At the height of doubt

After the European Grand Prix, McLaren will be called to account

Kimi Raikkonen, having won his third victory this season two weeks ago at Silverstone, summed up the first half of the championship and at the same time opened the second. The British Grand Prix has become a staging post at which one can look back at the path already traveled and look at the prospects of the road ahead.

The nine stages covered by the Circus Maximus caravan turned out to be as different as they were the same. The storylines, the internal content, the intensity of the struggle in each individual race were not similar to any other, but the results, despite the fact that four pilots had already won the championship, did not indulge in variety. The two leading teams regularly submitted their riders to the awards ceremony, completely taking control of the entire podium. Only once was this four able to be diluted by Alex Wurtz from Williams, which did not shine with results, which only emphasized the randomness of any interference in the rivalry between the giants. It’s as if Lewis Hamilton, who is on the podium, makes the task of getting into the top three even more difficult for “outsiders.” In terms of the number of podiums won in a row, the young Englishman already shares third place with Lauda, ​​Piquet and Clark, and by the end of the championship he may well catch up with his teammate Fernando Alonso. Such enviable stability allowed Lewis to finish the “first round” of the 2007 tournament at the head of the individual standings.

Two-time world champion Fernando Alonso approached the middle of the season with a 12-point gap from his partner. Not to say that this gap is completely hopeless, but if Hamilton continues in the same spirit, the Spaniard risks resigning as champion. Perhaps even ahead of schedule. Therefore, most likely, the confrontation that has emerged at McLaren, although carefully hidden from prying eyes, but sometimes still breaking through, in the second half of the season can finally turn partners into irreconcilable opponents, which has often happened in Formula 1 before . It will be all the more interesting to follow the outcome of this struggle. Team chief Ron Dennis, realizing that the conflict situation between the two drivers could play into the hands of the main competitors from Ferrari, is trying to keep it under control. But a new problem, which fell on the English stable out of the blue, pushed internal strife into the background.

The primary task facing Dennis and the entire McLaren management is now to prove his innocence in the case of the missing Ferrari documents. The further the investigative mechanism of this complicated incident unfolds, the more difficult it seems to be to establish its real picture. The main question, how a 780-page folder describing the latest developments of the Scuderia got into the house of one of the leading specialists of the opposing team, remains open. The main suspect in this case, Nigel Stepney, continues to deny any involvement in the theft of documents. “I categorically deny that I copied them or sent them to Mike Coughlan (chief designer of McLaren. - Ed. ),” says the former Ferrari employee. - I knew that at the base I was constantly being watched, my every word, action, any access to files on the computer became instantly known to my superiors. I have no idea how they ended up at Mike's house." His words are confirmed by the testimony of Coughlan himself, who stated that the documentation was delivered to him by courier. True, he has not yet named the sender. It also turned out that McLaren still knew about the existence of these documents, but no one except Coughlan had seen them. However, the qualifications of the chief designer of the leading Formula 1 team would be enough to understand the drawings and find a couple of suitable ideas without outside help.

In any case, for now both defendants have been excommunicated from their teams and the investigation continues. Ferrari, in the best traditions of the Italian vendetta, demonstrates the ability to punish apostates who decide to move to the camp of their rivals. In April this year, the trial of two former employees of the Maranello team took place. Aerodynamics specialists Mauro Iacconi and Angelo Santini also worked for Ferrari for quite some time, but in 2000 they moved to Toyota. It was a fatal transition. In 2003, someone discovered confidential documents on their work computers with the familiar prancing horse logo. This gave impetus to the investigation. During the search, a CD with drawings of Ferrari car parts was found. And although all the documentation was already out of date, the court did not consider this a mitigating circumstance and sentenced Iacconi to 16 months in prison, and Santini to nine.

In that case, Ferrari decided not to insist on punishing the team. Perhaps because Toyota was not a direct competitor in the fight for the championship title. With McLaren everything is different. On July 26, representatives of the English stable will answer to the World Motor Sports Council. The team was charged under Article 151 of the International Sports Code (falsification or actions detrimental to competitions or harmful to motorsport in general). If Ron Dennis is unable to defend the innocence of his team before the highest judicial body in motorsport, then subsequent sanctions could have the most unpleasant consequences for both McLaren and Formula 1 in general.

Disqualification of one of the most respected Grand Prix teams in the middle of the season could kill interest in F1 for a long time. However, the Royal Races experienced something different. And this will be just another difficult pass on the long road to glory.

Dmitry SITNIK