Mark Hughes: F1's Inside Line

Even an averagely good scriptwriter would have little trouble weaving a fictional blockbuster storyline around the various controversies of Formula 1 2007.

He could certainly take the ostensibly unrelated topics of 'Stepneygate' and 'pitlanegate' and thread them together to reveal one big conspiracy. What that conspiracy is would be up to the writer.

Would he have the blue blood in charge of the governing body making his final play at undoing his nemesis, the mechanic made good who's in charge of the team fighting for the world title?

Or would the tale be given a twist after setting it out with the Machiavellian Italian team as the pantomime baddies, making the reader think that its machinations against the upstanding British team will be revealed, only for all assumptions to be shattered on the last page?

In the struggle between the team-mates, would the tough and wily world champion be prepared to use his inside information of the delicate espionage story to extract from the team the deal he wants?

And would that lead his sensational rookie team-mate straight into the arms of their biggest rivals, where incidentally there's a huge managerial power struggle going on and driver choice becomes the issue the two factions make their Waterloo?

Where the facts end and the fiction begins is a blurry line and F1 has certainly produced a great soap opera so far this year. In fact the tv critics probably rate it right up there with 1976 and 1994.

In that '76 story there was a supporting actor playing team-mate to one of the two lead male roles. His name was Jochen Mass, and he commented a couple of years ago how that controversial Hunt v Lauda '76 season left a permanent mark on the sport.

"There was a sort of pseudo-intensity about the season," he said, "that has remained part of F1's make-up. [The intensity] is not always there, but you can create it by making everything more important than it really is. That's show business."

Well right now with two appeal hearings set, either one of which could determine the outcome of the world championship, things feel pretty intense. Especially so given the apparent stakes - McLaren's reputation and integrity, its association with blue chip partners like Mercedes-Benz, Santander and Vodafone, F1's credibility with the public etc.

But isn't this just more of that pseudo-intensity Mass speaks of? Regardless of who knew what and when in the Stepneygate case, hasn't espionage always been part of motor racing? Yes, Ferrari is certainly justified in wanting a few answers, but isn't this ultimately a sport whereby men in cars race each other round in circles?

We're not talking acts of terrorism here or the theft of pensions. Should the governing body be getting involved in taking points from a participant, rather than letting any civil proceedings deal with the actual law of the matter? A cynic would say it makes things more dramatic if it does, adds to the soap opera.

Did it really need to get involved in pitlanegate? Probably it did once the stewards had become embroiled - and the stewards probably had to because of complaints from factions within the team about the incident. But given that, should potentially world title-deciding points be dished out and taken away over the matter?

Looks like Hamilton pulled a fast one over Alonso to try to ensure pole by being lighter on a track where pole is especially crucial. Alonso saw an opportunity of paying him back and taking pole himself. This surely is how we would want two rivals fighting over a world championship to behave?

Surely this is just racing; two combative guys in the same team fighting each other for a world title, and a team trying to keep a lid on the cauldron of competitive desire that has ensued by pitting two aces against each other in the best car - and getting itself in a bit of a knot in trying to do so, instead of letting it all play out.

Do we really have to make a soap opera out of it? Here's where the fiction writer could bring the threads together. Is it the best car because of crucial information gleaned in its gestation from an informant in the rival team?

If the scriptwriter decided it was, then he could lay out a plot whereby a chain of events ultimately reaped the injured party's revenge. The car was so good because of the espionage that it led to the drivers struggle with each other being so intense that they had to split - with one of them washing up at the injured party's doorstep for the next season, motivated like never before, and with lots of crucial information to impart.

Then maybe the double sting in the tail: that this was what the Machiavellian team had planned all along when it first leaked the story about the supposed espionage and planted the information with the unsuspecting designer...