Sponsors pulling F1 strings?

Mosley said that he was one of a minority on the 'World Motor Sport Council' (WMSC) who wanted to penalise McLaren much more severely than it has been. So why didn't this happen, and who is really pulling the strings?

Justice without fear or favour?

A good test of those who have to rule on disputes, in sport or anywhere else, is to question whether decisions have been made without fear or favour. The scales of justice should not be unbalanced by the rich and the powerful using that power to get their way.

Idealistic maybe, but when you have a fairly high degree of unanimity that a serious offence has been committed (as there was in the McLaren scandal) it is regrettable that there was not the same unanimity on the punishment.

Let's look at the key parts of the ruling contained in the WMSC's thirteen page judgement. In this document the Council says this: '…a number of McLaren employees or agents were in unauthorised possession… of highly confidential Ferrari technical information [and] there was an intention on the part of McLaren personnel to use some of [this] information in its own testing.'

The WMSC concludes that 'some degree of sporting advantage was obtained [by McLaren] though it may forever be impossible to quantify that advantage in concrete terms.'

Let's just paraphrase this ruling in more robust terms. Some McLaren employees cheated by stealing Ferrari's technical information, intended to use this information to their own advantage and as such an advantage has accrued. No ifs and buts - it's the biggest scandal ever in Formula one. So what did the FIA do and has its its punishment been without fear or favour?

Meaningless punishment to McLaren

On the face of it McLaren's punishment for the extraordinary transgressions of its employees seems quite severe - ejection from the 2007 Constructors' Championship and a fine of $100m.

In reality these penalties are almost meaningless. F1 aficionados are interested in the Constructor's title and the teams cherish it when they win it. But 99 per cent of the public hasn't heard of it - what matters is who the F1 Champion driver is. Does anyone but the anoraks remember that Ferrari won the Constructors' title in 1999 when Mika Hakkinen won the Drivers' title for McLaren? Of course not.

Similarly $100m is, whilst not chicken feed, easily findable by a team with Vodafone McLaren Mercedes's resources. And in the full team name you have the explanation! The principal source of income for a major F1 team is from sponsorship and from its share of media income.

McLaren's big sponsors are Mercedes and Vodafone and their other sponsors are household names like Mobil, Johnny Walker, Henkel, FedEx, Santander, and Boss (amongst many others). If a McLaren driver wins the Drivers' Championship this year do you think that any of these sponsors is not going to cough up some extra money to help cover McLaren's FIA fine? Or that the media and their advertisers are going to turn away from financing the best Formula One season in years? The money will still be there - you can count on it.

FIA punishment a fudge

The WMSC's decision to allow the McLaren drivers to retain their season points and to continue to compete for the 2007 title is an almighty fudge which defies any rational logic. The offer of 'immunity' to the drivers in order to encourage them to testify was ridiculous - suggesting that the drivers are in some way separate from the team. And the ruling that the drivers should not be penalised was, as Max Mosley for one clearly agrees, quite absurd.

Lest anyone thinks otherwise let's state quite clearly that without the team the drivers have no status and if (as the WMSC says) the team transgressed and benefited then the drivers, whilst they may not themselves have also transgressed, have certainly benefited as well. The 'some degree of sporting advantage' was at least as much to each of the drivers benefit as it was to the team.

Pipers call the tune

There is no suggestion that any of the major sponsors of any of the teams put direct pressure on anyone at the FIA to try and keep the 2007 title race open through to its conclusion. But it is not just the McLaren sponsors who benefit. Had the season been utterly destroyed as a spectacle by disqualifying Hamilton and Alonso TV viewing figures for the remaining Grands Prix would have plummeted and the sponsors of all the major teams would have been disadvantaged.

Ironically it is arguably as much in the interest of the sponsors of Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro that awareness of Formula One is held at a high level as it is for the sponsors of Vodafone McLaren Mercedes!

Hundreds of millions of TV viewers around the world will continue to be spellbound by the fight between Alonso and Hamilton and Raikkonen and Massa and that means hundreds of million of exposures of brand logos on the cars and the drivers and the circuits.

The FIA didn't need Vodafone or Philip Morris or Mercedes to call it to say this - it knew it very well - and this must have influenced the decision not to ban Hamilton and Alonso.

See also:
Turkish delight for Ferrari
Will Ron Dennis now take charge to ensure McLaren's season finishes in glory?
Formula one season under threat from Ferrari/McLaren spy scandal
McLaren's Monaco triumph down to talent and teamwork