Dodgy Business

"Won't you miss the pantomime, Daddy?" my six-year-old said last Sunday as I headed off upstairs with the wallpaper stripper, leaving to my better half the delights of Aladdin at the Southport Floral Hall.

"Don't worry, love," I said, "we get it all year round in Formula One..."

This was a revelation as, bless her, she took it literally. "Do they even go to Australia?" she asked, knowing that was a very long way...

I chuckled to myself as I envisioned sitting outside a pavement cafe in Melbourne watching Frank Bruno and Kevin Kennedy ponce about in silly costumes. But then it was back to the job. I had only a few hours before it was time to jump in the car and head for Stansted, the McLaren launch and the start of the panto season proper.

The McLaren launch at the Mercedes-Benz museum in Stuttgart © LAT

Right, children, when the curtain goes up and the sexy silver car is pushed out, if you think McLaren is a fine band of hard-working guys who've done us proud over 30 years, cheer as loud as you can. But if you think they're supercilious, cheating English scum, then boo with all your might.

When the drivers come out, let's have big cheers for Lewis. And you can't boo the other one this time, so let's have big cheers for Heikki as well. He's nice!

If you see the bloke off the telly, the one who walks about on the grid, give him a big cheer as well, because he's having a bit of a hard time. And when you see the tall man in the tweed jacket creeping up behind him with a stick, yell "behind you!" as loud as you possibly can! Okay, got all that? Off we go...

Max Mosley obviously wasn't there in Stuttgart, but the presence of a small man in a black coat raised a few eyebrows. What was Mr Ecclestone doing attending the launch of the McLaren Mercedes MP4-23? Could be wrong, but few could remember Mr E turning up at a launch since he appeared to give Toyota's F1 entrance his official blessing.

It could be that the attendance of Sir Michael Arthur, the British Ambassador to Germany, was sufficient to make Mr E's appearance appropriate, but there were more than a few who wondered whether it was some kind of papal blessing for the team after the events of last year.

Working in the F1 media is always interesting, but inevitably you get a bit close to everything and the Christmas break can sometimes serve as an interesting reality check. The questions you get asked over Xmas drinks and nibbles are often a decent barometer of the public's perception of F1.

The message I got repeatedly over Yuletide this year was that F1, while having a fascinating year, had made a bit of an ass of itself in December. The most common question by far, was why McLaren had been fined and Renault had not? And a close second was why McLaren had been stripped of points but its drivers not?

I was driving somewhere when I heard Max Mosley answer the first question on Five Live. I remember the line that what McLaren had done was many times worse, but I honestly can't recall the justification. He didn't half sound convincing though, which is the thing with Max. If he told me I was six feet four I'd end up believing it.

What I can say for sure though, is that paddock opinion said that the FIA had a problem with Renault that they didn't have with McLaren.

McLaren builds racing cars, period. Renault is a French giant that builds a product for public consumption. Big fines or cheating labels would be altogether more serious. They would go home in a huff and take their ball with them. And other teams needed their ball to play with...

That argument, of course, conveniently forgets that McLaren is actually Vodafone McLaren Mercedes. The three-pointed star owns 40 percent of McLaren and it also makes products for public consumption.

Norbert Haug and Martin Whitmarsh at the McLaren launch © LAT

Who knows what has been going on in the background, but there is no doubt that the Mercedes board, whatever their messages of support for McLaren and Ron Dennis, will have viewed the events of 2007 as damaging.

The way the McLaren business is set up, with the Bahrain-owned Mumtalakat holding company owning 30 percent and Dennis and long-term partner Mansour Ojjeh 15 percent each, Mercedes, as majority shareholder, does not have control. And there are suggestions that Stuttgart would like it.

Someone close to the team whispered to me last year that they could see the events of '07 costing Ron control of the business that has been his life's work. Either he had been economical with the truth or, if not, a little out of touch. Either way, it wasn't great, and with BMW making strong headway...

Was it significant, we wondered, that it was Martin Whitmarsh and not Dennis, who had put his name to the grovelling apology to the FIA that, presumably, was felt necessary to ensure that there is a silver car on the 2008 grid. Or was it just that Ron's fingers refused to move his pen?

Certainly though, Ron was as diffident and low profile as anyone could recall in Stuttgart on Monday, the first time in 13 years of the McLaren-Mercedes partnership that the car had been launched on Mercedes home turf. Perhaps that was significant too. And the fact that it was left to Whitmarsh and Norbert Haug to take questions.

In the little that he did say, Ron pointed out that the MP4-23 was being launched on Lewis's 23rd birthday and that it would also carry the Number 23 - the latter more by accident than judgement, admittedly.

"It will be a year of forward thinking," he said, "not spending any time dwelling on the past."

There's a definite feel-good factor about Kovalainen. When all is said and done, you could argue that McLaren suffered much woe in '07 by trying to run two potential race and championship-winning drivers in a car capable of delivering both.

You could have forgiven them for rethinking their approach. But not a bit of it. Kovalainen, I reckon, will give Hamilton a much harder time than many anticipate. Take your hats off to them. Good to see.

Lewis seems up for anything. He talked about a fresh start, about his good relationship with Kovalainen, about how hard it was to have a good working association with a guy who gave one-word answers (Alonso) and about how communicating with Heikki is no problem. In fact, he said, it's the Finn who initiates conversation. He said all the right things and he's raring to go.

If all the talk and speculation was of Ron and matters at the top of the food chain, the hopes of another potential British star were not, as yet, anywhere near the radar.

Unnoticed at the back of the charter back to Stansted, 25-year-old Jamie Green, Mercedes driver, talked business with his new manager, one Anthony Hamilton.

Jamie Green leads Lewis Hamilton in the 2004 Marlboro Masters at Zandvoort © LAT

I was sat next to Jamie at the Autosport Awards dinner last month and have to confess to not knowing a great deal about him. I knew he had a decent F3 record and was in DTM, but I wasn't up on the details. I did, however, notice the odd wistful look as Lewis garnered all the attention on stage.

Talking about Green's 2004 F3 Euro Series win, I asked Jamie who he'd beaten. "Lewis, Rosberg and Kubica..." he said, with a wry smile.

Coming from an era when serious drivers drove single-seaters and anything with a roof was a house, I asked him what he was doing in a tin-top and not a GP2 car.

"Budget," he said, predictably. "I get paid to drive and there's a lot of people who'd be thankful for that," he added, not entirely convincingly.

Obviously talented, he was helped in the early days by former Jordan stalwart Trevor Foster, but only on a low-key, personal favour basis on Trevor's part. His first proper management deal was inked with Hamilton Sr only late last year.

"At 25, people don't really want to talk to Jamie about GP2," Anthony explained.

What about Mercedes, I ventured, any sympathy towards his situation on their part?

"There's no sympathy in this business," Anthony replied. "It's all about hard results.

"In truth I don't think we could do GP2 because he's committed to DTM. He's had a tough couple of years, but he's a different man and I think he can win the championship this year and then get an F1 drive, even if it's a testing role to start with.

"That's the plan and that's why I'm involved with him. We've raced him. And he's the guy who's like Lewis but who they've all missed."

Interesting.