The Spanish Inquisition

Speaking to a friend of mine this afternoon he mentioned his trip to the Belgium grand prix. His first trip to see one. A virgin. Good for him I say. I hope to do so one day too. We moved on to the subject of our favorite racing driver Diva, Fernando Alonso. It is absolutely scandalous in my opinion to think that McLaren, a team of great integrity has been already tarred and feathered with allegations of cheating. A couple of weeks ago they were aquitted for involvement in espionage. Ferrari naturally not happy with the outcome were keen to pursue this case. I for one believe that although justice should be served if there was evidence of wrong doing am satisfied by reputation alone of McLaren that no cheating was involved.

So now we turn to recent eveents that once again threaten McLaren's reputation as an honest F1 team. And what better starting point than a communication between the World Champion and the reserve driver. Alonso has never hidden from the fact that he believes the team favours the british driver (Hamilton), because the team is essentially British and that Hamilton has been bred since he was a little acorn (awww) to be "The One". His miserable attempt to sabotage Hamilton's Turkish grand prix was nothing but childish. His arrogance to suggest that any team on the grid would be willing to give him number one status in their team is nothing short of laughable. Sure Spyker would do it......for the money, but for reputation? Not a team like McLaren. Does Lewis Hamilton's performance have something to do with the car? Yes. Favoritism? No. They have a world champion driving for them after all. What would be the better bet at the begining of the season? Alonso of course. But Hamilton is something of a miracle.Ok. Not a miracle, but something unexpected. Jenson Button had and has comparable talent too. McLaren are all about exploiting the natural ability of its drivers. Each driver has his own dedicated engineering team and both have an overall strategist to squeeze the maximum performance from the team as a whole.

Lets not forget Hamilton's proven ability to succeed. McLaren want the constructors title. To do that they need both drivers to excel in every race. Why on earth would they favour one driver to the detriment of the other? They'd want a 1-2 in any combination.

So to the latest. Alonso has been implicated in the scandal. Was there a secretive pact to obtain and use information from Ferrari to gain the upper hand. Maybe. One man's selfish desire to win? With Alonso's recent admission to preferring to land the drivers championship over the constructors title surely alludes to a lack of team spirit and being disassociated with the amibitions of the team. A very disappointing attitude indeed. Would Alonso be content in the dismise to a great team's reputation? Questionable. His ability to publically exercise his lack of loyality to the team that have paid him to work for them is not good. McLaren would be better off trying to poach Button.