A pack of McLiars

Right. I’m fucked off. Theoretically I have no real reason to be - the sun’s out, it’s the weekend, breakfast involved large amounts of bacon (a foodstuff well established for containing more Win-per-unit-volume than any other on Earth), the Broncos lost - but I am. First of all, the interwank in my corner of the globe has slowed to an incontinent trickle. Second - Choadafone McLaren Mersyndol are a bunch of fucking muppets. Why does this matter? Glad you asked. (I am. You mightn’t be.)

McLaren - the British-based Formula One team, not the British-based manufacturer of baby strollers - have always been a bunch of fucking muppets, at least in the thirty years or so since renown tossbag Ron Dennis took over the team (a few examples of his douchery here and here). From team principal to drivers alike, they were wankers all. Prost was a haughty backstabbing dwarf with a honker bigger than a MP4/2 nosecone, Senna was a delusional demolition-derby dickwad who talked to God in his cockpit, Hakkinen was an intellectual and conversational midget, Mansell was too fat to fit in the car, Coulthard was useless and remarkable only for his aerodynamically designed jaw, Montoya and Alonso were made considerably more shit by their time there, Raikkonen was even more conversationally constipated than Hakkinen, Kovalainen was and remains a walking, talking, living non-event. And as for Hamilton...

So the Golden Boy, clonal F1 robodriver Lewis Hamiltron, managed to blag an arsey third place in last weekend’s Strayan Eff One Gee Pee around the shallow puddle of Albert Park Lake, Mudbourne courtesy an a posteriori penalty smeared across Toyota driver (and presumably beige cardigan wearer) Jarno Trulli - he’s Italian, but named after a Finnish MotoGP rider from the 70s (glad you asked aren’t you?) - for supposedly passing Hamiltard’s McLaren behind the ‘safety’ car, which gets deployed every time some midgetary wheel jockey smears their inverted fighter jet thingy against the trackside scenery. Trulli had been originally passed by the McLaren after running off track avoiding residual bits from the Vettel-Kubica stoush which triggered the safety car three laps from the end, after which Trulli reclaimed his spot from Hamiltool - the act for which he was penalised. Still with me? Anyhoo, in the stewards’ rooms after the race, Hamiltwunt claimed he hadn’t been told by the team to let Trulli past again, Trulli had just bloused on past the whiny overexposed cocksmoker who’s never actually had to prove himself in any way at any level in motorsport in anything other than The Best Car In The Field, having been personally selected as Ron Dennis’ rentboy aged ten and by F1 driver standards promoted well beyond his level of adequacy, Peter Principle styles (OK, so I’m paraphrasing lightly). As such, Trulli copped his penalty and the Golden Boy copped a bag of championship points that the complete lack of inherent pace of the McShitbox conspicuously failed to deserve.

Except, as it would turn out, wee Lewis was lying his shiny little arse off in order to try and get Trulli penalised and hence theft third place off him. Both the telemetry from the respective cars, showing the number one McLaren slowing to as little as 15mph immediately prior to Trulli repassing it, and the transcript of the radio communications between Hamilturd and the McLaren pit wall, in which he was very clearly told to let Trulli past again, and replied in the affirmative, made this very pointedly clear. For his blatant ‘misinforming’ of the stewards inquiry, the Golden Boy lost his third place in Mudbourne and will probably be on the receiving end of some to-be-determined FIA-enforced slap on the wrist. Though given FIA prez Max Mosley’s penchant for a bit of slap and tickle (heavy on the slap), Goldie better hope it’s not Spanky Max who’s personally doling out the percussive correction.

Initially, Hamilton (OK so I’ve run out of piss poor T-themed insults) had taken it on the chin - hardly the first time, one suspects - probably figuring that he was lucky to be a F1 driver rather than a jockey, for which the penalties for misleading a stewards’ inquiry are dramatically more significant. But what’s this? It wasn’t me? I never said them things? I got told to lie in the big scary meeting by my nasty evil sporting director? I was only following orders?

Give me a fucking break. As your mates from Mercedes can probably tell you, that didn’t work at Nuremberg, why the fuck should it here?

Even so, it’s clear what the corporate strategy is from here: McLaren have scapegoated their veteran Sporting Director Dave Ryan, sending him packing with the clear inference that all of the above was his doing and his alone, as some form of vendetta against the FIA race stewards after Hamilton copped a similar penalty to Trulli’s for a dodgy move in the Belgian GP last year. Whether that’s true or not, what stinks about this whole deal is that they’ve thrown the bloke under a bus with no comebacks and no means of defending himself. I don’t know Dave Ryan and you’ve never heard of him, but he was the only link left between the original McLaren team first set up by legendary Kiwi driver Bruce McLaren in the late ‘60s and the faceless pack of soulless corporate suckholes which now carry his name. Ryan, a New Zealander, first joined McLaren in the mid-70s, when the team was still primarily a Kiwi concern - although McLaren himself was killed in a testing crash in 1970, the team’s lead driver was still 1967 world champ Denny Hulme and the team manager was McLaren’s best mate from childhood, Phil Kerr, both of whom were crucial in holding the team together after losing their leader. (Kerr’s book To Finish First is an evocative account of his career in F1 working with Jack Brabham, McLaren, Hulme etc - anyone interested in old racing shit should definitely check it out). In the ‘80s the team was bought by buzzword-spewing arsehat Ron Dennis, but Ryan stayed on as chief mechanic, then sporting director, where he remained to this day (this day being yesterday). Dennis stood down at the start of his season, his fervent wish to see his precious little Golden Boy take the title apparently fulfilled, handing control of the team to former 2IC Martin Whitmarsh, though effective control of the team is in the hands of new majority owners Mercedes-Benz. Now it seems the new regime appears perfectly content to new-broom whatever was left of the old guard into the reeds in order to protect the public image of its massively-overrated, usually-fucking-up star driver.

In punting Ryan, Choadafone McLaren have pawned their last link to their heritage - the only credibility they really have - and whored themselves to the sanctity of their Public Image (Ltd) in order to buy a half ounce of crack cut with laundry powder aimed at feeding their modern addiction: keeping up the flimsy pretence of their own corporate integrity and PR respectability.

Fuck ‘em.

The Doctor is OUT.