Dodgy Business

McLaren, right now, is the one place where, thankfully, the on-track stuff is providing welcome relief from engine homologation.

The future rules structure of Formula One is important, I grant you, but F1 does have a propensity for disappearing off up its own bottom at the slightest opportunity. And nowhere was that better illustrated than at Magny Cours.

The engine arguments will impact on us next March, soonest, and possibly not until the following year. Unless, that is, you happen to be an accountant for a Grand Prix team. But when the GPMA put out a statement last Sunday morning, the FIA responded as the cars were forming up on the grid. Literally. And, trumping that, Renault put out a release during the race.

Yes, okay, there had been a self-imposed deadline of last weekend to get the whole thing sorted but with the cars actually going round the track, shouldn't we have been paying attention elsewhere?

Those more moved by sport than politics were waiting to see whether Felipe Massa was going to win Michael Schumacher the race by keeping Fernando Alonso behind him through Estoril and down at the Adelaide Hairpin on lap 1. The Brazilian could not have done his job better.

Michael Schumacher leads the French Grand Prix as Ferrari teammate Felipe Massa holds off the Renault of Fernando Alonso © LAT

And, further back, you had an eye on Pedro de la Rosa's McLaren. He had qualified just a couple of slots behind Raikkonen, a tad over three tenths adrift, and you were waiting to see if he could run with Kimi in the race.

De la Rosa is as decent a bloke as you will ever find in a motor racing paddock and McLaren's Martin Whitmarsh spelled that out talking to the press on Saturday. He used words like mature, rational and realistic. He did not compare and contrast with the car's previous incumbent, but he might have done. The team, he said, was delighted to have Pedro in the car.

Bahrain last year - Pedro's last opportunity to sub for Montoya - had been fascinating. He'd outqualified Kimi over two aggregated sessions, then found the Finn on his inside at Turn 1. Best not chop his nose off, Pedro figured, so he'd stayed wide, let Kimi through, got himself tripped up in the opening lap scramble and lost places. By the time he got through traffic - including a no-holds-barred Mark Webber - Kimi was half a minute up the road. Pedro scored some points and fastest lap.

The Law of Sod dictated that when Pedro lost a place off the line this time it was the Aussie again who went past him, refusing to give up in a Williams that had no business being in front of a McLaren. As much as I admire Webber, I was frustrated for de la Rosa. You don't pass anyone at Magny Cours, never mind Mark, and you just knew that Pedro would be stuck there until the first stop, which he was. Again though, he set a faster race lap than Kimi when he finally cut loose. Not hugely significant maybe, but not insignificant either.

There is no denying that the Montoya chapter of the McLaren book was hugely disappointing. When McLaren signed him from Williams a year early, in 2003 for '05, it was widely held to be a coup. Ron Dennis said that the team had experience of getting the best from South American drivers - read Ayrton Senna - and was confident they would do the same with Juan Pablo. But the raw material was very different and some claim that McLaren certainly did not do that. Others question whether, in fact, there was any more to be extracted from the Colombian.

"Juan Pablo did not drive for the team and, to an extent, not even for himself," someone mentioned last weekend. "There was only ever one thing in his mind, and that was Kimi. When he found he couldn't 'do' Kimi he had a big problem."

A team like McLaren is too professional to publicly criticise its employees - which is exactly how it views its drivers however well remunerated they may be - but the Turn 1 accident at Indy, where Montoya hit Raikkonen, seems be the straw that broke the camel's back.

Another observer, close to the team, said: "Look, we all know that the constructors' championship should have come here last year but it didn't, and you can't level that at Kimi. With Juan Pablo there was the tennis/motorbike incident that, fair enough, can happen to anyone and is not the sort of thing you lose a job over. But then there was the thing with Ralf at Monaco, the Canada red light nonsense, the Monteiro lapping fiasco in Turkey and so on."

Montoya came into the year needing to prove himself at McLaren and it began badly in Bahrain, where Juan blamed engine problems for a below par performance. An engine overlay, however, proved that there was little difference between the two Mercedes V8s. Then came Australia, where Montoya spun going to the grid, then again behind the Safety Car and finally shunted.

At some point between then and Indy, Ron Dennis sat down with Montoya and established that Juan Pablo wanted to continue in F1. Dennis told him that the best way to achieve that was to have a strong second half of the season, making the decision to re-hire him - or for someone else to take him on - an easy one.

Juan Pablo Montoya and Ron Dennis © XPB/LAT

After Indy, however, it seems that a meeting was scheduled in Woking nine days after the race, before France, with Montoya suspecting that he might get the push. He then took the initiative, furthered his contact with old Champ Car boss Chip Ganassi and struck his deal. With Montoya's future obviously in NASCAR it was no longer in McLaren's interests to run him.

Hence, a plum vacancy in Formula One.

You find yourself in two minds. It's a great shame for de la Rosa that the opportunity didn't arise five years ago. But there are those who say that Pedro's had his chance, didn't particularly shine against Eddie Irvine at Jaguar, is never going to be world champion and so it's much better to blood a young guy and let Pedro do his testing.

And with Gary Paffett ideally placed, there's undoubtedly something in that. Paffett seems like another good bloke. There was no silver spoon and he's got to where he is on talent.

The first time I came across him was the early nineties when I used to have some fun at Buckmore Park. Through Autosport I knew Martin Hines and Mr Karting was running son Luke and Paffett in his Young Guns team.

Pre-kids, a group of us used to go and do six and 24hr kart enduros, really as an excuse to have a weekend away, drink some beer and chew the fat. We had a couple of 100cc two-strokes as well for more serious fun. My girlfriend's little brother, Tim, was showing an interest but I'd been told that seat position was important for weight distribution and a bit of a black art. So I had it properly positioned by someone who knew about these things.

All I knew was that I was quicker than my mate. It wound him up immensely and was therefore fantastic value, and there was no way I was moving the seat. But, by the time he was 10 or 11, young Tim's legs were the same length as mine and I no longer had an excuse. Off we went to Buckmore.

The Young Guns were testing that day, along with quite a few more two-strokes and Tim hadn't as much as been on an indoor kart. His father thought that maybe we should go and warn 'Mr Karting' that Tim was going to be out there but I reckoned that Hines and Paffett would spot a kart going at walking pace and find their way around it.

Tim had done a couple of understandably stiff-armed, head straight ahead laps, occasionally touching the throttle, when Hines and Paffett encountered him for the first time. It happened, unfortunately, in the middle of Buckmore's uphill chicane and, embroiled in their own dice, they went either side of him.

Imagine how Ricardo Zonta felt when Schumacher and Hakkinen did the same to him at Spa, increase the closing speed fifty-fold and factor in the first-time nerves. When Tim was jolted by the missile going past on his left, he understandably steered right and, oh dear...

He ended up buried in the tyres with a bent steering column and a banana-shaped steering wheel, which I said he could keep for his bedroom wall as a souvenir. A Young Gun (I never did discover which one) was now firing blanks, minus a couple of wheels and very pissed off.

Gary Paffett © LAT

Tim was okay, a little shocked and a bit winded. His Dad had a face like thunder. Simon had a fantastic sense of humour but best not be around when it failed. He had seven kids and he looked out for them. Gordonstoun educated, a couple of years ahead of Prince Chuck, who he thought was a right drip, his own father was one of the leading lights in the early SAS. I had visions of Hines and The Young Guns disappearing in a series of controlled explosions.

Feeling responsible for the mobile chicane I figured it was down to me to tell Simon we should have waited for a quieter spell and to go and have a word of apology in Hines's shell-like.

"No problem," Martin said, "If they can't find their way around a novice they aren't going to win the world championship. Forget it."

At a later date I was introduced to Paffett's old man, the complete antithesis of the stereotype Karting Dad From Hell, and Hines later waxed lyrical about Gary's ability. "He can go all the way," Martin said. I made a point of looking out for his results and he was winning everything. It was the same when he moved into cars, often with machinery that shouldn't have been anywhere near a podium.

Talking to Martin Brundle last weekend, he mentioned the first time Paffett approached 2MB (the company Martin runs with Mark Blundell) about management.

"I was really busy, had a lot on and I said to him I didn't have the time. I told him about some of the more respected driver managers in the paddock but he said he wanted me to do it. I looked at him, saw myself sitting there and I couldn't say no."

Hines, of course, has run both Paffett and Lewis Hamilton in karting. Hamilton, through the backing of Ron Dennis, has always had good equipment on the way up and Ron, undoubtedly, looks on Lewis's progress with an almost paternal eye.

Paffett is further along the learning curve than Hamilton, having done 11,000kms of McLaren testing this year and it is highly unlikely that Lewis will be placed into a racing situation with McLaren this year. For Paffett it might be a different story and, no disrespect to de la Rosa, I'd love to see it.

Hamilton's career, you feel, is more structured. For Paffett, already 25, Formula One could be a case of grabbing any fleeting opportunity, of which this could be the best one. If he raced this year and did well you feel it wouldn't guarantee him a race seat in '07 but at least it would put him in the shop window.

I told Tim he should keep hold of his bent steering wheel and that one day he might be able to get it signed by a Grand Prix driver. Hope I was right.