Nigel Roebuck: Fifth Column Finale

One morning, in January 1968, I drove back to my London flat, where I'd arranged to meet a friend prior to going out for lunch. It was bitter and there was a fair amount of packed snow, but I was in my Mini Cooper S, and slippery roads held no terror for me, thank you very much.

I was a little late and as I drove down the street I saw my pal on the pavement, and waved. Then I put the brakes on. The Mini immediately spun, then slotted - backwards - into a space at the kerbside, between two cars. I had hit nothing, not even the kerb, and the car was perfectly parked: it was like sleight of hand. Somewhat disbelieving, I got out, and - with a nonchalance I didn't feel - walked over to my friend.

He was, to say the least, highly impressed by what he had just seen. "Bet you couldn't that again," he said, and I forbore to mention I'd been merely along for the ride. Trust me, Sebastien Loeb couldn't do it again. It was one of those moments incapable of logical explanation.

For some reason, this episode came back to me last Thursday, when the decision was announced in Monaco.

It's been an average sort of week in Formula 1, really, the sort to which we have become recently accustomed. 'Team found by World Motor Sport Council to be in breach of Article 151(c) of International Sporting Code... dispossessed of its constructors' championship points... fined a hundred million dollars...'

Sorry, sorry, as you were. That was September, and that was McLaren. Now we're in December, and talking about Renault, whose punishment was, er, nothing.

Tricky thing, Article 151(c). It comes into the chapter entitled 'Penalties', under the sub-heading of 'Breach of rules', and it reads thus: Any fraudulent conduct or any act prejudicial to the interests of any competition or the interests of motor sport generally.

Back in July, when McLaren appeared before the WMSC for the first time, the findings were similar to those of last week: the team was in breach of Article 151(c), having in its possession confidential material from another team (Ferrari), but it was adjudged that there was insufficient evidence that this had 'interfered with the Formula 1 World Championship' - in other words, that McLaren had benefited from it - and that therefore there would be no penalty.

It will be remembered that at that point all inhabitants of Maranello became near-hysterical with rage, and put in an appeal against the decision, which was granted. Then, over the weekend of the Hungarian Grand Prix, a Sr Alonso of Oviedo, Spain, put his spoke in, and soon afterwards it was decided that no longer would there be an appeal hearing, but rather a reconvening of the WMSC. A whole new 'trial'. And it was on this occasion, on September 13, that McLaren was taken to the cleaners.

At the time Jean Todt described the deprivation of all the team's championship points and fine of $100 million as 'a soft punishment'. Some of us remembered his bellicose performance at Monaco in 2006 - when Michael Schumacher crudely tried to prevent Alonso from nicking his pole position, and was put to the back of the grid for his trouble - and reflected that now, as then, he had passed up an excellent opportunity to keep quiet. In the opinion of most, while the penalty inflicted on Schumacher was indubitably 'soft', that on McLaren was savage. Like most in the paddock, I remain to be convinced that the team materially benefited from Nigel Stepney's duplicity.

Last week Renault, while admitting to being in possession of confidential McLaren material (even loading it on to their mainframe IT system), escaped punishment, and there is no question of an appeal - even if weary McLaren folk could be bothered to mount one - for it was adjudged that the information trousered by Phil Mackereth, when he moved from McLaren to Renault in September 2006, could only have had a direct bearing on last season's car. Which scored 51 points, of course.

It is not that I wish that Renault had been financially reamed, far from it. Simply, I wish McLaren had not.

A final sting in the tail for the hapless gentlemen of Woking was an announcement from the WMSC of a meeting to discuss whether or not any Ferrari 'intellectual property' had been incorporated into the design of the 2008 McLaren MP4-23. Despite the fact that the designs of the car were recently gone over in detail at the team's HQ by FIA-appointed people, it was felt that Ferrari, as well as McLaren, should have some input into the findings of the report, and to that end the meeting would be scheduled for February 14. Valentine's Day. And fully five weeks before Melbourne, the opening grand prix of the season. I'm sure it won't have a disruptive effect.

Anyway, enough of that. This is supposed to be the season of goodwill, and our country is about to close for a fortnight. Anyone bored of inactivity could always pass a few hours in study of the WMSC's findings into the McLaren and Renault cases, in trying to tease out the hundred million differences between the two.

Failing that, you might just sit and weep about the state into which F1 has got itself. Thanks to the arrival of Lewis Hamilton, TV figures for the grands prix were higher than for years, and three drivers remained in contention for the championship to the very last race. For all that, though, the overriding memories of 2007 will be of acrimony and dissent - of a sport which had wilfully brought itself into disrepute.

Still, I'm sure there will be a fine Christmas party in Enstone. To say nothing of Maranello, where they never seem to have any problems in parking on snow. Or anything else, really.

I'm away to Motor Sport in the New Year, so this will be the last of close to a thousand Fifth Columns. It was in May 1980 that Autosport's then editor, Quentin Spurring, suggested that I write a column for issues of the magazine that fell between those carrying my grand prix reports. I was happy to acquiesce, and in time came to enjoy doing columns more than anything else; in January 1989 it was decided to run one every week.

As a general rule, the column has concerned itself with F1, but Spurring's original idea was that I should write about whatever came to my head, and this allowed me to wander off into nostalgia occasionally, or to discuss my other racing enthusiasms.

There have, of course, been countless momentous happenings over the years, requiring comment in Fifth Column, and rather too many, I fear, have been concerned with politics, rather than racing. Too many, too, have involved tragedy. Perhaps the column I remember most - certainly in terms of writing it - was one entitled 'Bad Blood in Maranello' in May 1982.

At Imola that year Didier Pironi 'stole' victory from his Ferrari team-mate, Gilles Villeneuve. The pair of them, low on fuel, were running one-two in the late laps, and if there was some swapping of the lead, it was merely to keep the spectators amused. That was what Villeneuve believed, anyway. He had been ahead when the Ferraris became first and second, and the time-honoured practice at Maranello was that this meant he should win. Gilles had no concerns - until the final lap, when Pironi, at the last possible opportunity, suddenly dived by him.

Villeneuve may have been a hell-raiser on the track, but away from it he was a gentle fellow, and a humorous one, too. Now, though, he was incensed and, after a token appearance up on the podium, marched off to his helicopter, and got the hell out of Imola as soon as he possibly could.

I had seen him briefly as he brought the Ferrari into the paddock, sliding it to a stop in a welter of angry tyre smoke. As he climbed out, and took his helmet off, he saw me, and uttered just one word to sum up his feelings about his team-mate, now very suddenly his ex-friend.

Back in England the following day, I tried Gilles's number in Monaco endlessly, but it was always engaged - or maybe off the hook. On Tuesday morning, though, I got through, and we talked for an hour and more. He wasn't screaming and shouting - if he had been, I might have felt less unsettled, more inclined to believe this was something that would blow over. Instead, what I heard was the voice of bitter disillusionment, as he spoke quietly of his vow never to speak to Pironi again: "When we get to Belgium, I'm going to look on him as if he were in a Williams or a Brabham, and take the same chances..."

He raised his voice just once. "Second, because you get beaten," he said, "is one thing. But second, because the bastard steals it, that's something else! Jesus!"

Finally, we said, 'See you at Zolder', and hung up. I'd taped the conversation, and immediately set to writing a column about it. That done, I drove to the Autosport office - and was told it would have to be held over to the following week's issue. Thus, it appeared on Thursday, May 6, two days before Gilles was killed in qualifying at Zolder. As with all the interviews I have ever done, I still have that tape, and maybe one day I will listen to it again.

A cassette I have played many a time, on the other hand, was recorded at Hockenheim, when Frank Gardner looked in one year. The German Grand Prix itself was boring, so I decided to give the column over to the most laconic man I have ever met in motor racing. The pity is that many of Gardner's Aussie one-liners would now be deemed 'inappropriate' in this politically correct age, but I will leave you with his party piece, the story of the early Porsche 917, which made its debut at the Nurburgring 1000km in 1969.

"I got a call from Porsche, and the money they were offering was certainly good enough to cross a strip of water, and get in this thing. I think the reason they bestowed this honour on me was that every factory 917 driver was in hospital at the time...

"David Piper was my co-driver, and I remember he did one lap in practice, and was all for going back to England! But I pleaded with him to stay because the money was right. This was one of the first 917s, with an alloy chassis frame, which was gas-filled. There was a big gauge in the cockpit measuring the gas pressure, and that was to keep you informed of the chassis's condition. If the gauge zeroed, they said, it meant that the chassis was broken, and I should drive mit care back to the pits.

"I decided that if it zeroed, I wasn't going to drive it mit care anywhere. I was going to park the bastard there and then, pick up my Deutschmarks and get home to Mum...

"The thing flexed so much that the actual position of the gear lever used to change - you'd reach for where it had been the last time you used it, and it wasn't there!

"Then there was the engine. You had about 300 horsepower at 5000 revs - and then at 5100 you picked up another 300. So it was a bit of a delight, really, and its handling... the computer had told them that nine-inch rims would do the job, and make the car very quick in a straight line - but the computer wasn't strapped in the bloody seat up in the Eifel mountains, where you tend to get the odd corner...

"Like I always said, I never wanted to be the quickest bloke in motor racing - I just wanted to be the oldest. And that car was certainly going to interfere with those plans..."

Let's forget about the World Motor Sport Council for a while, and raise a glass to folk like Frank Gardner, who love motor racing.

Cheers, and thank you.