Ron Dennis quits Formula one

Ron Dennis today announced that he will completely step back from all of McLaren's racing actvities. This comes at a time when McLaren are going through one of their toughest periods in motor racing. Martin Whitmarsh had become CEO of McLaren earlier this year, taking over from Dennis. Many believe this decision has come due to the strained relationship between Dennis and FIA President Max Mosley, which in turn has been affecting the team of late. McLaren are in the middle or 'liar-gate', events of the Melbourne GP two weeks ago.  

The last couple of years have been a tumultous experience for the former McLaren head, especialy when his team were found guilty of espionage and fined $100M for disqualified from the constructors championship. I am quite sure that many people are not too sad to see Dennis leave Formula One, espcially Max Mosley from the FIA.

In my view, Ron Dennis has been one of the Champions of F1, who has played a pivotal role in bringing F1 to where it is now. He has worked with probably the greater driver list ever, excluding Michael Schumacher. His world champions include Niki Lauda, Alain Prost, the late great Ayrton Senna, Mika Hakkinen and most recently Lewis Hamilton. Dennis, along with his business partners bought the team in 1981 and convinced Mansour Ojjeh of TAG to become his partner. In the early 80's he turned an also ran team into one of the top teams in Formula One. Apart from the slump in the early 90's McLaren have always been a contender for the F1 crown.

He brought the two great drivers, Senna and Prost together in 1988, and dominated the season winning 15 out of the 16 races. While Prost left the team a year later, Senna went on to dominate in Formula One for years to come, until his tragic death in 1994. 

After Senna left, Dennis joined hands with Mercedes while the team began to regroup. The hardwork finally paid in 1998-99 as Mika Hakkinen won back-to-back titles with the Mercedes powered McLaren. While McLaren has been strong in the last decade Dennis has had his fair share of troubles, especially with his drivers. Juan Pablo Montoya left halfway through the 2006 campaign and Fernando Alonso also had a fall-out with Dennis and left in 2007.

Dennis has been a big promoter of letting his drivers fight it out for the title and not adhering to team orders, like many other teams. All in all Dennis has been great to the sport and I believe his leadership skills and win-at-all-costs mentality will be sorely missed at McLaren. As he famously once said, "To finish first, first you have to finish". Ron, we will miss you

Diffusers deemed Legal

It what is definitely to be a big blow to the chasing pack, the double diffuser concept used by Brawn, Williams and Toyota have been deemed legal by the FIA International Court of Appeal. This will significantly impact the Big 4 (Ferrari, McLaren, Renault and BMW) in their quest to become world champions this year. With the Brawn GP car miles ahead of their competition you can be sure that the remaining teams will be working round the clock to get the diffuser onto their cars. 

The row broke out when the top teams protested against the legality of the 'double-decker' diffusers the day before the opener at Melbourne, but race stewards rejected their claims.The diffuers generate more downforce which adds a performance advantage of 0.3 to 0.5 secs per lap. This also makes overtaking a lot harder, which was one of the main objectives with regards to the new regulations. Former World Champions Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen had also gone on to say that the Championship would be decided by this verdict.

It will take most teams a number of races to fix a diffuser to suit the car. I just hope that it is not too late for the other teams to catch up with Brawn who are clearly ahead, with Toyota not too far behind. Button has been in imperious form and unless Barrichello starts taking points off him this Championship might be over by the time we reach Valencia in August. However the rate of development of the top teams are a lot faster than anyone else so as predicted, this might just turn out to be one of the best championships in years to come, possibly even better than last year.    

Hamilton disqualified from the Australian GP!!

In what was probably the most hectic week in F1 history, the FIA stewards have stripped reigning World Champion Lewis Hamilton of McLaren Mercedes off his third place in the Australian GP. The FIA have also reinstated Jarno Trulli for his third place at the Australian GP.

Hamilton and McLaren were stripped of their points when for giving 'misleading' evidence to the FIA stewards in the immdiate aftermath of the race. Jarno Trulli was given a 25sec penalty after it was found that he passed Hamilton under yellow flags at the end of the race, which eventually put him in 12th position. Trulli had withdrawn the appeal couple of days ago but it was reopened by the FIA after they found 'new evidence' in the case. 

When the safety car came out after the Kubica/Vettel crash on the penultimate lap, Trulli was ahead of Hamilton. However Trulli went off the track onto the grass at the penultimate corner, to which Hamilton duly went past him. On the last lap Hamilton literally came to a standstill forcing Trulli to go past. Trulli figured Hamilton had a probem and thus went past. When Hamilton met the stewards after the race, he made it clear that he did not let Trulli through and he passed him anyway. This forced the stewards to give Trulli a 25sec penalty.

Evidence now suggests that the team told Hamilton to give the place back, with radio conversations from the McLaren team suggesting the same. This would mean that what Lewis communicated to the stewards and what actually transpired were totally different. 

We have just completed the first race and we have already had so many controversies. Last Thursday there was an appeal against the 'Diffuser Gang', Saturday saw the disqualification of the Toyotas in qualifying for the flexi wing, and Sunday saw Trulli demoted. 

Sepang is around the corner so let us hope we have a les controversial weekend this time around!!