F1 Ungern

Kval:
Mycket smart av Alonso, men hade jag varit Hamilton hade jag nog bankat honom gul och röd.
Får vi snart se dubbla depåplatser hos stallen?

Alonso föll en smula i min bok nu... Smart, men inte vidare snyggt.

Ron Dennis såg rätt sammanbiten ut.

Det blev nog en avhyvling där..

FIA håller på och granskar Alonsos agerande under kvalets sista depåstopp

Får man inte hindra medtävlande så får man inte... men det skulle nog bli första gången någon får straff för att ha hindrat en teamkompis = förmodligen väldigt liten sannolikhet att det blir något straff.

Enl. uppgift var det hela Hamiltons eget fel. Alonso körde med något mera soppa och skulle därför sätta sitt snabba varv sist. Alonso skulle även först ut ur depån.. men där smet Hamilton iväg först och hela upplägget kom i obalans. Hamilton ska också ha vägrat släppa förbi Alonso under de inledande varven för att rätta till det hela.

Efterkonstruktion för teamets bästa, dvs undgå straff... eller är rävspelet om titeln redan så hård?

Har en nykomling nånsin vunnit titeln sitt första år?

om inte så är juh Hamiltons hunger rätt stor på att bli den förste....då har han juh sin karriär klar....

Re:

Mats Karlsson skrev:

Har en nykomling nånsin vunnit titeln sitt första år?

Har för mig att det aldrig hänt men att någon på 50-talet var nära.

Jack Villeneuve vann väl sitt första år.

Re:

kimmen skrev:

Jack Villeneuve vann väl sitt första år.

Nepp, andra året men han var dock inte så långt ifrån att fixa det.

Verkar nog ändå (tyvärr tycker jag ) som att Hamilton är bättre just nu, att han startar i 2:a position spelar nog ingen roll, han kommer nog ändå att vinna.

Blir spännande och se, jag är inget superstort F1-fan även om jag var just i Ungern förra året och kollade på F1, men har börjat hålla på BMW, det vore roligt om det nån gång blev nåt annat än bara Ferrari/McLaren

Rejsen avgörs i depån och inte på banan...

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/61370
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/61371
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/61372
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/61373

Re:

Sörpan skrev:

Rejsen avgörs i depån och inte på banan... http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/61370 http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/61371 http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/61372 http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/61373

Ja vad säger man, det hela låter väl ändå rimligt eller
Kändes ju verkligen som att Alonso stannade kvar för att Hamilton inte skulle få en chans till ett sista flygande varv. Synd att det är så mycket myglande hela tiden, det gör ju inte sporten mer intressant direkt

Tror ni Alonso är kvar i McLaren nästa år?

Tycker beslutet är helrätt, var inte snyggt alls av Alonso.

Men ändå måste jag säga att det är märkligt. Vad hade hänt om teamet insett att Hamilton inte hinner ett sista varv, och parkerat hans bil i depån? Sen officielt sagt att Hamilton varit färdig..

Gissar att inget straff skulle dömts ut då, eller?

Förutom Alonsos tillbakaflytt så får McLaren ej heller tillgodoräkna sig några teampoäng!
Även Fisi blir straffad för att ha bromsat Yamamoto under dennes kvalvarv.

alonson tydligen nerflyttad 5 platser.

Kul race.. sammanfattningsvis:

Hamilton:
Heidfeld:
Masa:

Autosports Adam Cooper har försökt reda ut vad som hände under kvalet, underhållande läsning:

http://www.autosport.com/journal/article.php/id/1186

Re:

Sörpan skrev:

Autosports Adam Cooper har försökt reda ut vad som hände under kvalet, underhållande läsning: http://www.autosport.com/journal/article.php/id/1186

Please log in.

Copy/paste?

Re:

Nillet skrev:

Sörpan skrev: Autosports Adam Cooper har försökt reda ut vad som hände under kvalet, underhållande läsning: http://www.autosport.com/journal/article.php/id/1186 Please log in. Copy/paste?

Aj då, man måste vara prenumerant för att läsa det där.

Från www.autosport.com :

Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get out of

The Hungarian Grand Prix was one of the most difficult weekends for McLaren CEo Ron Dennis and his team in recent history. What really happened at the third qualifying session at the Hungaroring on Saturday? Why did the stewards choose to penalise Fernando Alonso but not Lewis Hamilton? and what are the implications for all involved? Adam Cooper brings the full story of McLaren's undoing at Hungary

By Adam Cooper
autosport.com contributing writer

Like everyone else, I could barely believe what was happening when Fernando Alonso sat in the Hungaroring pits at the end of third qualifying. The clock was ticking, and it was blindingly obvious when Alonso finally pulled away that Lewis Hamilton would not make it round to start his final lap.

From my vantage point in the media centre, I watched in disbelief as Alonso just made it across the line, and Hamilton didn't. It was extraordinary, and there seemed to be no explanation other than either a major mistake by the team, or - the one that proved to be correct - a spectacularly unsubtle piece of gamesmanship by the Spaniard.

At the time, of course, we had no way of knowing that the world champion was in fact responding to an earlier flouting of team instructions by Hamilton, and that indeed internally Lewis was regarded as the villain of the piece. Over the next few hours the story escalated, and so did the pressures inside the McLaren camp.

A lot of people seemed to have misunderstood the reason that a penalty was imposed on Alonso, and within McLaren there is obviously a feeling that this was a 'domestic dispute' that did not need any outside interference.

But the bottom line is simple. It is the duty of the FIA to ensure that the spectators in the grandstand and watching at home on TV see a fair contest with an outcome they can believe in - this not is the Tour de France. The penalty handed out to Michael Schumacher in Monaco last year showed that chief steward Tony Scott Andrews is not to be messed with in such circumstances.

The truth is that Alonso denied his main championship rival a chance to compete fairly for pole position. The fact that they happen to be teammates - and indeed this particular and unprecedented form of impeding could only involve two teammates - was irrelevant.

What if Alonso and Hamilton collide on the last lap in Brazil when the title is up for grabs? Should the fact that they are teammates cause the FIA to forgo any investigation and dismiss it as an internal team squabble?

This was a calculated professional foul undertaken in response to an earlier indiscretion by Hamilton. But while Lewis's move flouted team instructions and massively raised the stakes in their intra-team fight, it was not one that directly affected the outcome of the competition.

It's a hugely complex story, and one that is hard to grasp firmly, because the principal players have not yet given us the full, unadulterated truth on why things happened as they did.

But with the benefit of hindsight and additional investigation since, the events of the infamous Q3 session in Hungary can be unraveled and analysed.

Qualifying

Hamilton's behaviour at the start of the session was as hard to comprehend as that of Alonso later on, and after the session McLaren CEo Ron Dennis was quick to point out what his man had done wrong.

It all started because of the anomaly at certain tracks that allows one but not both drivers to complete an extra lap in qualifying - a quirk of lap times, track length, and so on.

The driver accorded this privilege can complete one extra lap of fuel-burning before he gets to the stage of proper qualifying runs at the end of the session. As a result, he has a lap less of fuel in the car on his hot laps, which in Hungary equated to 2.3kgs - or a useful 0.05 seconds.

Since the Monaco dramas, Dennis and the team have done their best to give the two guys a level playing field, to the extent that on a number of occasions they have started Q3 with identical fuel loads.

However, of late there has been a bit more flexibility in strategy, and once an ideal fuel load has been decided upon, if a driver and his engineer fancy taking a punt and going two laps heavier or whatever, they can. What they cannot do is dip below the agreed figure.

In Hungary, Hamilton was indeed two laps heavier at the start of Q3. Because Lewis had enjoyed the advantage on home ground at Silverstone (this was not an issue at the Nurburgring), it was Fernando's turn to be favoured by going quickly at the start of the fuel-burning session.

Thus, he would effectively lose the aforementioned 2.3kgs before he started his hot laps, and therefore be even better off relative to Hamilton in weight terms.

There was another major twist, in that the tyre choice was not clear-cut. In theory the supersoft option tyre was the obvious choice, but there was a risk that it would go off before the end of the lap.

Since Alonso's style punishes the fronts more, he chose to go for the prime soft tyre for the laps that counted. Hamilton took the more obvious route of the supersoft. So as well as the marginal weight difference, the two men were going to be on different tyres come the end of the session.

McLaren's plans went awry at the start. Hamilton won the race to get down to the end of the pitlane and await the start of the session. The reason he got out first is that after being refuelled following Q2, the cars leave the McLaren pit once their engines have cooled to a certain temperature. The team know that once they have reached that level the driver will be able to sit at the pit exit with the engine safely running for three or four minutes.

"What determines when the car goes down is the engine temperature," said Ron Dennis. "Because we know how long we can hold the car stationary. So we can't send it until it comes down to that temperature. The engineers send it against a temperature value, and that's when they went down, out of sequence."

Hamilton agreed to let Alonso past at Turn 1, or at Turn 2 if that didn't work. Any scenario of course also involved keeping Kimi Raikkonen behind at all times, so that the Ferrari man could not interfere with the way McLaren wanted to run the session.

But Lewis went off at quite a pace and did not give Fernando the option to pass. Alonso stayed with him initially, but the anticipated wave-by didn't happen, and after a few corners he began to question what Lewis was doing - the man on the other end of the radio, chief engineer Steve Hallam, did his best to placate him.

Hamilton in turn was asked by engineer Richard Hopkins to move over as planned. Indeed he asked several times, but apparently there was no response. He was then told that it was an order direct from Ron Dennis, and finally Ron himself got on the radio - as he has done during several moments of crisis this year, notably in Monaco and Indianapolis - and asked Lewis to do what had been agreed.

There is no question that this was a major, major flouting of team protocol by Hamilton, and one for which he had no proper explanation.

By this stage Alonso was getting frantic and was seriously distracted in the cockpit, and trying to keep Raikkonen behind made life even more complicated. In an attempt to calm him down, he was even told that Hamilton had ignored a direct order from Ron - in other words, Fernando was reassured that he was not being stitched up by the team in some way.

Eventually it was clear that the pass was not going to happen, and after a lap Alonso slowed and prepared to switch to a different approach. When he came in for his first stop he was held in an attempt to guarantee a clear track. Indeed he was held for a full 40 seconds, which seemed like an age.

There was no need to rush off. Once it was clear he was unable to get his extra lap in, Fernando had some time to spare. Indeed, using it up would also help to guarantee that his final lap would come as close to the end of the session as possible.

However, in the confusion there was an extra delay because the usual order of 'blankets off' had not come from the pit wall. As the TV pictures showed, the tyres went on with blankets still attached and there was some panic as the front right got caught up. An extra time of five seconds was lost - ironically this unforeseen delay actually helped to get Alonso out on to a clearer track than he would otherwise have experienced.

All of this added to the tension both in the cockpit of car No. 1, and in the pits. Fernando did a lap of 1:20.133, enough to put him on pole by a significant margin, but then on his first set of new tyres Hamilton bettered that with a 1:19.781.

Then came the crucial final stop, which was preceded by some more confusion in the camp.

Alonso had one set of brand new prime tyres left, but at the last minute the team discovered a problem with the pressures. That meant a late switch to a back-up set, which had been scrubbed on an installation lap but were still in reasonable condition.

on top of everything else that was going on, this came as a surprise to Alonso, who had been expecting the new tyres. He queried the team's decision, and perhaps his mood was not helped by seeing a spanking new set of options being unwrapped for Hamilton, as planned.

Meanwhile there was the matter of the now infamous countdown. The team wanted to get Fernando into clean air and have him complete his final lap as late as possible, with the maximum amount of rubber down on the track. The man responsible for relaying the countdown was not Hallam, but Mark Slade, who usually takes over some communication duties while in the pits.

In the course of Fernando's stop, Hamilton had pulled in behind him, and everyone in the team knew that whatever countdown Alonso might have benefited from, they still had to get Hamilton out as well. It was going to be tight, but there was time.

The countdown ended, and the lollipop came up. And that was the definitive signal for Fernando to leave - it has to be, for safety reasons, because it tells the driver that there are no cars coming down the pitlane. It makes no sense at all for the lollipop to go up, a countdown process carry on, and allow the driver to just head off.

So there is no question that the lollipop did mean 'go', and Alonso was indeed told by Slade to go. It was Alonso's decision to sit there.

Whatever the truth, the curious thing is that everyone in the team seemed to be absolutely paralysed and apparently unable to do anything to encourage or force him to leave. After a full 10 seconds, he finally headed off.

It was my initial assumption that his steering wheel display showed a countdown to the end of the session, and that he was savvy enough to know that at 1:38 or thereabouts he could still safely go, and that Hamilton would not be able to make it.

Some cars do have such a dash readout, but the McLaren does not, and thus the drivers rely on information from their engineers. In other words, Alonso took a huge risk when he sat there as the seconds ticked away. Indeed on his out-lap he asked the team how he was doing, and had to be told to hurry up.

He made it by 0.6 seconds, even less than was reported at the time, but Hamilton was at least 4 seconds adrift. In other words, had Lewis not been stopped for the unplanned 10 seconds, he would not only have been safe, his timing would have been perfect as he would have completed his lap at the last possible moment.

Despite all the confusion, the distractions and the fact that he was not on the optimum set of tyres, Fernando kept his head and put in what was in effect a blinding lap to take pole.

Meanwhile Hamilton made his feelings known after crossing the line, saying "Don't you ever do that to me again," to which Dennis apparently replied, "Don't you ever fucking talk to us like that again."

I choose those words carefully because it was initially reported that Lewis had started the swearing (see later), whereas it now seems that in fact it was Ron who raised the language stakes.

In addition, Hamilton is thought to have added something to the above statement that implied that he would be off to pastures new if it did happen again.

What happened next...

You didn't have to be a genius to work out that something strange was going on at McLaren. The TV cameras caught Dennis throwing off his headset and going over to Fernando's physio, Fabrizio Borra, who also doubles as the Spaniard's pit signaller.

Ron insisted later that his intention was merely to have some back-up in parc ferme in order to help ensure that Hamilton and Alonso didn't do or say something they might regret. Borra was surprised to be collared in this way, and have his headphones removed by the team boss, which is why the situation looked so odd. Watching on TV his wife was so worried that she rang his mobile to see if he had lost his job...

The rest of the world leaped to the conclusion that Borra was in some way part of a plot, possibly giving Fernando hand signals to let him know when he ought to get a move on. A great story, but something of a red herring for which there was little support in terms of evidence.

"I took Fabrizio with me because I am only one person," Dennis said. "I didn't know what level of temperature the drivers were going to be when they came out of the cars, and I wanted Fabrizio to keep Fernando calm, and I was keeping Lewis calm.

"What we didn't want is things said in the heat of the moment that we would subsequently regret. We were both trying to calm both drivers down. Listen, as upset as both of the drivers were, they didn't say things that increased the pressure. They didn't increase the pressure, and basically, we tried to calm it all down."

Ron duly took Borra down to the scrutineering bay, where the drivers are weighed straight after qualifying. Dennis wandered in and was pictured clambering over the weighbridge as Alonso apparently ignored him. It is utterly against the rules for any team member to be in the FIA garage in those circumstances, and indeed the McLaren boss could have faced censure for his trespassing.

In the end there wasn't any fight, or any harsh words in the style of the Alonso/Massa confrontation in Germany, or at least none that the TV cameras saw. Ron's other motivation for being there was possibly to get the stories straight.

Both drivers were about to head straight into the live TV unilateral interviews, and thereafter into the FIA press conference, where they would get an unfettered grilling. Whether Dennis actually made contact was not clear from the TV pictures, but he and the team were now completely unable to have an influence on what was about to be said.

Hamilton has made it clear on more than one occasion this year that he is not afraid to speak his mind, and he's also highly adept at getting his message across in as subtle a way as possible, given the circumstances. As after the Monaco GP, his view was one of surprise about what had unfolded, and that he was looking forward to what the team had to say.

His comments included: "Not really much to say, you saw what happened"; "I think you should ask the team that"; - that sort of thing. But asked by how much he missed starting his last lap, he left us in no doubt: "I would think by the same amount of time that I was held up in the pit stop."

When Fernando was asked why he waited so long, Lewis interjected: "Your guess is as good as mine..."

Now it was becoming really interesting. When asked directly about his earlier "No. 2 driver" comment in Monaco, Lewis was even more forthright.

"I really don't understand why I was held back, so I guess you should ask the team, and I definitely will do when I go back and do the debrief. So I can't really comment on that. I think the team have been extremely fair since Monaco, so I can't really put that on them. They work extremely hard and I've got so much belief in the team that I wouldn't believe they would do that."

There was more than a little hint there that he already understood that this was an Alonso and not a team decision, but moments later he appeared to have changed his tune: "No, as Fernando said, he was told to stop and wait. His wheels were on, his blankets were off, and he was told to wait. I imagine that I probably lost half-a-minute, I would say, from my in-lap coming in to waiting behind Fernando. At least 30 seconds, so it definitely needs a good explanation."

As for the Spaniard, he escaped lightly as he was never really put on the spot about those crucial last 10 seconds, and was able to fudge the issue.

"I think you can ask the team this question," he said. "You know I am always monitoring the pitstop by the radio and they do the calculations. They find the gaps and I just drive the car."

He added: "Every qualifying we stop and we wait, sometimes ten seconds, sometimes five, sometimes 45, as with the first stop today."

Crucially, at this stage no outsiders knew that Hamilton had disobeyed team orders at the start of the session, and thus appeared to be an innocent victim. Interestingly, Alonso chose not to enlighten us.

Even while this press conference was going on, another dimension was added to the story when word first spread around the paddock of the radio conversation between Hamilton and Dennis, complete with (extra?) F-words. What on earth was going on?

Forts...

...forts.

The mystery deepens

All of the above had given the media a clear indication that something was up. There had been no opportunity for all concerned to concoct and agree on a controversy-free part line. So now Ron Dennis had to implement some kind of damage limitation. What else could he do?

Both drivers had made it clear that we should ask the team, and fortunately, we soon had a chance to learn more.

At every race McLaren holds their own 'Meet the Team' media briefing in the Brand Centre, with both drivers joined by Dennis and Mercedes motorsport director Norbert Haug. The usual format is the drivers answer questions first, and then disappear, leaving us to talk to the management.

on this occasion, Dennis had little option but to take the bull by the horns and begin with his own account of what had happened. He had spent at least some time with the drivers by now, and it was clear that one of them was particularly unhappy - Hamilton was not present.

Clearly, Ron couldn't say anything that would directly contradict what had been said in the press conference, or anything that might suggest there was improper behaviour that might provide ammunition for the stewards. He had to go along with the countdown story that Fernando had set in motion, however vaguely, at the press conference.

However, he began by informing us that things had gone wrong at the start of the session, and made it clear that Lewis was in trouble.

"In this instance, it was Fernando's time to get the advantage of the longer fuel burn," Dennis said. "The arrangement was, OK, we're down at the end of the pitlane, we reverse positions in the first lap. That didn't occur as arranged. That was somewhat disappointing and caused some tensions on the pitwall. We were, from that moment on, out of sequence because the cars were in the wrong place on the circuit and that unfolded into the pitstops.

"It complicated the situation into the result, which was Lewis not getting his final timed lap. So this really started from that position, and from our drivers not swapping position to get the right fuel burn in order to arrive at the point where we cut the end result to the end.

"Now, as you have often asked the question, and let me make it a very honest answer: it is extremely difficult to deal with two such competitive drivers. There are definite pressures within the team. We make no secret of it.

"They are both very competitive, and they both want to win, and we are trying our very hardest to balance those pressures. Today we were part of a process where it didn't work, and the end result is more pressure on the team. But what you hear is the exact truth of what happened, and we will manage it inside the team through the balance of the season.

"obviously Lewis feels more uncomfortable with the situation than Fernando. That's life, that's the way it is, and if he feels too hot to talk about it then that's the way it is.

"But what I've done is, I have given you an exact understanding of what took place today. And it's just pressure, competitiveness, and that's the way it is. We've just got to get on and deal with it, but we're not hiding from it."

It was an astonishing speech, not least because Ron admitted that Lewis was not present because he was so pissed off. And his admission of the pressures involved in juggling the drivers was pretty honest too.

What we still hadn't got was a proper explanation of what happened during those critical 10 seconds. When someone asked Fernando directly why he had not responded to the lollipop, Dennis butted in and answered for him: 'Being counted down by the engineer."

"They do the same thing in every stop," added Fernando. "In the eleven races we did, sometimes we stop 10 seconds, sometimes 20, sometimes 45 like the first one, depending on the traffic and everything."

Dennis was then told by a team member that he was required to visit the stewards, and he left Alonso and Haug on their own. But not long after he'd gone Hamilton suddenly appeared - and told us that he'd got caught up with the start of the GP2 race, and had forgotten that he was supposed to be meeting the press...

Lewis made it clear that normal procedure is that a driver goes when the lollipop moves: "I was surprised, because I was in gear, I was ready to go, and just as I was coming up to him the lollipop went up. The tyre blankets were off, everyone was away from him, and I just put it into neutral and just waited."

He also poured water on the suggestion that waiting for gaps was commonplace.

"You're out as soon as possible to go and do your lap, you don't wait for traffic. You're in the pitlane, and they tell you slow down for a couple of seconds so that a Williams can go past, and then you're out. They don't tell you to wait."

The two drivers continued to push their own versions of events, and with referee Ron elsewhere, it was as if the gloves were off. This was amazing, electric stuff, and sitting between the two drivers, Haug had not said a word.

But it was all getting too much for McLaren F1 CEo Martin Whitmarsh, who had been watching from a balcony above. He suddenly appeared downstairs and effectively commandeered the microphone: "Unfortunately Ron's had to go to the stewards at the moment, and I think it's best we wrap this up.

"I'm sure that Ron will want to talk to you later, but I think at the moment we need to talk amongst the team. I'm sorry but we're going to call it to a stop now, and we'll reconvene later."

The drivers disappeared, and when Dennis returned he seemed almost surprised to find that the conference had finished without him. He also seemed in a relatively upbeat mood, as if convinced that what he had told the officials had convinced them that nothing underhand had taken place.

Keen to give us more information, he explained the role of the FIA GPS system, that tracks all the cars, in the countdown story.

"When the engineer is controlling the car, when the car goes out, we have a GPS system. Every car is displayed on the GPS system, so we see where every car is. The standard procedure is you don't want to send your car out in traffic. He's looking at the GPS and he's looking at the gap.

"He then says there's 15 seconds to the gap. So you hold the car, the gap is coming round, and you do a countdown: 15, 14, 13 and so on. The guy is looking at this thing because that's what determines when the car is released. That's why you see the car. That's why you see the car stationary, because the countdown is going on to the gap."

The obvious question was, why didn't Fernando react to the lollipop?

"The lollipop is out of sequence, and it was definitely not right. The reason the car didn't move is because of the countdown to the gap. The lollipop man is basically seeing Lewis, the car behind him, the engineer is looking at the GPS system. That's where we got it... We didn't do a good job."

He refused to place any blame on Fernando: "This whole thing started from the beginning of practice with two competitive drivers and it didn't work out the way we'd planned it. But don't make a bigger issue of it than there is. The stewards understand the situation, they want to listen to the tapes, and they'll hear everything that we said."

one thing seemed blindingly obvious about the whole countdown story. Surely Alonso's guys could not be completely oblivious to the need to get Hamilton out - and why couldn't anyone else in the team override the countdown and tell the Spaniard to get moving?

I asked Ron why he hadn't done it himself. "If I knew," he began. "But I didn't understand what was going on. Once the guy is on the button saying x, x, x, that blocks the channel. I hear the countdown, but once he puts the finger on the button, he blocks the channel.

"It wasn't great, and it was difficult to handle then and now. There was nothing sinister to it."

The official reaction

Dennis may have seemed bullish about the stewards' reaction to his initial interview, but he was to be disappointed. An official bulletin came out requesting his presence along with that of both drivers and any other relevant personnel at 6:30 pm. Normally in a dispute that involves two drivers there would be separate interviews, but instead the whole gang went in together. It was to be a lengthy discussion, and Hamilton didn't hold back when describing his feeling that an injustice had been done.

The stewards had access to two crucial bits of evidence. First, they had the recordings of the FIA GPS system, which allowed them to replay the critical phases of qualifying and see exactly where the cars were on the track - the same screen that the McLaren engineers viewed when searching for a gap. This sort of evidence did not exist until this season.

Secondly, they had access to radio transmissions - but crucially, not all of them. The teams are only obliged to open the radio link to the FIA while their cars are on track. When they come into the pits, they can maintain radio silence. Apparently, only two teams take that censorship option - and guess what, it's not Spyker and Super Aguri...

In other words, no one at the FIA had heard or had a record of any conversations that happened when the cars were stationary, including any countdowns. They were, however, able to hear the on-track chat, including the by-now legendary exchange between Hamilton and Dennis.

It is standard practice for top teams to record all radio traffic in case it needs to be reviewed for any reason, but McLaren did not volunteer any 'private' pitlane conversation recordings. That seems strange, as a recording of the countdown in particular would have been useful evidence if it showed things had happened as Alonso claimed to the media. In fact, the stewards did not specifically demand to hear any such recordings.

However, a strange thing happened in the meeting with the stewards. In contrast to what we had been told less than two hours earlier, the crucial 10 seconds was not explained away to the stewards as part of the countdown.

Instead, the focus moved to the matter of tyres - something that had not been mentioned at all by Ron or Fernando in earlier media discussions, other than the drivers referring in very general terms to their preference for the prime or option.

As discussed earlier, Alonso was surprised to be given scrubbed tyres for his last run. He now claimed that the 10 seconds were spent in a discussion on whether he had been given the right tyres. When asked by the stewards whether this chat could not have gone on during the previous 20 seconds countdown he said that he couldn't speak to the team because the engineer was talking to him.

However, it's my understanding that, as you might expect, a McLaren driver can talk back in such circumstances. Indeed, as outlined earlier, the tyre discussion did take place before the lollipop went up. If that was the case, then Fernando was not being entirely straight with the stewards.

Interestingly, the stewards chose not to focus entirely on those critical 10 seconds, but also took an extensive look at the wait at the first stop, and the initial 20 seconds wait at the second. They found that there were some inconsistencies in McLaren's story about looking for gaps, and armed with the GPS recordings, they were able to pinpoint these - not least the fact that when Fernando went out at the end, there were only four cars on the track, and they were not an issue.

Much emphasis was placed on the on-track radio conversations related to the last stop, and especially what Hamilton was told as he was coming in. There was a definite suspicion that, irrespective of anything Alonso might have done of his own volition, there was something strange about the 'official' 20 seconds countdown, even though it was not that but the extra 10 seconds that specifically caused Hamilton to miss his final lap.

The core of the decision that eventually emerged was as follows:

The team were asked to explain why having indicated to Hamilton that he must stop at his pit on the next lap, they then informed Alonso whilst he was still on the track that when he also pitted on the next lap he would be held for 20 seconds.

The team stated that they frequently give estimates as to duration of pit stop to their drivers before they pit and that the reason the car was in fact held for 20 seconds was that it was being counted down prior to release at a beneficial time regard being given to other cars on the track.

Alonso was asked why he waited for some 10 seconds before leaving the pits after being given the signal to leave. His response was that he was enquiring as to whether the correct set of tyres had been fitted to his car. When asked why this conversation did not take place during the 20 second period when his car sat stationary all work on it having been completed, it was stated that it was not possible to communicate by radio because of the countdown being given to him.

Reference to the circuit map shows that at the time Alonso was told he would be held for 20 seconds there were but 4 cars on the circuit, his own and those of Fisichella, Hamilton and Raikkonen. All but Raikkonen entered the pits such that there can have been no necessity to keep Alonso in the pits for 20 seconds waiting for a convenient gap in traffic in which to leave.

The explanation given by Alonso as to why at the expiration of the 20 second period he remained in his pit stop position for a further 10 seconds is not accepted. The Stewards find that he unnecessarily impeded another driver, Hamilton, and as a result he will be penalised by a loss of 5 grid positions.

The explanation given by the team as to why they kept Alonso stationary for 20 seconds after completion of his tyre change and therefore delayed Hamilton's own pit stop is not accepted.

Alonso's five-place penalty reflected the current standard penalty for unintentional impeding of another driver, and was exactly the same as that given to Giancarlo Fisichella for not letting Sakon Yamamoto past. As such, you could argue that Fernando got away pretty lightly.

Any grid penalty is black and white and cannot be challenged. That was not the case for the sentence handed down on the team, namely the loss of constructors' points.

Many were surprised that the team were penalised when it seemed that Alonso had acted independently; but, as noted, the whole sequence surrounding the 20 seconds countdown had aroused the suspicion of the stewards, especially some inconsistencies in the team's stories. In essence, the stewards felt that they had not been told a coherent, truthful story, and they were not impressed by that.

An extra disappointment among the many setbacks that McLaren faced was a decree from the FIA that if the team won, no constructor representative would be allowed on to the podium. This was something that came up and was clarified on Sunday.

Apparently, it was connected with the fact that McLaren gave notice of its intent to appeal, which put the result into some kind of limbo - not least because lost appeals can lead to bigger penalties. Had there been no appeal, the team would have been able to pick up the trophy (even if not the points). Cynics might view the unusual development as some kind of attempt to wind up Dennis by his old sparring partner Max Mosley, although having been on the Nurburgring podium, he would probably have sent someone else this time.

What does it all mean?

Either way, it was the team penalty that clearly most troubled Dennis, and his official response on Sunday morning drew attention to the stewards' interest in those 20 seconds and the whole way that the team ran their qualifying session. He insisted that it was no business of the stewards, and he does have a point.

When the going gets tough, Dennis does have an endearing habit of focusing on the detail of something where he knows he is right.

What he didn't do was give any further explanation of the mysterious 10 seconds and Fernando's behaviour, and as far as I heard, he never acknowledged either before or after the race any specific wrongdoing on the part of the Spaniard. He did teeter towards it when asked on the grid before the start, however.

"It is extremely challenging to convince drivers that we've got equal equipment and that we operate to the best of our ability, not favouring one or the other," he said.

"Yesterday was very, very challenging. There is no real innocent party in some aspects of the team. But from the perception of did we do anything that was not consistent with our efforts to be equal and even-handed? Most certainly not."

So was he admitting there was some guilt in the camp? Well, not exactly.

"Clearly when things don't go as you planned, there is a reason. I don't think guilt is the right word, I think if plans that we'd put in place were properly executed then we'd have both cars on the front row of the grid, comfortably, and we would not be faced with a loss of constructors' points."

Dennis is pushing ahead with the appeal against the latter penalty, and basically that means he has to set out to prove that there was nothing untoward in what went on as far as the team were concerned.

I am inclined to believe his insistence that there was nothing wrong in the team's behaviour. And nothing gets Ron more riled than suggestions of impropriety that are unjustified, especially if he feels that the accusers - in this case the stewards - have not properly understood the procedures and thought processes involved.

Having said that, a cynic might conclude that his insistence on equal treatment, and the fact that clearly Hamilton had disobeyed orders, plants the suspicion that the team or some members of it may have tried to implement a 'correction', much like the one that saw Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard exchange places in Melbourne in 1998. Whether anyone expected Alonso to actually go quicker and steal pole is another question...

Exactly what Alonso was thinking is still open to debate, but it might not be as clear-cut as it first seemed. His motivation could well have been not to prevent Hamilton from completing his last lap, but just leave things so tight that the Briton would have to push so hard on his out-lap in order to beat the clock that his supersoft tyres would lose their edge, and be useless on the lap that counted. The fact that he only just made it himself does lend weight to that theory.

To say that the triangular relationship between Alonso and Hamilton and Dennis is strained would be something of an understatement. There is no question that Lewis has massively compromised his standing in the team, because there is no rational explanation for what he did at the start of the session - it was a massive breach of team protocol.

As for Alonso, the bottom line is that however much he had been provoked by Hamilton breaking ranks, he left Dennis hung out to dry, forced to defend the double world champion on the 10 seconds countdown issue to the bitter end.

In the heated circumstances, the last thing the McLaren boss wanted to do was antagonise his double world champion even more. But he won't have liked being put into that position, especially at a time when he has made it crystal clear how important integrity and team values are to him.

"The drivers understand the obligations that we have in the team," he reflected just minutes before the start. "And they are expected to follow those obligations.

"Like everything in life there is one thing that is agreed and properly documented, but things don't always go according to those commitments, and in the end inevitably there's a lot of pressures, in F1, those final closing moments of that particular qualifying had higher levels of pressure than we've experienced before."

I can't see that the pressure will be relieved any time soon...