24/08/2010
FEATURE BY MIKE LAWRENCE
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Most responses to my last piece, on the result at Hockenheim, were broadly in favour of my view that Ferrari deserves to have the book thrown at them. There were, however, dissenters and in cyberspace there are a lot of people asking what is the difference between Ferrari telling Massa that Alonso was faster and McLaren giving the same advice to Kovalainen at Hockenheim in 2008. You can access video on YouTube.
The answer is simple, in 2010 the Ferraris were in a class of their own and the result was rigged. Ferrari was going to score a 1-2, but Ferrari interfered with the Drivers' Championship. Ferrari awarded the whining Alonso seven points which were not theirs to give.
At Hockenheim, 2008, Hamilton had led from pole and found himself in fifth place after a safety car interlude. Most of the time, team-mates look after their own interests, but they still belong to a team. If one driver can hold up a pursuing pack without weaving, that is legitimate. If a driver lets by a team-mate on a charge, that too is legitimate. Lewis had been in fifth place, but he won and did so by overtaking rivals.
Had McLaren broken the rules in 2008, the stewards would have been on the case because other teams would have lodged protests, led by Ferrari and Renault. McLaren was on probation, following 'Spygate', it was a team under the microscope.
I have been accused of bias because I have addressed Ferrari at Hockenheim and ignored McLaren. Ferrari has been fined, so I am on firm ground. McLaren did not commit an offence so I would have been wrong to say they did. This is a process known in the trade as 'logic', something beyond the grasp of some tifosi.
In Turkey this year, Jenson Button was advised to watch his fuel and this, too, has been seen by some as McLaren team orders. The fact is that cars are not fuelled to run flat-out for a whole race distance, teams calculate the possible intervention of a safety car, or being caught in traffic, to keep weight to a minimum, they have even been known to stop on the lap after the finish so they have sufficient fuel in the tank that a sample can be taken.
Jenson was leading the Championship in Turkey and he is a man not noted for being backward in coming forward with an opinion. There was no conspiracy. Button had briefly taken the lead and Hamilton had responded. They had each done something called overtaking, as McLaren allows them to do. Had they continued to scrap, they may both have run out of fuel. What we are seeing is a return to strategies last used in the mid-1980s when McLaren in particular had fuel problems.
According to some. I am part of a British media conspiracy and that is news to me. There are some British journalists I would not piss on if they were on fire. No national media has a cosy arrangement, every single one of us is in competition with all others in our field. We all compete for your attention. It is the reader who decides.
According to La Gazzetta dello Sport, if the WMSC rules against Ferrari, the Scuderia may take legal action against the FIA. Nothing like playing to the rules.
The fact is that Ferrari rigged a race result and broke a rule that was introduced because Ferrari rigged results, when it was allowed. I am aware that McLaren have also done so, when it was allowed. There have been other instances, when it was allowed, but the rules in Formula One have never been set in stone. This year there is a different points system. You play to the rules prevailing, or you do not play at all.
There is one other thing to consider, gambling. If I had had a tenner on Massa to win at Hockenheim, I would have spat razor blades.
Attitudes and laws on gambling vary from country to country. In Britain we have betting shops. Horse racing dominates, but I can place a bet on a Grand Prix. Until a couple of days ago, I could speculate on the identity of The Stig and then The Sunday Times spoiled everything by revealing The Stig's true identity, which is like telling kiddies there is no Santa Claus.
We have seen a result rigged against the rules and you may be wondering why I introduce the idea of gambling, which is marginal in motor racing. Most sports have been slow to address corruption, but now they do. Athletics had 'shamateurism', unpaid athletes getting envelopes of cash for making an appearance. Horses and greyhounds had doping. Four years ago, Italian football was rocked by referee fixing and La Gazzeta dello Sport played a prominent part in exposing it.
It took some governing bodies a long time to come to terms with performance-enhancing drugs. Sport used to be run by men in blazers who tended to be pretty complacent, content to be big fish in their individual ponds. Drug taking in cycling was an open scandal. Sponsorship and TV revenues have changed that. Cycling cleaned up its act when sponsors stayed away, most notably from the Tour de France.
A few years ago, the Tour received a few column inches in British newspapers, now I can watch it live on television. There is nothing like money for concentrating the mind and most sports have become more rigorous. It is not to do with fair play, it is to do with money.
Why am I worried about gambling? It is not something I do, but I know a guy who is doing a doctorate on gambling at Oxford University and I have read drafts of his thesis. A doctorate at Oxford, we are talking academic research at its finest and my friend is a mature man not some 21-year old with a bee in his bonnet.
My friend's research does not centre on High Street bookies, which are fairly straight-forward, but on betting syndicates and how they have corrupted sport. Since I am bound by confidentiality, I cannot cite specific cases, but the research is explosive and includes murder by contract killers. We are talking of industrial strength crime.
These syndicates bet on anything, not just straight forward wins and places. In Formula One, it could be something as obscure as which Virgin driver beats the other, and by how much. The stakes are huge and people have been bribed. There have been investigations into fixing in football, rugby, cricket, tennis and snooker. American readers will not need reminding about the 1919 World Series.
If the WMSC does not severely punish Ferrari for result-rigging, these syndicates may move in, if they are not already present. They are not interested in sport, merely gambling on the uncertainty which is at the heart of every contest. The money involved is huge and gambling is often used to launder criminal gains, especially drug money.
Many of the syndicates operate from narcotic hot spots. Afghanistan sources most of the world's opium, it is nearby countries which process it.
Not for one moment do I believe that Ferrari's illegal move at Hockenheim was motivated by anything else than to promote Fernando Alonso in the rankings. The big girl's blouse had sent messages to his pit complaining that Felipe was too quick for him. The BBC team were on the case, Ted Kravitz is really sharp, he's terrific. Unless Ferrari is punished, and punished hard, the message will go out that Formula One is ripe for corruption.
The South African cricket captain, Hansie Cronje, was a poster boy for his country: fine player, good family man, born-again Christian, a PR dream. It started by taking money to express opinions, like how the wicket would play had there been a downpour during a match. He saw no harm in pocketing a few thousand dollars to give his opinion. Journalists asked for his opinion every day, but he was drawn in and he ended up fixing matches.
As captain, he could decide which bowlers to employ on a specific occasion, how his fielders should be spread and when to declare (put the other side in to bat.) A bad decision used to be called 'unlucky' or a 'gamble which didn't pay off.'
It was the police in Delhi who caught Cronje. They were on the case of a local man believed to be match fixing. The Indian police landed three South African cricketers.
Cronje died in an aviation accident in 2002 with many questions unanswered. Naturally, there have been conspiracy theories.
Corruption has entered sport and some authorities are sharper than others when it comes to dealing with it. Horse racing has cleaned up its act and it needed to. Recently, the tennis authorities ordered an investigation when a player beat someone more than a hundred places above him in the rankings.
There are highly professional agencies that sports authorities can employ, as the FIA did when 'Crashgate' raised its ugly head. They employ former coppers and spooks and have access to amazing kit. The stuff you can buy on the Internet, amazing though it is, is obsolete by the standards of the professionals.
I have been to an SAS trade fair, where the security guys packed pieces, and that is rare in Britain - double vent jackets, hard holster resting on the right buttock, for the right-handed. It is chilling when you see competing companies each claiming they make the best bodybag.
Most people are unaware how widely and deeply sport has been corrupted. We sort of know, over time we get this story and that, but it is only when you see the evidence gathered together that it strikes home.
It's a bit like the bodybags. If you stop and think about it, you know they have to be designed, made, and sold at a profit. The company is in business, it must make a profit, and it has to convince buyers that Acme makes a superior product.
Formula One has had more than its share of scandal and the WMSC must come down heavily on race fixing. We have to show that the sport is clean. The Stewards imposed the maximum fine that they could and now it is up to the WMSC, I hope they disqualify both Ferraris from the results and that pains me because I have a very soft spot for Felipe Massa.
Unfortunately, even a Draconian punishment will not deter the betting syndicates. The salaries earned by top drivers and engineers make them beyond the reach of the syndicates, but a mechanic going through a divorce and who has money problems could be a different matter. It only takes a stuck wheelnut during a pit stop....
Mike Lawrence
mike.lawrence@pitpass.com
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