Dodgy Business

So, Thursday in Paris is almost upon us, and I for one hope that after it we still have a world championship on our hands and a McLaren team with their reputation - not to mention world championship entry - still intact.

There were almost as many rumours and theories as lawyers in the Monza paddock. A couple of them I'll share with you, just to illustrate how silly things are getting.

"Here's a scenario for you," someone said. "McLaren lose their world championship entry for a year but it's not really too big a deal because they can busy themselves building Dave Richards' cars and we'll have Vodafone Prodrive Mercedes next year."

Martin Whitmarsh and David Richards © XPB/LAT

No further comment required.

And Sir Frank Williams is not the only one to note the zeal with which the governing body has behaved over investigating the matter. Yes, they have been asked to do so by a rival competitor and, yes, it's in the interests of everyone to have the sport run fairly and equitably, but...

The 'but' is there because that same competitor had their information taken by a couple of ex-Toyota employees, who were actually convicted, and the FIA did nothing then. And in the McLaren case, the information has actually come from a Ferrari employee.

Never mind the FIA courts, one lawyer I spoke to claimed that McLaren wouldn't need the world's best barrister to put forward a case of entrapment in a civil court, irrespective of whatever evidence is trotted out in Paris.

Frank was very careful not to use the term 'witch hunt' but Mr Dennis did apparently go and knock on the door of Bernie's big grey bus in Monza to find out precisely what he has done wrong. From what I gather, he wasn't any the more enlightened when he left.

It's well known that Max Mosley and Ron Dennis do not see eye to eye and have sniped at each other repeatedly over the years. One sage said to me quietly over the weekend that while the FIA is only doing its job over the investigation, the by-product, Ron's pain, may not be igniting passionate sympathies within the FIA president.

We are unlikely to see Sir Maximilian Mosley or Sir Bernard Ecclestone for various political reasons, he went on, but Sir Ronald Dennis may not be too far away.

Ron is closing in on retirement age, and HM the Q herself has already opened the McLaren Technology Centre and seen first-hand the result of the man's vision. What a damn shame if the sword had to go back into its scabbard because the man had been cheating...

But much shooting of the breeze goes on over a GP weekend, and nobody should think for a minute that such trivialities are in fact allowed to interfere with the running of a global sport such as F1. Banish the thought.

The other much-discussed issue was Fernando Alonso, 'supergrass'. When the FIA said that it had 'new evidence' to consider, speculation mounted that Alonso had sold McLaren down the river and would be about as popular with the team as Tommaso Buscetta was with the mafia.

It was murmured that Ferdy may have mentioned to Flavio Briatore something that the Renault F1 boss thought might be interesting to the governing body, prompting a letter to all three McLaren drivers.

This invited them to disclose anything they considered might be material, with the advice that withheld evidence might just spell a disappearing Superlicence. Obviously bad news for Pedro too, just as he's about to climb into his Prodrive Mercedes...

The McLaren brand centre in the Monza paddock © XPB/LAT

Some in McLaren's 'brand centre' were still managing to smile, while hoping that next weekend in Spa their impressive new facility has not mutated into the 'banned centre'.

If this was the mafia, of course, a thick set man in shades would have walked up to the Alonso table, put a gun to Fernando's head and pulled the trigger. But Alonso sat, as usual, with his father, his manager and his physio, and got on with the job.

For me, the most frustrating and disappointing thing about this entire season is the breakdown in communication between Alonso and McLaren. It is such a waste because the potential is almost limitless.

Yes, I know Lewis Hamilton is very fast and already has his feet under Ron's table, but Alonso is also a brilliant racing driver. The damage being done to his reputation is very sad.

This is the same Fernando Alonso who drove around the outside of Michael Schumacher at 130R, the man who took on Schumacher and beat him in what appeared to be equal cars. He's super-quick, feisty, he looks the part and, when you talk to him, he seems like a decent guy.

So why is he behaving like he is? The very idea of a double world champion not talking to his team boss seems absurd. The assumption that he will not drive at McLaren next year should be nothing of the sort. He should, you feel, have been doing everything within his power to develop his relationship with the team, thereby improving his chances against Hamilton.

OK, in year two, Hamilton will be even stronger, but it is unlike the Fernando we know to run from a fight. He may well view the fight as unnecessary, but he's in one of the toughest arenas there is and you must wonder about the advice he is being given.

Does he really want to go back to Renault with McLaren in the shape that they are?

Flavio, of course, didn't like it when Ron nabbed him in the first place. F1 is a dog-eat-dog world, and it goes without saying that Flav would like to get even. But is Fernando really thinking straight?

At a recent FOFIFO (Fans of football in Formula One) dinner, hosted in the McLaren motorhome in Budapest a couple of nights before World War III kicked off, I found myself sat next to Steve Hallam, long-time McLaren engineer. Vodafone had kindly sponsored the evening and requested that 'Spygate' was off the menu for the evening. But not for long.

The proceedings involve a speech about your team and various points-winning predictions re promotion, relegation, etc. The winner gets a trophy and each dinner starts with last year's top three read out in reverse order.

And so the first mention, in third place from '06 was... Nigel Stepney, who attended last year's dinner at the Vodafone Ferrari motorhome. Cue much laughter.

For Hallam, it was a rare break from the grind. We chatted about the workloads involved in F1 and the fact that the four or five days holiday he was planning would be his first F1-free days since... since... well, he couldn't quite remember. He loves the sport with a passion and, as with so many at McLaren, is years in the business.

It's when you talk to such people that you are reminded of the seriousness of the sport, the scale of the logistics and the pure effort that goes into Grand Prix racing.

Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso in parc ferme © XPB/LAT

And you wonder how a guy like Alonso can fail to appreciate what he is at the centre of and how best to use it. Because he's more than capable of doing it, as he proved on Sunday afternoon. He's a very special driver and I'm now probably in a small minority who would like to see him underline that by winning a third world championship in a McLaren and then stay to try and win a fourth.

No disrespect to Lewis intended, it's just that you get the feeling that the Lewis Show will run for many years to come.

The world at large may see it as embarrassing for the double world champion to be battling so hard to beat a first-year rookie, but they shouldn't.

Hamilton is a very special talent, he's raced already on most of the tracks he is competing on, he is driving the best car, he has had years of meticulous preparation and, these days, the amount of seat time drivers get in winter and between-race testing, ensure that rookie status is not the handicap that once it was.

Alonso has also been unlearning Michelins, all he's known since he came into F1, and coming to terms with a Bridgestone that behaves very differently. As Bridgestone's Kees van der Grint said to me earlier in the season, a top line driver will not bitch about it, he'll get on with it. Which is what Alonso has done.

That said, during the tyre war the Michelin was very good at accepting longitudinal loads and so was very good under braking and gave strong traction. The Bridgestone's construction tended to perform better in fast corners.

OK, there's Parabolica at Monza, but I figured that with the big stops needed for the chicanes, Alonso might find Monza one of the toughest places to erase his Michelin default.

I thought it might be a track where Hamilton had the upper hand. But what do I know? Fernando dominated the weekend and became the season's first four-time winner.

The fact that, in the midst of everything going on, McLaren gave him a car that enabled him to do it, says all you need to know about the team.

An overhead camera caught a nice moment as Lisa Dennis gave Ron a post-race hug which said 'I know what you're going through' and the man himself looked suspiciously like he had to wipe away a tear before going to meet his drivers. For Fernando, there were a couple of pats and an arm around the back.

It may be too late, but you really do wish they would sit down and sort it all out after the nonsense has gone away. Alonso is from the top drawer, and McLaren is a first rate team. Fernando would do well to appreciate both.