Why would McLaren say they didn't make Hamilton pull over if the FiA can get the radio conversation anyway? Who has more power, the FiA or McLaren? Yea, I thought so too.
People who are talking about honesty and morals need to get a freakin' grip. This is motorsport! You leave your morals at the door!
There are rules, Macca appear to have broke em. End of. Lets not get on our moral high horses because quite a few drivers on that grid I am sure will have little things in their past they are not to happy about.
Even if they thought the FIA was lying, it would be a waste of time and money. They probably wouldn't win the appeal anyway, and they need to focus their time and energy on fixing their car. Even if they won the appeal and Hamilton got his 3rd or 4th place back, that's "only" 6 constructors points and nothing towards the drivers' championship (most wins system).
The personnel who would put together the appeal would not be those who are working on fixing the car. The only people who would appear on both would be the management and they do not need to spent 100% of their time sitting next to the aerodynamacists making sure they're doing their sums right.
Given the current state of their car 6 constructor points could be a significant portion of the total points they'll score this season. Even if they expect to score a lot more they would definitely file an appeal if they thought they would win. The teams spend hundreds of millions to design a car to score points. No way they'd leave 6 points on the table if they thought they had a reasonable chance of getting them.
The most wins system has been scrapped, hasn't it?
So you think that if a team boss tells the driver to say something in a high pressure meeting, the driver is going to directly contradict him in front of the FIA?
Doubt it. There's not a man on the grid who would.
Ok, I've found the answer for this. His comments were made before the FIA decision was released. In fact McLaren haven't reacted in any way since the FIA release...
So it looks like there's only two possibilities. Either they have to admit to lying or they need to pursue legal action. Or they can of course refuse to comment at all.
i must admit i do agree here, mclaren and lewis are very good at shooting themselfves in the foot, either by breaking the rules knowing the fia will come down hard on them especcially or sailing close to the wind knowing the fia will find some way of getting at them.
That's possible, maybe the decision had not been released in it's full wording when Whitmarsh was interviewed on the BBC. If so, that would of course explain why the FiA is so open and direct about it and providing the radio comm etc. From their view, this statement by Whitmarsh makes the decision look overly harsh. Who knows, maybe the FiA wouldn't have had released it in the way they did if Whitmarsh had just said "no comment" -- which would have been the smart thing to do.
Dude, are you ****ing kidding me?. You don't know any of the drivers personally yet you're calling this man out for trying to get out of a penalty? This is racing.. aka a highly competitive sport. Rules are bent all the time, get over it and find a better reason to hate.
Why should he have gotten a penalty for "admitting" that he let Trulli past on purpose? He just would have kept his 4th place, maybe they would have even switched Trulli and him so he gets 3rd.
What he did wasn't trying to get out of a penalty but talking himself into a penalty.