McLaren should expect to start the 2008 season “critically handicapped” due to the “vengeance” of Max Mosley, according to an article in today’s Scotland on Sunday.
The paper accuses the FIA boss of carrying on a vendetta against McLaren boss Ron Dennis and his Woking team – in the face of a recent writ issued against the Sunday Times when it printed similar comments about corporate unfairness at the FIA.
It suggests that “Mosley’s latest effort to stick it to Woking’s finest is in danger of tearing the sport apart.”
It asks why he consistently talks down Lewis Hamilton, drawing the conclusion that it is “perverse unwillingness to acknowledge the unprecedented impact of a rookie who bested a two-times world champion teammate suggest a pathological dislike for all things Dennis-related.”
It questions the FIA’s line that Renault’s spying offence was a lesser one than McLaren’s, arguing that the exact opposite is true.
And it concludes that there is little chance of Lewis Hamilton and his team being allowed to race on equal terms with the other competitors next spring. Here’s an excerpt:
Mosley’s time is up after Dennis vendetta
Mosley has appeared intent on shackling McLaren ever since allegations that they had been given Ferrari’s technical specifications surfaced. McLaren were exonerated at the initial hearing, and only ended back in the dock because Dennis unilaterally alerted the FIA when he found that the extent of the contact between the disgruntled Ferrari man and his own employee was greater than he had previously believed.
There has never been any evidence that McLaren’s car benefited from the Ferrari dossier, yet Mosley not only voted for the £50m fine and expulsion from the constructors’ championship, he also lobbied for Hamilton and Alonso to be thrown out of the drivers’ championship.
[…]
Where Renault can prepare happily for a season in which they could be genuine championship contenders with Fernando Alonso as their lead driver, McLaren will be hauled before an EGM in Paris less than a month before the season starts. In the meantime the FIA’s investigators will be a permanent fixture in the McLaren workshops, ostensibly to ensure no Ferrari technology is employed. Such will be the inauspicious circumstances surrounding Hamilton’s attempt to win a first world championship.
Mad Max Mosley knows full well that McLaren and Hamilton, already £50m down, will be critically handicapped. He should resign.