Did McLaren Screw Over JPM?

[Glen]

Steering problems aren't part of a car's design fault - Kimi must have damaged his car slightly, at a guess.

[Mr V]

Just read this on www.formula1.com - JPM's take on it....

JPM in Indy

I heard this comment that they were trying to favour Kimi to win the race. It sounds pretty stupid when i would have only been 9 points behind him. One of the goals is to win the constructors championship. Myself scoring zero points and Kimi 10 doesn't help, does it?

Seems pretty sensible to me.

[Kicking-back]

Originally Posted by Don K

Probably because Williams knew that the cars were equal, and that any steering problem with Kimi's car might start showing on Montoya's car soon also.

What do Williams have to do with it?

[Glen]

By talking about no points he diverts us away from the real question. OBVIOUSLY the teamn didn't want no points from him. Almost as obviously, they would strongly perfer 10 for Kimi and 8 for JPM then the other way round. He doesn't mention that part - seems pretty sensible to me.

[Mr V]

He mentioned that there was a cock up about calling him in, and when they did, he miss-heard it. Now, as they called him in, seems that they didn't want to ruin his race.

[eatapc]

Originally Posted by Mr V

Is this definatly what happened here? Not that i've looked through all the F1 sites but i can't see McLaren publicly admitting to this, so i'd have to say it's hearsey.

It was widely reported immediately after the race. However, Ron Dennis was first quoted as saying that Montoya was told to slow down because he didn't want his two drivers racing each other when one (Kimi) was having a problem. In the later press releases, however, he explained that he told BOTH drivers to slow down, but didn't tell them why. Neither driver, apparently, was happy about that. Ron Dennis: "Juan Pablo is calm and struggled initially to understand why we were slowing him down. Although we speak in code on the radio we didn't feel it was appropriate to tell him Kimi was not in good enough shape to challenge him."

In another story, Dennis said, "So we slowed the cars down, which means that you have discussion with the drivers, and Juan Pablo needed to be reassured that if he dropped his pace it was not going to cost him his race win. Of course we had to convince Kimi not to overdrive the car with his problem."

In other words, for "security" reasons the team didn't want to tell JPM why he had to slow down. Kimi did not initially slow down as ordered. Maybe he felt he was going quite slow enough already, thank you very much, given the steering problem. My guess is that JPM had a fit as Kimi narrowed the gap.

Perhaps then, the distractions and arguments on the radio were not due to Ron Dennis' "evil" machinations, but to his security paranoia. Personally, that explanation seems a little questionable. He can't tell a driver that his teammate is having a steering problem? Even in code? Does it make sense to tell BOTH cars to slow down that far from the end of the race when one is running great and the other has a "possible" steering problem? I don't know.

[eatapc]

Just read my Autoweek, which quoted Kimi about his steering trouble: "The steering sort of turned left so that it wasn't level when I was going in a straight line. The steering itself was okay, but I didn't know what was going on. I radioed in and they told me they weren't sure what had happened, but just to keep going and not push too hard." Gee, Kimi's description sounds like 90% of the street cars I've driven.

That quote agrees with Ron Dennis' statement about not wanting his drivers to race each other, but it doesn't jibe with Dennis' contention that he told both drivers to slow down. So, to review: he told Kimi to not push too hard; he told JPM to slow down; he maintains that it would have been inappropriate to tell JPM that Kimi had a steering question; he also maintains it would have been inappropriate to tell JPM why he was supposed to slow down. The principle of Occam's Razor would suggest another explanation for the observed and admitted behavior: Dennis wanted Kimi to win without pushing too hard; he needed JPM to slow down to keep the team's options open, but he couldn't lie about it to JPM, nor could he couldn't come right out and admit he was thinking about the possibility of the cars eventually swapping places.

If Dennis was actually concerned about the welfare of JPM's car, as Don K maintained, he would have asked him directly about Kimi's issue: "Kimi's steering wheel is turning left; how's yours doing, Juan?" What's so tough about that?

[Don K]

Originally Posted by eatapc

If Dennis was actually concerned about the welfare of JPM's car, as Don K maintained, he would have asked him directly about Kimi's issue: "Kimi's steering wheel is turning left; how's yours doing, Juan?" What's so tough about that?

That wouldn't be hard.
But it would not change the situation.

They did not know what had happened to Kimi's car.
They did not know yet whether the same thing woulc happen to JPM's car later on.

By asking that question, they might have found out whether or not JPM might have had the same problem earlier on *without telling the team*.
But I assume that any problem would have informed his team about a problem like that.
So we can assume that Juan would have answered that that problem would not have developed in his car. Yet. At that moment.
Which is something that they already knew.

So there would be no point in asking that question.

[Glen]

Occam's razor is always a good rule to apply - it seems pretty obvious to me that the team would want the race order to be Kimi 1 and JPM 2 - ergo it is reasonable to assume that this was their intention. If slowing Montoya was related to Kimi's steering problem then it would make no sense to not explain that to Juan - since they did not tell him it is safe to assume that the real reason for slowing Juan was something other than Kimi's steering.

In the Guardian today there is a lengthy piece in which Renault and McLaren claim that their drivers are entirely free to go for the win and race each other - this, for me, is a pure insult to the intelligence of the fans. The fact that the newspaper goes along with the farce without the mereest hint of doubt amounts either to naive and lazy reporting, or perhaps betrays the degree to which PR departments command respect among journalists - which newspaper editor is going to risk having their briefings from Ron Dennis or Flav taken away? Simpler to follow like sheep and not ask awkward questions.

[Don K]

Originally Posted by Glen

Occam's razor is always a good rule to apply - it seems pretty obvious to me that the team would want the race order to be Kimi 1 and JPM 2 - ergo it is reasonable to assume that this was their intention. If slowing Montoya was related to Kimi's steering problem then it would make no sense to not explain that to Juan - since they did not tell him it is safe to assume that the real reason for slowing Juan was something other than Kimi's steering.

I don't really know what Occam's razor is, apart from the fact that it has something to do with British history.

===========

A short survey on the internet learned me this:
"In its simplest form, Occam's Razor states that one should make no more assumptions than needed."

What you are saying is:
- If we assume that McLaren tries "to screw over JPM" (whatever that means - I'm not a native english speaker), we can arrange the facts so that they do not contradict our assumption.

What I am saying is:
- If we do not assume anything, except for the statements they actually made (implying that both drivers are equally important), the facts do not contradict anything.


So to me that means that it is reasonable to not make any assumptions at all.

[eatapc]

Don, I'm having seconds thoughts about whether Occam's Razor is the right principle to apply here. Maybe the principle of Common Sense is more apt. As Glen said, it makes no sense for Dennis to tell JPM to slow down but not tell him why if the truth is that there's a concern about the steering. I've yet to hear a good explanation from Dennis, a journalist or someone on this forum.

Dennis says he told both drivers to slow down, but that's not exactly true. He told Kimi to not push it, which isn't the same thing, and Kimi did not slow down. Dennis says that propriety prevented him from explaining to JPM why he had to slow down. But here we have a case of a driver blowing a gasket and the team arguing with him -- not a good thing at 200 mph -- while the whole situation could have been diffused by telling JPM the simple truth. Why wouldn't they do that? Because the truth wasn't that simple.

I'm a big believer in having management get all the facts to the people who have their hands on the wheel -- literally and metaphorically. That Dennis couldn't be more forthright with JPM makes me suspicious of his version of the truth. If I were on a jury here, common sense and credibility rather than Occam's Razor would decide the case against Dennis: guilty of plotting to have his drivers swap positions before the finish line.

[Mr V]

Maybe Ron Dennis din't want the world (and other teams) knowing Kimi had a problem by broadcasting it over the radio to Juan Pablo????

[eatapc]

V, my problem with that explanation is that Kimi himself had already broadcast it over the radio, and the team responded to him that they didn't know what was wrong but that he shouldn't push it too hard. If security was the issue, the whole thing had already been compromised. So at the point JPM was told to slow down, what harm was there in telling him Kimi had an issue with his steering?

[Mr V]

I didn't know about Kimi's broadcast, assumed the team knew through telemetry, weird one then.

[Menelaos]

I think Dennis wanted Kimi to be 1st and JPM 2nd. I just don't think the pitstop problem was because of that. I think that was a mistake. However, the slow-down thing was probably to get Kimi in front of JPM after the first pitstops.

[Mr V]

Would have had to have happened after the 2nd and final pitstops. JPM's advantage until the safety car was more than sufficiant. Not sure how, other then JPM waving Kimi past (agaginst the rules of course) McLaren would have got Kimi in front.

[Kicking-back]

Ron has said again at Indy that there was no intention to change the order of the cars.

It comes down to a simple thing - not spin, not PR, not anything other than - do you believe Ron or not.

I do.

[Mr V]

Agreed k-b, JPM had the measure of Kimi and the team wouldn't have stopped him from winning imo.

[Menelaos]

Don't know about that, but I'm sure that even if he wanted to do that, he wouldn't give away 8 points to do it.

[f1atic]

Originally Posted by flexible-flyer

2 screw ups in less than a minute. both montoyas fault. drivers know not to race behind a safety car and drivers know that you cant exit the pitlane on a red light.

or in monty's case, drivers dont know...

Bang on mate!
As for the ". . . not to race behind the safety car . . ." he did that too, after running the red light when he passed Coulthard as he exited the pits. Montoya's onboard camera showed clearly that David was ahead of him and in the process, he (JPM) nearly hit Kimi's backside. Give him the "I'M STUPID" bumper sticker for his rear wing.