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Post by Genghis on Oct 23, 2007 11:16:59 GMT
I think you're being a bit naive here genghis; you're assuming that big business is actually sport, when the reallity is, it's about nothing but money in the end. Here's one for the conspiracy theorists................ The accepted wisdom is that Hamilton was on a retainer of £250,000 this year, which would rise to the same as his team mate in 2008 if he won the WC; Alonso was reportedly on 20M this year, so it was worth 19.75M for McLaren to throw the title and switch off Hamilton's gearbox for a while during the deciding last race. And if you think that's a bit far fetched, just think about this; assuming Hamilton won the title and Alonso stays at McLaren next year, a driver budget of 40M would be totally unprecedented. Or maybe, in the exchange of information between McLaren and Ferrari, perhaps the red devils switched Hamilton's gearbox off? Whatever, F1 is not a straight race to the finish, and it hasn't been for a very long time, if anyone thinks it is, then, in the style of our ancient leader, they are deluded; beyond belief, if the truth be known. Nice conspiracy. There is no doubt that all sorts of shennanigans could go in F1, but surely Alonso won't be back at McLaren next year, so I can't see McLaren delibrately throwing Hamilton's title... which is itself would surely recoup in terms of sponsoipship, etc any increase in Lewis's wages. I did think about the Ferrari conspiracy myself, I wonder if Jean Todt was seen with pressing a big red button at the time Lewis lost his gears. ;D
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Post by Genghis on Oct 23, 2007 11:22:07 GMT
So much for any conspiracy theory:
Lewis Hamilton has admitted that he lost the title due to a human error. The young Briton lost a lot of time when his car all of a sudden seemed to slow down, but after a while he managed to get it going. He fell back to P18 and had to work himself up the field again in order to fight for the championship title.
Speaking to French newspaper La Presse Hamilton said: "My finger slipped on the wheel and I accidentally pressed the button to start a starting procedure. The car went in neutral and I had to reinitialize the system in order to get going again."
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2007 15:37:48 GMT
Ermm, Surely if that was the case , why didn't he say that straight away. Wonder what odds you could get on Hamilton never being World Champion, all this , he can do it next season, he has time on his side, tell that to Tommy Knudsen, Dave Jessup, Kenny Carter, Leigh Adams, Tomasz Gollob, you have to seize these chances when they come along.
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Post by Genghis on Oct 23, 2007 17:06:03 GMT
Ermm, Surely if that was the case , why didn't he say that straight away. Wonder what odds you could get on Hamilton never being World Champion, all this , he can do it next season, he has time on his side, tell that to Tommy Knudsen, Dave Jessup, Kenny Carter, Leigh Adams, Tomasz Gollob, you have to seize these chances when they come along. Hmmm, I do fancy Kimi again in 2008, but I think Lewis will win it in time - it's a bit like Prost in 1983 and 1984, when he missed out, but you knew he was surely going to win in the future. As for the comparison with the likes of Knudsen & Carter, come on, Lewis is level-headed and calm, whereas Carter was a complete fucking nutjob and Knudsen's dirty tactics were clearly going to catch up with him at some point.
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Post by donsking on Oct 23, 2007 17:34:41 GMT
Oh, I don't know, I think I'm getting too cynical for this game.
As ctylr points out, which story is the right one?
Is it the version we got during the race, that the gearbox had a glitch and the pits were telling him to go through various procedures, the one that caused the cock to go through his gloom, doom and despondancy speech about 'these things coming back later on'?
Was it the version we got from Hamilton, immediately post race, where he said he basically didn't know what happened, but he pushed a few buttons and it got going again?
Or is it 'I'm such a hamfisted bugger, I pushed this button, you know, the one marked "DON'T PUSH THIS", and it all went tits up'?
Given that most home PCs have a reset button you have to cram a biro into to push, if you were designing an F1 steering wheel, would you include a button, that it's possible to push accidentally, which reboots the car?
Or, if such a button does exist and you were designing the software, would you not include some kind of failsafe that disables that function when the car is in motion?
Too many questions, not enough answers.
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Post by schumi on Oct 23, 2007 17:59:48 GMT
From planet f1
McLaren have offered no comment on the story. But it is worth reminding readers that only yesterday Ron Dennis spoke out angrily about the amount of inaccurate reports appearing on the internet...
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Post by schumi on Oct 23, 2007 18:07:13 GMT
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Post by donsking on Oct 23, 2007 18:09:19 GMT
From planet f1 McLaren have offered no comment on the story. But it is worth reminding readers that only yesterday Ron Dennis spoke out angrily about the amount of inaccurate reports appearing on the internet... Shit, do you think he might sue? ;D
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Post by schumi on Oct 23, 2007 18:21:23 GMT
Of all the people I thought I might have to explain that for, you weren't one. Try this quote:
We don't actually believe he said this, but Lewis Hamilton has allegedly confessed to shutting down his McLaren during the Brazilian GP. Remember that gearbox problem? Well Hamilton says it wasn't a gearbox failure. It was actually him having "accidentally pressed the button used for the starting sequence".
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Post by donsking on Oct 23, 2007 21:21:51 GMT
Still doesn't have enough of a ring of truth about it for me.
I can't believe that such an expensive and technically advanced vehicle as an F1 car has a button you can inadvertantly push that throws it into total turmoil.
Wouldn't you at least put a cover over it?
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Post by schumi on Oct 23, 2007 21:30:52 GMT
Still doesn't have enough of a ring of truth about it for me. That's what the article is saying - they don't believe it either. Jeez, that was hard work. Although I'm starting to think April fools day has come early: Luca Montezemolo has praised Fernando Alonso as a 'world class' driver, while slating Lewis Hamilton for his behaviour during this year's Championship.
The two McLaren drivers lost the Drivers' Championship title to Kimi Raikkonen in Sunday's Brazilian GP, both finishing one point behind the Ferrari driver in the standings.
But while overjoyed with Raikkonen's title triumph, Montezemolo spared a thought for the dethroned Champion, Alonso.
"Alonso is world class in every sense, an extraordinary driver," the Ferrari President told Reuters.
"I have appreciated very much his sportsmanship. He lost by one point and I believe it wasn't his fault."
However, he wasn't as kind to the Spaniard's team-mate, saying "youth and nervousness" contributed towards Hamilton's loss of the World title.
He added: "I must say that in the course of the season he has not always behaved exemplarily." From planetf1
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Post by donsking on Oct 23, 2007 21:44:57 GMT
Sorry, I didn't realise that's what you were trying to explain, especially as I'd already said it was bollocks in my previous post.
I've never thought much of Montezemelo; James Hunt hated him, and when he was announced as the new chairman of FIAT, half the board resigned!
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Post by Genghis on Oct 23, 2007 21:46:04 GMT
Alonso & sportsmanship in the same sentence... I never thought I'd see that ;D This Montepythonmolo bloke... was he the one who reckoned Raikkonen wasn't up to scratch... doesn't seem to have much of a clue does he?
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Post by schumi on Oct 23, 2007 21:55:23 GMT
From Autosport.com McLaren have rejected suggestions that Lewis Hamilton's gearbox failure in the Brazilian Grand Prix was due to him pressing the wrong button on his steering wheel. Hamilton was seen slowing down almost to a halt on lap eight of Sunday's race, dropping from sixth to 18th place, but was then able to regain speed. The incident sparked rumours suggesting the 22-year-old pushed the wrong button on his steering wheel, which in turn left his car in neutral until he was given instructions over the radio how to reset the system. Compounding these rumours was a report in Montreal's newspaper La Presse, which quotes Hamilton directly as saying he indeed pushed the wrong button. However, a source close to the Hamilton family has described the report as "absolute rubbish", telling autosport.com that Hamilton has not spoken to the Canadian newspaper or said anything as such to anyone. A McLaren spokesperson also denied the report and said the failure was not down to human error. "We can confirm that the temporary gear shifting problem Lewis suffered on lap eight of the Brazilian Grand Prix was due to a default in the gearbox that selected neutral for a period of time," she said. "It was not as a result of Lewis pressing an incorrect button on his steering wheel." McLaren F1 CEO Martin Whitmarsh also ruled out driver error and said the likely reason is hydraulic valve failure. "It was a gearbox problem, and it went into forced-neutral and changing down seemed to rectify it - it might be mechanical, but we doubt it," he told Autosport magazine. "If it was something mechanical, they usually don't fix themselves. It could be electronics software - but there's no evidence in the analysis to support that. Could be a sensor - but again, there's no evidence in the data recordings. "So it would appear that the barrels that change gear went out of control - and out of control of the driver - and that's probably hydraulic. "That could be either a very small Moog servo control valves that were interfered with by a tiny piece of debris or they are sensitive to magnetic interference - something generated a magnetic field which caused the valve to misbehave."
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Post by donsking on Oct 23, 2007 22:07:45 GMT
I can't believe anyone thought the fans would fall for that shite in the first place.
I'm not absolutely sure that F1 cars even have a kill switch anymore, let alone some odd button that fucks everything if you accidentally touch it.
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