> Explanation : Pitlanegate

The McLaren qualifying incident in Hungary and the subsequent fall-out has, for the moment at least, replaced the spy saga as Formula 1's controversy du jour.


In his latest feature for ITV-F1.com, expert analyst Mark Hughes examines what happened in Q3 in detail, and draws the wider lessons about the role of teams versus drivers in F1 and McLaren boss Ron Dennis' micromanagement.


McLaren’s strongest season in years has ironically become Ron Dennis’ annus horribilis.

Although the team holds a convincing lead in the constructors’ championship and its drivers sit 1-2 in their championship, ‘Stepneygate’, the espionage story, and now ‘Pitlanegate’ – where during the Hungarian GP weekend Fernando Alonso appeared to deliberately prevent team-mate Lewis Hamilton from leaving the pits in time for a final lap of qualifying – threaten to overwhelm everything.

Here’s what really happened during ‘Pitlanegate’.

Ever since the different fuel strategies of the two cars played its part in causing turmoil between McLaren’s drivers and the team at Monaco, a policy of equal fuelling has been adopted.

This was supposed to be the solution to tensions arising from two deeply competitive drivers fighting each other for the world championship, both hyper-sensitive to any perceived disadvantage against the other.

But to make it truly equal requires very specific choreographing during the fuel burn-off phase of final qualifying.

So that each driver completes the maximum number of burn-off laps in the time available before they bolt on their sets of new tyres and go for it, the car behind has to lap slower than the car in front in order to build up the necessary gap required when they stop, so the first car can be serviced and sent on its way before the second one arrives.

This is necessary so that they are not running too close to each other when they are doing their qualifying runs, as this would disadvantage the guy behind because of the aerodynamic turbulence of the guy in front.

But the guy running the burn-off laps slower will use less fuel because he can do his target lap time by running fewer revs. So to keep things equal, the team take this into consideration.

The guy running ahead in the burn-off is given enough extra fuel so that by the time they come to do their qualifying runs they weigh the same – or as near as it’s possible to make it.

At Hungary it was Alonso’s turn to be the guy in front and so he was fuelled slightly heavier. But it was the slightly lighter car of Hamilton that got down to the end of the pit lane first.

Hamilton was reminded he should move aside for Alonso once out on the track. But he chose not to do so.

Starting with a lighter fuel load and running a fast pace, he was guaranteed to have a lighter car by the time they each did their qualifying laps.

It was a bit disingenuous, against what he’d been asked to do by the team, and he’d tricked himself an advantage. He was fighting this guy for the world championship and the team would just have to lump it.

Alonso, of course, was furious. Instantly realising he’d been had, he instead switched his focus not to pole position – which now seemed unwinnable – but to trying to beat Hamilton on race strategy instead. He deliberately did his fuel burn laps very slowly and economically.

Having started slightly heavier and now having used less fuel too, he would maybe be able to save enough to run an extra lap up to the first pit stops. This might be enough to overcome the advantage of the pole that Lewis looked likely to get.

Because the originally intended order at the end of the burn-off had been Alonso-Hamilton, Alonso’s pre-assigned tyres had been stacked ahead of Hamilton’s – and so Alonso was brought in a lap earlier than planned so that the tyres didn’t need to be moved around.

With Hamilton continuing to do his original allocation of laps, this put Alonso ahead of Hamilton in the pits. At the first stop there was a delay, bringing Hamilton closer than ideal to Alonso.

They each then did their first flat-out Q3 qualifying laps and each returned for their final tyre change. Alonso was held for 20 seconds as the team found him the ideal gap in the traffic. The lollipop was lifted and Alonso was free to go.

But, seeing Hamilton stacked behind him in his mirrors, he realised a golden opportunity for revenge had fallen into his lap.

He knew how long he needed for an out-lap to arrive at the start/finish line to begin his flying lap just before the session ended and he knew how many seconds of the session were left because he has a display showing that on his steering wheel.

So he waited an extra 10s, just long enough to ensure he’d still get there in time but Lewis wouldn’t.

And that is it. Two hyper-competitive drivers fighting tooth and nail for the championship in the same team. The discord isn’t really surprising. We’ve seen as much at this team before in the Senna/Prost era, we saw it at Williams during the Mansell/Piquet days.

But this is slightly different in that the major bust-ups are not between the drivers directly, but between each driver and Dennis. Each feels grievances against him.

Alonso has not even been on speaking terms with him for some time now, often chooses even not to acknowledge him – and is said to be threatening to walk out short of his three-year contract.

Hamilton, meanwhile, feeling in the heat of the moment that his delay had been orchestrated by the team as ‘punishment’ for disobeying orders, had a very intense bust-up with Dennis.

At its root is control. Dennis’ previous driver Kimi Raikkonen has referred to him as a control freak, someone who needs to exert control over everything and everyone around him.

Raikkonen dealt with it by simply not engaging, by fulfilling his obligations at the track but in no way assuming its values in his general conduct, particularly once away from the circuit.

He has repeatedly made a point of saying how much more relaxed an environment he finds Ferrari.

Of Dennis’ current drivers, neither Alonso nor Hamilton share Raikkonen’s proclivity for wild party antics away from the track. Both have a close circle of friends and their lifestyles don’t appear to have the same potential for embarrassment to McLaren-Mercedes and its sponsors.

Yet still Dennis has managed to alienate them. Through over-control. Through trying to impose too rigidly the values of the team onto the drivers, by trying to treat them as employees.

Drivers of this calibre, who have the warrior mentality and unyielding nature necessary to make true champions, will not be treated as employees. They are that only on paper.

In reality they are the stars of the show, the guys whose special talent differentiates them from most of the others. The public does not want to see them as expressions of a corporate set of values.

As part of this lone matador persona Alonso joined McLaren under the impression that the focus of the team would be around his winning the title.

The reality is that under Dennis’ control that would happen only if the other guy wasn’t at the same level. If he was, then Dennis would ensure equality – by force of control.

Maybe Dennis believed – like most others – that with the rookie Hamilton alongside it wouldn’t be an issue.

But Hamilton’s stunning performances have made any promise – implicit or imagined on Alonso’s behalf – impossible for Dennis to keep. Alonso has of course reacted to this situation angrily.

One might have thought that Hamilton, who largely owes his career to Dennis’ backing of him since he was 13, would more readily be prepared to accept control over him.

But that’s to misunderstand the mental make-up of a top-line competitor. In there, in the zone, there is only desire.


At some stage he was always going to have to make the brutal transition from protégé to hard-edged racer fighting his own corner against the very hand that fed him if necessary.

He’s not in the car to feel grateful, he’s there to win.

Formula 1 should not be portrayed as a team sport. It’s about the gladiators who go out there wheel-to-wheel, fighting at 200mph. It’s not about team structures and philosophies and core brands and values. They are internal matters – housekeeping.

The drivers should be the stars of the show, should be allowed to compete as hard against team-mates as against drivers from rival teams.

David Coulthard has suggested each driver on a team has his own pit crew, his own pit box – and if they want to stop on the same lap, they should be able to – with the crews from the same team racing each other just as surely as their drivers.

And the team owners should stand back and let it happen – concentrate on providing each of their drivers with the best possible cars and then let them make their own arrangements.

But that would require relinquishing a degree of control. And Ron Dennis appears to be incapable of doing that.

Of Dennis’ current drivers, neither Alonso nor Hamilton share Raikkonen’s proclivity for wild party antics away from the track. Both have a close circle of friends and their lifestyles don’t appear to have the same potential for embarrassment to McLaren-Mercedes and its sponsors.

JAMES ALLEN'S VERDICT
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This was an absolutely stunning performance by Lewis Hamilton, every bit as tough as his win in Canada because of all the politics and insanity which went on during qualifying and afterwards with his team-mate, Fernando Alonso.

There were not many people in the paddock who believe that Alonso did not deliberately baulk Lewis at the end of qualifying - the stewards included.

This was a Senna/Prost level of gamesmanship and surely means the end of their relationship.

Twin threats

Today’s race required Hamilton to rise above it all and deliver a composed performance and he did exactly that despite the twin threats of a hard-charging Kimi and a damaged steering system, which meant that the car was trying to turn right on him the whole time.

The key to the win was the 4.5s gap he built in the opening stint.

As he pitted on the same lap as Raikkonen this margin allowed McLaren to put a good slug of fuel into his car and thus be sure that Kimi could not run longer and leapfrog him at the second stops.

From then on it was Lewis’s race.

Kimi got close in a lighter car, but Lewis soaked up the pressure and grew the gap again by staying out longer.

I mentioned that he was at risk, once Kimi made his second stop, of a Safety Car, which would have screwed his strategy had it come out before his second stop, but they got away with it.

After two poor results at Silverstone and Nurburgring, this was Hamilton’s return to winning form and you’d have to say that he held his nerve amazingly well.

Winning attitude

I’m particularly interested in his attitude to the team order he ignored in qualifying.

You can read his full answer in the long interview elsewhere on this site, but basically he is saying that although he is a team player and understands the expectations the team has of him, he is also out there for himself and if the team’s objectives do not align with his then he’ll go his own way.

This is an amazing assertion for a 22-year-old in his rookie season with a top team, but it shows what Hamilton is made of.

This is no Tim Henman-type character (not that we ever thought he was) this is a steely ruthless racing driver, who has the ‘killer instinct’ that great champions in this sport must have.

He was the victim of a ruthless piece of gamesmanship from his team-mate, according to the stewards, but he has also shown that he is no-one’s patsy.

Great expectations

The crux of the problem for McLaren is this; Alonso signed at Christmas 2005 to be the team’s main driver from 2007-10 and although McLaren was never going to give the keys to team to him, as Ferrari did with Michael Schumacher, both sides must have expected that as the best driver in the world he would lead the team to glory.

Instead he’s got something he did not sign up for, namely a rookie team-mate who is as good if not better than him, who played ball up to a point but who now says, having led the championship for seven races, “Enough’s enough, I’m looking out for myself now and will not allow you to dictate to the team.”

It is impossible for McLaren to manage this situation because the drivers’ objectives are mutually opposed.

They can’t simply say, “OK, you race each other” because that is against what Alonso wants, while they cannot muzzle Lewis any more because he’s shown, by ignoring Ron and then telling him where to get off over the radio, that he’s not going to give an inch.

Ayrton Senna stood up to Ron Dennis, but he was older and more seasoned than Hamilton. But Dennis knows that this ‘killer instinct’ is part of what makes Hamilton the most exciting driver around.

Alonso has shown again this weekend that he has it too.

Internal affairs

Alonso has said tonight that he does not know whether he will see out his full contract term at McLaren. Relations between him and the team are at rock bottom.

All parties know that there is not one team in the pit lane, Ferrari included, who would not clear the decks and open the cheque book to get either him or Hamilton, should one of them feel inclined to ‘walk’.

It’s emotionally draining for everyone, but especially for Ron Dennis and Martin Whitmarsh, who both look tired and haggard this weekend.

They are fighting battles on multiple fronts at the moment, internally with the drivers, on track with Ferrari and off track with Ferrari and the FIA.

If you look back at the wistful interviews Ron was giving at the start of the year about what a pleasure it is to work with two such ego-free and team oriented drivers, they begin to look rather hollow now.

The season has turned into a living nightmare for Ron.

This was an intense weekend of the kind F1 throws up from time to time.

It reminded me of Monaco last year in some ways, with the long wait on Saturday night for the stewards decision. But the extraordinary political battle which is developing, involving McLaren, Ferrari and the FIA finally spilled over into the show today, when McLaren was prevented from sending a representative up on to the podium to collect a winner’s trophy.

Proven points

I think it is highly unlikely that McLaren will ever see the 15 constructors’ points its drivers earned today, indeed if they pursue the appeal they may lose more.

So McLaren go from a 27-point lead before Hungary to a 19-point lead with six races remaining.

But Ferrari is throwing this world championship away with its own errors and unreliability. Massa, who had a gearbox problem on the grid at Silverstone, again lost out this weekend because of a problem in qualifying, while at the Nurburgring Raikkonen retired with hydraulic problems.

Even if McLaren lose more constructors’ points still at the FIA appeal hearing into the spy scandal, they seem robust enough and Ferrari frail enough for both championships still to go to the Woking outfit.

In the company of kings

It was a great pleasure to work with Damon Hill this weekend, while Martin was away.

He provided some great insights into a champion’s mentality and some memorable lines.

I particularly liked the image of the FIA’s next step being the introduction of the ‘naughty chair’.

Perhaps that is not as far off as it sounds…

Hungary was a great race to attend as a neutral observer. It seemed everyone had something to be annoyed about, even the winning team which was slipping gently into civil war.

The details of what happened in qualifying have been extensively documented, so I thought I’d let you in on an untold highlight of the weekend, which was McLaren’s ‘meet the team’ press conference on Saturday afternoon – although it was more a case of ‘argue with and roundly abuse the team’.

Ron Dennis and Norbert Haug sat in the middle of a packed motorhome, with Fernando Alonso alongside.

First Ron apologised for Lewis not being there, saying that he was still too wound up by what had happened in qualifying and would not be attending.

Ron then explained, in a commendably frank and open manner, the sequence of events that started with Lewis deliberately disobeying repeated team orders to let Fernando past.

Dennis also confirmed that there had been a sweary exchange on the radio between himself and Hamilton, although was not asked what he made of Lewis’s instruction to “swivel”.

The good bit started when the British press sunk their teeth into Fernando Alonso.

“Why didn’t you move off?” the Spaniard was asked. “Because I was being given a countdown by the engineers to find a space in the traffic,” came the response.

This explanation didn’t satisfy Fleet Street, who’d already written their stories that Alonso deliberately held up Lewis, and didn’t want to hear any explanation to the contrary.

They asked him again and again, but Fernando held his nerve. “I’ve told you four times now,” he said, laughing, “I was waiting for a countdown from my team. We always do this.”

He’s right, it’s not always shown on TV, but there have been many times I’ve watched from the pits as Alonso is held for sequencing.

I was on Alonso’s side at this point – I believed his version of events. But what emerged from the stewards revealed that Fernando wasn’t telling the whole story.

The fact was that the countdown ended when the lollipop lifted.

Fernando then had an argument with his engineer about why he had been given hard tyres.

He knew time was tight, but probably didn’t give a monkeys’ about helping Lewis by moving out of the way, just like Lewis didn’t give a monkeys’ about the team’s instructions to let Fernando past.

Anyway, by this time Ron had been called to the stewards, and Lewis entered the press briefing. “Sorry, I’ve been watching the GP2 race – I didn’t know this was on,” Hamilton explained.

The next five minutes saw Lewis casting doubt on Fernando’s story, Fernando looking thoroughly hacked off with being made out to be the bad guy and Norbert Haug, sat like some human shield between the two drivers, wishing he was somewhere else.

It was just about to get angry, personal and completely out of control when Martin Whitmarsh came in and called the whole thing to a halt.

It was powerful stuff, and Fernando was visibly furious. His perception is that he’s fighting not only against his team-mate, but also against the British media, most of the McLaren team, his team boss and the FIA stewards. He’s probably right on all counts.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he decided that actually the grass wasn’t greener, and goes back to Renault.