivers by one lap in terms of fuel load carried in qualifying, but the 2007 safety car rules make that a little risky.

As we have explained before, the pit lane can now be closed for fuelling for as many as two or three laps while the pack is lined up, and if that happens just as your cars are due to come in, both drivers may have no choice but to take on fuel and accept a stop and go penalty.

Had Alonso and Hamilton been scheduled to come in on laps 26 and 27 in Monaco, and the Safety Car been deployed on the Spaniard's scheduled in-lap, that scenario could very well have unfolded - and the team would have looked very silly.

At Monaco there's the added complication that one stop is a regular strategy of choice for anyone who doesn't have the pace to get onto the first couple of rows. Had the McLarens been on the above strategy and the Safety Car come out around lap 30-ish, more than half the field would have been able to fuel up for the run to the flag, leaving the McLarens still exposed to one further stop.

Chances are they would still have had the speed to beat just about everybody, but one or two cars would have been able to jump them, especially if another Safety Car closed up the field, and stopped the silver cars from escaping.

All these considerations played a part in determining McLaren's strategy. As we have seen this year, the team has tended to separate the cars by two or three laps of fuel in qualifying, but on this occasion that figure became the unusually significant five laps, with Alonso getting the lighter load.

This gave a wider range of options should a Safety Car be deployed, not least the fact that it was just enough to put Hamilton into the one-stop window. In other words, should a Safety Car make it necessary, he could have filled up at his first stop and run to the flag, and thus counter any threat from those behind who planned to do the same.

Just to underline that, when he pitted on lap 29, there were 49 laps still to run, which happens to be the length of Ralf Schumacher's first stint, and only two laps fewer than that of Kimi Raikkonen, giving some indication of comparable fuel tank sizes.

Of course if the race ran interrupted, Lewis could also stick with the more traditional two-stop strategy.

At the official FIA Monaco figure of 1.7kg/lap, the five-lap difference meant that Lewis went into qualifying carrying at least 8.5kg more than Fernando Alonso. I say at least, because some sources reckon that the true number was nearer six laps, in which case he would have been 10kg heavier.

Whatever the case, he was in effect penalised to the tune of 0.250s-0.300s a lap in qualifying - a not insignificant amount.

Indeed, even allowing for the apparent advantage that McLaren showed all weekend, there was always a risk that he would qualify not only behind his team-mate, but behind some others as well. That risk was reduced when Kimi Raikkonen didn't make it through to Q3, but nevertheless even the team was surprised and relieved that he made it into second.

In fact in the end he qualified 0.179s behind Alonso, even after losing some time behind Mark Webber (although to be fair, Fernando didn't have a completely clear lap). Given the weight penalty outlined above, it was an impressive performance.

"This is a race where you have to have a strategy that is radically different from one driver to the other, that provides for the deployment of the Safety Car," said Ron Dennis. "You have to have one car on a one-stop strategy, if you can get that car onto the first three rows of the grid.

"As it happened we got it on to the front row of the grid, which was a phenomenal effort by Lewis. He was carrying five laps more fuel, and fuel corrected would have sat on pole position. But he had to play the role of covering the possibility of a Safety Car being deployed, which has happened four times in the last five years."

Carry that weight

Lewis might not have been too excited when told he was going into qualifying with a fuel penalty of such significance relative to his team-mate, but he must have been confident that he could put it on the front row. It was close, for Felipe Massa was only 0.062s behind, the equivalent of a little over a lap of fuel.

Had Ferrari been a little more aggressive then Lewis would have been down in third, and the story of the race would have been very different. As it was, Massa ran a lot further in the race than either McLaren or Renault had anticipated after they'd done their sums.

The upside for Hamilton was that on paper he still had a chance of usurping Alonso. There was always the chance that he could squeeze by on the run to the first corner, allowing for the fact that both men were fully aware of their responsibility to not hit each other.

Had he got by, things would have been very interesting. Or had a Safety Car emerged in the window after Alonso's stop and before his own, he would have gained a huge advantage.

But the key advantage he had was that in having those five clear laps after Alonso pitted, he clearly had a chance to bang in quick times and resolve the matter for himself by getting out of the pits in front.

To do that of course, he had to be as close as possible to Fernando when the Spaniard pitted, and that simply didn't happen. Don't forget, he was carrying that 0.3s penalty not just for qualifying, but for the first stint of the race as well. Indeed after 10 laps the gap was 3.1s - just do the sums.

The other factor at play was the tyres. Both men started on new soft tyres (the top runners had a few soft sets left, but had used all their supersofts in qualifying), and both suffered from front graining and understeer. Lewis was a little worse off than Fernando, and as that kicked in the gap grew from 3s to 7s between laps 10 and 14.

Then traffic became an issue as the pair fought their way past first Ralf Schumacher, and then Christijan Albers, Adrian Sutil, Anthony Davidson, Takuma Sato and Jarno Trulli. On lap 20 alone Alonso was an astonishing 4s off the pace he had been running, and for a brief moment Lewis seemed to be back in the game - but then he had a near identical delay on lap 21 as he fought past the same group, including an all or nothing move on Trulli that could have ended in tears.

Overall, Lewis gained a little from this chaotic segment of the race, and his tyres also cleaned up. On lap 22 the gap was 5.5s, and it dipped to 4.2s by lap 25. Next time around, Alonso came in. That was a lap later than where my sources had placed him. The same sources had pegged Hamilton at around lap 30.

Lewis, meanwhile, now had his chance. However, on the crucial laps 26 and 27 he was half a second off the times he had just been running, before going half a second quicker on lap 28, with what turned out to be his fastest lap of the race. He then came in on lap 29, just three laps after Alonso.

This where it gets interesting, and he made it clear after the race that he hadn't fully understood why he had been called in earlier than expected. He'd taken that five-lap penalty in qualifying, and yet when it mattered he had only a three-lap advantage after Alonso's stop.

As noted, the team insisted that Fernando had saved fuel. That might have bought him one extra lap, although the fact that he was running hard at the head of the field makes that seem a little surprising. But economy mode driving certainly wouldn't have earned him two spare laps. So Lewis was definitely called in one if not two laps earlier than planned.

The conspiracy theorists might suggest that the team didn't want Lewis to enjoy any advantage he might have gained in those extra laps purely because they wanted to keep Alonso ahead. The more logical explanation, and the one accepted by the FIA, is that having got Alonso successfully in and out of the pits, and with no threat from behind, there was no point in leaving Hamilton out on track to run his fuel load down to zero.

All it did was put him at risk at getting caught out if a Safety Car came out, and left him with no choice but to refuel in a closed pit, and take the stop and go penalty. Instead, McLaren took the zero risk option.

The big question therefore is how aware Lewis was before the race that such a scenario might unfold. He accepted the heavy qualifying fuel load, but then didn't reap the benefits come the race, and in the heat of battle that caught him off guard.

The FIA investigation this week must have been in large part a response to race control's careful monitoring of the team's radio traffic. Lewis presumably had a colourful response to whatever was being explained to him, and that must have triggered some suspicions within the FIA that perhaps all was not as it seemed.

In the end, however, those extra laps would have been academic. Firstly he just wasn't quite close enough when Fernando pitted, and secondly Alonso came out with a heavy fuel load (but new soft tyres) and banged in several mega laps that were more than enough to ensure that he would have stayed in front even if Lewis had done those extra laps.

"After the first stop," said Dennis, "at which time Fernando had saved some fuel, Lewis had an opportunity, a brief window of opportunity, to actually reverse the order. But he was struggling with a bit of understeer, and in the end Fernando had pulled out enough of a gap. But that is motor racing."

The pit stop timing on the TV screens, although not always an accurate representation of how much fuel goes in, also clearly indicated that Lewis was at rest for longer, making it even more clear-cut that he would come out behind.

Never mind, there was still a chance for the same procedure to unfold at the second stops. Not only did Lewis clearly have some extra fuel in the car when he pitted, the stop timing suggested that he took on more fuel, so that added up to him pitting at least five laps after Fernando at the second stops. If he could catch him, then once again the chance was there to jump him.

In the event, the team called a halt to any such thoughts, for a few laps after the stops, the drivers were told to cool it.

"They were free to run as hard as they could until about five laps past the first stops," said Dennis. "And that's when we started to slow the cars."

The gap was as low as 3.6s on lap 33, and thereafter it drifted out to as much as 12s by the time Alonso pitted for a second time. This time Hamilton came in just two laps later, when he surely had the fuel to run at least five more.

Again it was a question of getting the stop out of the way when it was pointless risking the arrival of a Safety Car. And once again Lewis had been carrying more fuel than Fernando for a stint, for no benefit to himself.

Any pit-to-car discussions going on around this time may well have wound Lewis up, because he emerged from that final stop in a fiery mood. For once on the same fuel load as his team-mate, and with scrubbed supersoft tyres now fitted, he brought the gap down to nothing and sat on Alonso's tail, as if to make a point to the world.

He was then told to drop back a little, presumably to avoid any possible distraction to he leader and to let a little more clean air into his radiators.

As Ron later explained, there were sound technical reasons for not over-stressing the cars, and not just the fact that the engines have to race in Montreal: "We were extremely racy on brake material choice, and we knew we had to manage the brakes for the balance of the race," he told Autosport.com.

The things we said today

Usually the McLaren Communications Centre is an open house to the F1 media, but Monaco attracts so many corporate guests that in the immediate aftermath of the race it is traditionally off-limits except to those who have an invite.

Not surprisingly, last Sunday a pretty good party began to kick off as folk celebrated the one-two finish, while those off us with a job to do congregated outside, hoping that Dennis would eventually emerge to give us the inside story on the team's afternoon.

It was worth the wait. Thus far we had only heard the views of the drivers, and Hamilton had made it clear in the FIA press conference that his hands had been tied. McLaren drivers simply do not create controversy, but he said just enough, and created enough mystery, to set everyone thinking.

Fully aware that the British media in particular wanted to know a little more about what had gone on, Ron began with an emotionally charged monologue carefully outlining how the team had approached the race.

"We're pleased with the one-two, but I'm not pleased that my job carries with it some difficult decisions," he said. "There is a uniqueness about Monte Carlo. There are many things that are unique about Monte Carlo.

"Anybody that has some degree of sophistication in their ability to analyse previous Grands Prix at Monte Carlo and the strategy that you need knows that a single-stop strategy is a critical factor if the Safety Car is deployed, and it has been deployed four times in the previous five years.

"If the Safety Car is not deployed, then the fastest way is the two-stop strategy. Then you have no choice but to decide who is going to be on a strategy to cover off the one-stop option, and who is going to take a two-stop option.

"Complicating that is the fact that the less resilient and slowest of the tyres here was the option tyre, which had a lot of degradation in the early part, which means that you want to stay on that tyre for the shortest possible distance, which play again to the two-stop strategy.

"We compromised both drivers in how we ran the race. There was no question whatsoever that both drivers, given they were on the fastest strategy, and both drivers if faced with not having the safety car deployed, could have comfortably won this race.

"Everybody feels, I'm sure, and a lot of people will feel in England, that there is some favouritism, or there is some penalisation that is given to either Lewis or Fernando. But we are scrupulously fair at all times in how we run this Grand Prix team.

"But at this circuit, it's inevitably got to be addressed, hence the reason we've won 14 of the races. You have to address this in a way that is a team way. And I make no excuses for instructing the racing drivers to slow their pace after the first stop and to affect our strategy based on probability of Safety Cars, and whatever other cars can threaten us as a result of the Safety Car being deployed.

"So this race is nothing about the drivers, other than the necessity for them to be able to drive really quickly, and give us the opportunity to determine the outcome of the race.

"And that's my job. And I don't like to slow drivers down, I don't like them to be frustrated, I don't like to see these things happen. But, because I'm an absolute racer, it's just the way you have to win the Monaco GP, which is what we've done. And I'm not going to make any excuses for it.

"The strategy did favour conclusively the two-stop strategy drivers unless the Safety Car was deployed. And it's all very well to have the benefit of hindsight and say it wasn't deployed, but if it was deployed, Lewis Hamilton would have won the race. Simple as that."

He insisted that Lewis still had a chance to win the World Championship: "Of course he does. I have been monstrously criticised in the past for not favouring a driver, and frittering away the opportunity of a World Championship.

"We will never favour one driver, no matter who it is, we never have, we never will. This is a unique one-off, and we have to take those decisions. And it would have reversed in the situation of a Safety Car being deployed.'

He also came close to openly criticising his driver, something that Dennis simply never does in public.

"I think he's understandably disappointed and frustrated. But he would not have been frustrated and disappointed if a Safety Car had been deployed and he had won the race.

"These people, all drivers that have driven for McLaren, and all drivers that drive for McLaren in the future are basically members of this team. And they have to behave and perform as members of the team. That's the way it is. Time will tell. We do not favour anybody.

"There will be places where they are absolutely free to race. But this isn't one of them. This is a place where one driver pushing another driver, if it's a rival team, is a way to induce a mistake, and then you've got a car out.

"Everybody in the pitlane, and the media, would be saying what an idiot the team principal of McLaren is for allowing their cars to compete to a level where one of them is in the barrier, maybe two of them. It's just not the right way to go.

"Lewis and Fernando enjoy being in a competitive team and having competitive cars. It doesn't matter who you are, if you're not in a competitive car, you're not going to win the race.

"Lewis has been guided and supported through his career in the past, and that will continue into the future. But one of the things you have to come to accept if you are a member of this Grand Prix team is that there is equal opportunity for drivers to race, the vast majority of the time. But Monaco is not one of them."

The FIA response

The FIA's announcement on Monday that McLaren's race was under investigation presumably came as a surprise to the folk at Woking, and there's no question that it came as at the personal instigation of Max Mosley.

On Monday he would have had a report from Charlie Whiting, who as noted would have had access to the McLaren radio conversations, and also knew how much fuel the cars had started with and when they were due to stop.

The FIA would have been fully aware of any displeasure on the part of Lewis with regard to instructions he'd got from the team. If Whiting had any specific suspicions that McLaren had behaved improperly, he would have passed them on.

Mosley, in turn, would have had time to absorb and digest both Hamilton's comments in the FIA press conference, and those made by Dennis, as reported above. He clearly decided that the matter was worth a closer look.

He would also have taken into account the furore that erupted in the British media on Monday morning, and the reaction of the public, including those who had bet money on Hamilton - F1 is fixed, all that sort of thing.

Mosley might not readily agree with the suggestion that he was influenced by the media or public opinion, but that view is contradicted by the very part of the mechanism he chose to pursue.

Article 151c of the International Sporting Code refers to damage to the sport caused by 'any fraudulent conduct or any act prejudicial to the interests of any competition or to the interests of motor sport generally,' so by definition taking that path is a reaction to F1's public image getting a pasting after such a high-profile incident.

That gave the FIA more leeway than the relevant parts of the F1 Sporting Regulations, notably Article 39.7, which states simply: 'Team orders which interfere with a race result are prohibited.'

If the FIA had really wanted to get heavy, it could have brought in Article 13.7 of the F1 regs: 'If in the opinion of the Formula One Commission a competitor fails to operate his team in a manner compatible with the standards of the Championship or in any way brings the Championship into disrepute, the FIA may exclude such competitor from the Championship forthwith.'

I don't know if Bernie Ecclestone keeps up to speed with the detail of the rulebook, but his comments in the British press on Wednesday morning suggested that he had something akin to the above in mind ...

But things happen quickly in this sport, and a matter of hours after Bernie's mischievous quotes were picked up for worldwide syndication, the matter was over. Instead of announcing a date for proceedings in Paris next week, something which would have severely disrupted Alonso and Hamilton's preparations for Montreal, the case was in effect settled before it got as far as court.

Through Tuesday Whiting listened to detailed explanations from McLaren, presumably including matters such as the brake issue outlined above. In the end he and Mosley deemed that there was no case to answer after all, and decided that everything the team said - as outlined by Dennis on Sunday afternoon - was plausible. If there were any grey areas, they weren't enough to see the story go any further.

A sensible solution

In the end, common sense prevailed, but at least the issue had been looked at and a procedure followed, which should - but probably won't - satisfy the critics.

It was interesting to note that most 'sensible' pundits asked for their views, especially team insiders, said that McLaren had done nothing wrong. When you have an advantage over the opposition at a particular race in a closely fought championship, you have to fully exploit it. This was nothing like the Ferrari business in Austria five years ago - moving over and holding station are two different things.

Not allowing two drivers from the same team to duke it out, especially round the confines of Monaco, is hardly a new concept - such intra-team behaviour can be traced back through the generations. Don't forget there was a time when number twos were called in to the pits and asked to hand over their cars to a team leader whose own machine had retired ...

However, that doesn't make things any more comfortable for either Hamilton or his growing army of supporters. A degree of momentum had built up around him in the run-up to Monaco, and somehow it seemed his destiny to score his first win there, rather than somewhere rather less glamorous.

His pace on Thursday morning was astonishing, and there is no question, even in the minds of key team insiders, that he was the quicker man round the principality - all things being equal. And yet it was Alonso who got the optimum strategy for qualifying and the race.

In the grand scheme of things, that is perhaps hardly surprising - whatever McLaren's history of treating drivers equally, Alonso must regard himself as team leader, and expects to be treated as such.

McLaren may have rightly escaped any sanctions this time, but significantly a warning shot has been fired by the FIA, and that will keep everyone on their toes.

But perhaps more importantly, the whole business must have had a destabilising effect on the team, and it's now very clear that Hamilton has already outgrown any fatuous suggestions that he is there to learn from the master.

As I said at the beginning, Dennis has some tough calls to make in the coming weeks: "You can all give whatever twists or headlines you want on it, my job is sometimes difficult. Today was one of those times, slowing drivers down, through a proper disciplined approach to this Grand Prix, effectively determining who is going to win the race on sheer strategy versus straightforward performance - that's one of my jobs, and I had to do it.

"I'm not happy, I don't feel good about not letting our drivers race. But the simple fact is it's my job. We're the ones going away with the points, we're the ones that are clearly ahead in the World Championship.

"That is my job. We don't have team orders. We have a strategy to win this race, and as I said this is a unique Grand Prix, and our approach to it, history shows, is the right approach. Our job is to win races and World Championships. And that comes before, rarely comes before but occasionally comes before, having to allow the drivers to race. Simple as that."

There's one interesting twist in this tale. In recent years it's been rare for a team to have two team-mates who are so evenly matched that the smallest strategy tweak means the difference between winning and losing a Grand Prix. But it happened at Williams in the Juan Pablo Montoya/Ralf Schumacher era, at the 2003 French GP.

The Colombian's displeasure with regard to his team was all too apparent to McLaren, who were monitoring their rival's radio traffic. Later Dennis made a discreet enquiry to JPM - are you are happy where you are? Not long after that, he signed up with Ron for 2005 and beyond.

McLaren's radio transmissions are supposedly rather more secure, so in theory Ferrari could not have heard exactly what was said last weekend. However, perhaps Monaco 2007 was the first tiny step in a scenario that could see Lewis one day back racing for his former GP2 employers, the Todt family - and rather sooner than anyone might have expected ...

We want to hear from you!

Let us know what you would like to see from us in the future.

Take our survey

- The Autosport.com Team

Read and post comments