Comments on: Rancour at McLaren too?

By: mr. c.

mr. c. — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 11:47:15 +0000

Mr Schmidt is a man of principle who does not avail himself of team hospitality. Bananas help him through the working day on a GP weekend.

didn’t know that.

stuart, you should do a series of posts on infamous paddock insiders

By: Stuart C

Stuart C — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 06:01:17 +0000

@JZ The bit about putting fuel in about the pitstop was a not-so-oblique reference to the fact that he thought his stop was somewhat tardily executed, and that perhaps the team had an ulterior motive for doing so. He was clearly trying to suggest to Lewis that a similar malarkey was going on at McLaren. Mr Schmidt is a man of principle who does not avail himself of team hospitality. Bananas help him through the working day on a GP weekend.

By: JZ

JZ — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 22:19:27 +0000

“The problem with modern racing drivers is that racing is all they’ve ever known: all that time spent honing their natural, instinctive feel for how to make a car go as quickly as possible, from an early age, leaves them undeveloped in other crucial areas. Chief amongst these is their capacity to form effective relationships with other people.”

Brilliant! Very thoughtful analysis.

I must admit to being a bit confused about the last part, re: the FIA presser. “We put fuel in, I think, at the pit stop.” Eh? In-race refueling? Was this post-qualifying? Or from last season or somesuch? Also, who is Michael Schmidt and what is his fascination with bananas?

By: michael

michael — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 08:48:09 +0000

Wonderful stuff Stuart! Now that we understand that McLaren have told Lewis Jenson will not overtake once in fuel-save mode plus the fact that they have given him a specific lap-time target yet failed to do so with Jenson begs the question whether this was an orchestrated plan by the team to do as Red Bull tried with Vettel or whether Jenson is his own man and did what he thought best suited his ideas of a team-mate?

Stuart aside from this one fact which you have so pointedly stated (The merest whiff of partiality) how are the chances that Whitmarsch actually is rying to prove his decision making bringing Jenson n board or trying to write his own history within the McLaren group with his own man (Jenson) and not on the back of Ron’s kid Lewis Hamilton?

Telling Jenson since lap 30 to save fuel seems like placing him in a position to take action when Lewis has fired all his Amo fighting Webber which we all knew is what was happening.

superb JOB Stuart!

By: Steven Roy

Steven Roy — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 19:24:53 +0000

Hopefully without all the awfulness that entailed!

I think the fact that Lewis got the position back immediately and Jenson didn’t try it again on the last lap coupled with the instant response of those on the pitwall to sort it out should prevent any serious escalation.

Strangely enough although Lewis clearly did not react well to what happened on Sunday I think he will feel better than Jenson now because Jenson mugged Lewis and only managed to hold the lead for a few corners. Jenson must wonder how Lewis went from cruising to taking the position back in not time flat.

By: Stuart C

Stuart C — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 11:03:48 +0000

Steven Roy :
I thought it was remeniscent of Villeneuve / Pironi.

Hopefully without all the awfulness that entailed!

By: Journeyer

Journeyer — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 09:47:10 +0000

Steven Roy :I get the impression Lewis thought the McLarens had been told not to race and was shocked when Jenson passed him.

It's one of those cases where one wonders what they were told exactly. If they were just told to save fuel, Jenson isn't exactly disobeying them if he can race while saving fuel...

By: Steven Roy

Steven Roy — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 23:48:07 +0000

I get the impression Lewis thought the McLarens had been told not to race and was shocked when Jenson passed him. Considering how he was mugged while in cruise mode it was quite amazing how quickly he got back to racing mode and got the position back.

I thought it was remeniscent of Villeneuve / Pironi.

By: Alianora La Canta

Alianora La Canta — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 17:12:26 +0000

One problem with instructing a driver to save fuel is that some of them have to slow down a lot to save X amount and others barely need to slow down at all. The most extreme example of the latter I can think of is Heinz-Harald Frentzen, who was told to save a considerable amount of fuel for the last 10 laps of the Brazillian GP 2001 and managed to do so… …in exactly the same lap times as he’d been doing before receiving the instruction. So giving a target lap time would have been of limited use, but that’s probably what McLaren will have to do from now on.

It’s a situation where nobody really has enough information to set a useful instruction. Worse than Michael Schumacher’s “2ml of rain” instruction – at least with that there was an alternative effective means of expression.

By: Journeyer

Journeyer — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 13:09:44 +0000

Won’t this be fun – the top 2 teams might just tear each other apart. It would be amusing (albeit unlikely) if we end up having Hamilton and Webber rooting for each other, while Button and Vettel do the same.