Button denies cheating claims on McLaren car’s radical aero device

March 13, 2010 By Leave a Comment

London, Mar 13 (ANI): Formula One champion Jenson Button launched a fierce defence of his McLaren team last night, saying that they are not cheats.

Button and teammate Lewis Hamilton impressive start to the new F1 season in Bahrain on Friday was overshadowed by a row over their car’s radical aero device, which gives them a six mph advantage on long straights.

Even though motor sport chiefs have declared the system legal, rival teams have not ruled out lodging a protest if either Button or Hamilton win Sunday’s race.

“Our wing is an exciting and ingenious design which has been passed by the FIA and it is working OK,” The Sun quoted Button, as saying. .

The device works by affecting the airflow from the car and stopping the rear wing pushing downwards on straights, which reduces drag and increases speed.

But other teams hit out at the F-duct vent system, saying McLaren had opened up another arms race one year after the diffuser row involving Button’s then Brawn GP team.

Renault boss Bob Bell said: “It is fundamentally clear the McLaren wing design is totally illegal. They have driven a carthorse through the spirit of the rules and regulations.”

Lotus’ technical director Mike Gascoyne added: “The aerodynamics on the McLaren are changing all the time. Whether the driver is doing it with the knee or not, the fact remains it is not the same all the time so it’s a moveable aerodynamic device. It is a pretty silly interpretation because everyone is going to go and do it. We’ll all spend loads of money and for what?” (ANI)

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Formula 1 crisis: Eight teams confirm forming a breakaway series

June 19, 2009 By Leave a Comment

London, June 19 : The Formula One drivers’ championship is in crisis after eight of its 10 teams confirmed they are to form a breakaway series.

The decision will cause the greatest upheaval in the sport’s 60-year history.

Following a meeting late in the evening, the eight teams that currently form the Formula One Team’s Association, have all declined to enter the F1 for 2010, after a row over budget caps, The Sun reports.

“It has become clear that the teams cannot continue to compromise on the fundamental values of the sport. The major drivers, stars, brands, sponsors, promoters and companies historically associated with the highest level of motor sport will all feature in this new series,” a FOTA statement said.

The eight teams that make up FOTA are Ferrari, McLaren, Renault, Toyota, BMW Sauber, Brawn GP, Red Bull Racing and Toro Rosso.

Williams and Force India have been suspended from FOTA, and do not form part of the breakaway plan.

The row started last year as FOTA disputed the FIA’s plans to enforce budget and technical changes in 2010.

Despite weeks of negotiations with FIA president Max Mosley, the two bodies have failed to find a compromise, leaving the sport in total chaos.

Mosley this week wrote to the FOTA teams in a desperate late attempt to end the budget row.

After a four-hour meeting, the FOTA statement continued: “Since the formation of FOTA last September the teams have worked together and sought to engage the FIA and commercial rights holder Bernie Ecclestone, to develop and improve the sport.

“Unprecedented worldwide financial turmoil has inevitably placed great challenges before the F1 community. FOTA is proud that it has achieved the most substantial measures to reduce costs in the history of our sport.”

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FIA to take McLaren to task over Hamilton cheating episode on April 29

April 8, 2009 By Leave a Comment

London, Apr.8 (ANI): The FIA World Motorsport Council has asked representatives of McLaren to appear before it in Paris on April 29 to answer charges relating to being in breach of the International Sporting Code.

The summons follows Lewis Hamilton’s exclusion from the Australian grand prix for giving “misleading” evidence to race stewards.

According to The Guardian, McLaren are accused of being in specific breach of Article 151c of the sporting code, relating to “any fraudulent conduct or any act prejudicial to the interests of any competition or to the interests of motor sport generally”.

According to an FIA statement, McLaren are to answer charges that they:

On 29 March 2009, told the stewards of the Australian grand prix that no instructions were given to Hamilton in car No1 to allow (Jarno) Trulli in car No9 to pass when both cars were behind the safety car, knowing this statement to be untrue.

Procured its driver, Hamilton, the current world champion, to support and confirm this untrue statement to the stewards.

Although knowing that, as a direct result of their untrue statement to the stewards another driver and a rival team had been unfairly penalised, made no attempt to rectify the situation either by contacting the FIA or otherwise.

On 2 April 2009, at a second hearing before the stewards of the Australian grand prix (meeting in Malaysia), made no attempt to correct the untrue statement of 29 March but, on the contrary, continued to maintain the statement was true, despite being allowed to listen to a recording of the team instructing Hamilton to let Trulli past and despite being given more than one opportunity to correct the false statement.

On 2 April 2009, at the second stewards’ hearing, procured their driver Hamilton to continue to assert the truth of the false statement given to the stewards on 29 March, while knowing what he was saying to the stewards was not true.

In a statement issued by McLaren, and in a further attempt to try to appease the WMSC, the team have confirmed they have sacked Dave Ryan, their former sporting director. Ryan was suspended on Friday after the storm surrounding the case blew up before Sunday’s Malaysian grand prix.

The new charges mark the third time McLaren have been hauled before the WMSC in less than two years. (ANI)

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‘Nazi orgy’ case cost me 30,000 pounds and my dignity: Mosley

March 11, 2009 By Leave a Comment

London, Mar.11 (ANI): Motor sport boss Max Mosley has claimed that his battle to clear his name in connection with the sex-related Nazi Orgy case, cost him both money and dignity.

The 68-year-old president of the Motor sport governing body – FIA old members of parliament on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee that he ended up having to pay 30,000 pounds in the case.

osley was later accused of “taking understatement to a new level” when he revealed he thought his father, the 1930s’ fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley, “overdid it”.

As part of a continuing inquiry by the committee into press standards, privacy and libel, Mosley described how he felt about seeing himself on the front of the best-selling Sunday tabloid.

“I was shocked, annoyed, angry and outraged,” The Independent quoted him, as saying.

He later said the feeling was worse than thieves taking all his belongings, adding: “If someone takes all your goods and money, you’ve got some chance of replacing it.

“If someone takes away your dignity, you will never replace it. No matter how long I live or where in the world I am, people know about it. It’s not that I am ashamed of it in that I’m not ashamed of my bodily functions – but I don’t want them on the front of a newspaper,” Mosley said.

Mosley said he had not ruled out bringing a separate libel action against the News of the World but did not want to appear “money-grabbing or vindictive”.

The paper was ordered to pay 420,000 pounds of Mosley’s legal costs but his total bill came to more than 500,000 pounds.

He said: “To me it was worth it, but an awful lot of people would say ‘if in addition to getting everything repeated again, I’m going to have a big bill, I’m not going to do it’.”

The motor sport boss was asked whether he had feared that his unconventional sexual tastes would be made public one day.

Mosley said he believed there was only a “small chance” of details of his sex life being revealed because the S and M world was “incredibly secretive”. (ANI)

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