Lewis takes a walk round Spa
For me, Formula 1 is war and always has been war. It’s a bit like Russia versus America in the cold war. There are no niceties about it and there never has been. It’s gloves off; let’s go for it! This is why the whole F1 spying saga is nothing new to me. Teams have spied on other teams before year after year and that’s just the way it is.
Whenever people move from one team to another team they bring the documents. That’s what happens. That said, there’s more to this than meets the eye. I’m not in the inside to know exactly what’s going on but it’s certainly not a case of the documents just turned up and fell into someone’s lap! For some reason, this is different but we won’t know the full story until the evidence is made public.
As it stands, McLaren have been fined £50 million and that’s probably more than the budget of all the privateer teams! But it’s not just about that – they lose their points for this year in the championship so they go all the way to the back of the pit lane next year. There’s loads of knock-on effects and I assume McLaren will take this further. We’ve not heard the end of this.
No faith in the FIA
Has this whole spying saga damaged the sport? I don’t think so. We’ve had a great season with Lewis vs. Fernando as it is and this added intrigue makes it even more interesting in a way! What rankles me is the way things are dealt with. I got banned for three races at Jordan early in my career and it was the biggest load of bulls*it. It was absolute bollo**s, to be honest.
They just completely made up what happened and that’s why I have absolutely no faith in the FIA court of appeal. Whenever I appealed, I had all the evidence to show what happened straight down the line and they never listened to a word of it! They compared the accident I had to a road car accident. If I ran into a guy in front of me, they would say it was because I was too close and it was my fault. In a road car, you’re not driving at 200mph one foot from someone’s gearbox. In Formula 1, that’s exactly where you’re meant to be. Since that day, I lost a lot of faith in the FIA court of appeal. It was a joke.
Still sticking with Lewis
So back to the on-track action! Fernando cut the gap to three points after Monza but I’ve gone with Lewis all along and I’m not going to change my mind now. Lewis is always going to have a harder time keeping his consistency because of his lack of experience in Formula 1 but he can definitely spring back in Spa. Talking of Spa, I know its many drivers’ favourite circuit but apart from Eau Rouge, which was pretty amazing, I didn’t like it too much. I used to hate going there just because of the rain, which just made it a miserable place to be at!
I like driving when you can see where you’re going, but when you can’t see where you’re going it’s a pain in the arse. People say rain is a great leveller in Formula 1 but it’s not actually the case. Whichever car has the most downforce has a HUGE advantage. And it’s not as if Lewis has not driven in the rain before. His talent will tell, so we will see. It would be nice to have a wet race in that respect to see who does well.
You have to say that McLaren definitely have the upper hand but it’s hard to say because it’s such a one-off race. Having said all that, I think Alonso’s going to be pretty hard to beat there. If I had to stick my neck out and pick a winner now I’d say Alonso but that’s just a hunch call as this one’s so hard to predict!
One thing’s for sure, this season’s just getting more and more unpredictable and exciting as we get down to the final few races so expect more of the same on Sunday.
Enjoy the race,
Eddie Irvine.
14th September 2007
