09.25am - The morning's action is almost underway here in Paris, where the 2007 F1 Season prepares for the dramatic conclusion of the World Championship. In the silver corner, Ron Dennis has been joined by his lovechild Lewis Hamilton, sometime tester and persistant e-mailer Pedro de la Rosa, and fat German stereotype Norbert Haug from Mercedes. For Ferrari, Jean Todt is "in da house", along with Marlboro blimp Ross Brawn, for some reason, even though he doesn't really work for them anymore. Kick off is scheduled for 09.30 and the atmosphere is already more highly charged than a dirigible being rubbed feverishly on a giant's lambswool sweater.
QUOTE - "I am sure we will see justice here today" - Bernie Ecclestone's words, sounding like a cross between Judge Dredd and Gerry McCann.
09.30am - The first real news came from the British press this morning, as details of de la Rosa and Fernando Alonso's frantic string of e-mails emerged in, of all places, the Daily Mail. In the article, McLaren's chief engineer Paddy Lowe is alleged to have said "Let's try these new things. They are from Ferrari. Nigel Stepney has sent them to Mike Coughlan.", which if true is as clean an admission of sin this side of Bill Clinton. The article goes on to apparently quote de la Rosa sending the following to Alonso: "I have learned how Ferrari exploit the Bridgestone tyres and how the braking system works on the Ferrari. Coughlan has told us. He got it from Stepney". Lordy. The sound you can hear, incidentally, is the noise of a million F1 fans going "tut, tut, tut", but secretly pointing at Ron and laughing.
QUOTE - "According to a source close to the inquiry the police discovered that, between early March and mid-May, he [Stepney] and Coughlan exchanged several hundred emails, text messages and telephone calls, and these contacts, particularly the text messages, increased considerably before grand prix races." - From an article in the Guardian.
10.00am - As the court is in session, an early casualty of the day has been Autosport.com's server, which has melted under the pressure of millions of office workers opening the site at their desks and mashing refresh. Those evil McLaren men. They don't care who gets hurt, do they? And if you're wondering why Alonso hasn't turned up, you're not the only one. Too busy sorting out a last minute Renault contract, perchance?
QUOTE - "I am still 100% convinced we are quick because we built our own ideas into the car, and not because we have ideas from other people." - Norbert Haug. Almost sounds convincing, doesn't he?
10.30am - Incidentally, Hamilton, never one to shirk a challenge, is at the court as a character witness for Dennis. This role is presumably dependant on the defence first proving the existence of a character to defend. And as an aside, I can't advocate gambling, but Ladbrokes are still listing Felipe Massa at 33/1 to win the title. Get on that bus with half your mortgage, people.
FRIKI CLARIFICATION - Regarding the Daily Mail quotes from 9.30am, we've had our fun, and may as well draw attention to the rest of the story. The Mail lifted the quotes from a Gazetta Dello Sport article from last week, and the journalist responsible has since said he made the quotes up. Still, never let facts get in the way of a good story eh, Daily Mail?
11.00am - Hamiltonistas itv.com are running a poll on the outcomes of today's "exciting" courtroom "drama". Currently leading is the "No penalty, McLaren exonerated" option with 34.5%, while the more esoteric "Something else" option is bringing up the rear with 2.98%. Frankly, I'd like something else. Something exciting, like putting Ron in the stocks for Belgium and allowing fans to pelt him with rotten fruit. And that would happen whether they were found guilty or not. Meanwhile, as I ramble on, in the courtroom drama unfolds as Alonso storms in, shouting "The truth? YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!" at the judge. Well, probably not actually.
12.00pm - I'm having a bit of an existential crisis right now. Is all sport morally corrupt? Spy cases in F1, bung probes (titter) in the Premiership and dog fighting in American Football. How can we believe a word of anything any more? Ho hum. In terms of the final result of today's action, a verdict is expected around 2pm Patronise time. McLaren engineer Mike Coughlan (who sort of looks like the lovechild of Mick Hucknall and Jim Davidson who has just spent six months on the Atkins diet) will be subject to some serious grilling about his relationship with ex-Ferrari design chief Nigel Stepney. His defence is based around him receiving the documents but not really doing anything with them. Which paints him not only as a thief, but a really lazy one to boot.
QUOTE - "That Michael Vick is a monster. Dog fighting? Have you seen the size of the bloke? The dog never stood a chance." - A text I got a while ago. Tres droll.
12.40pm - Namedrops ahoy! Autosport has started working, and has an interview with Coughlan where he states that at the very least Martin Whitmarsh (McLaren's CEO) and Paddy Lowe saw the documents he received from Stepney. Anyone else beginning to think that there may be a few sacrificial lambs offered in return for the team not getting chucked out? Either way, it would seem that heads are destined to roll with gleeful abandon.
1.15pm - So then, zero hour is less than 45 minutes away (making this minus one hour?). I'm getting rather excited. Maybe more sporting events should be decided via obsfucative methods. It's all happening, but without anyone watching. Lets stage the final of the Rugby World Cup by sealing each player in soundproof booths and asking them a series of general knowledge questions. Actually, lets do that. It has to be better than rugby itself, surely. In other news, Mike Coughlan has issued a full apology to Ferrari for accepting their documents. A bit too late for that now, sunshine.
1.30pm - Cancel that "zero hour" nonsense. The hearing has been adjourned while they all have a bite to eat and will resume at 2pm, with a verdict now looking further away than Mars. Word on the grapevine is that the morning session was dominated by "heated arguments". Oh, to be a fly on the wall. But a fly with the intelligence to work out what was being said. A superfly, if you will. Send in Jeff Goldblum!
QUOTE - "Some things are very obvious, to be honest." - Spyker boss Colin Kolles commenting on the morning's proceedings. Or the woeful state of his team's new car, hard to say.
2.00pm - The second half kicks off in Paris. Frankly I'm getting a bit tired of this now, the dramatic tension has been ruined by a combination of Colin Kolles, and the mental image of everyone just stopping their "heated arguments" to go to the canteen for a sarnie and a can of Tizer. I now feel sufficiently satisfied that nothing much will happen for a while and I can go and have my own lunch. If anything remarkable comes to light before I return, my colleague Mark Ealham is on standby.
3.15pm - Still no news, though one man feeling confident about McLaren's chances of avoiding censure is one Mr F. Alonso esq. Absent from the courts, he's at Spa for this weekend's Belgian GP, and seems satisfied that he'll actually be driving in it. Rumours that Giancarlo Fisichella was seen leaving the Renault motorhome in tears clutching a P45 have, apparently, been greatly exaggerated. My lunch was lovely, thanks for asking.
QUOTE - "No comment" - Alonso illuminates the world's press on the goings on at the trial.
3.45pm - Events have been "vastly prolonged" due to all the arguing this morning, apparently, so nobody is really sure when the verdict will be announced. It could be well into the night, it could be in the next hour. Sigh. A watched kettle never boils, as they say, so I'm off for a lie down.
The Foot - Is wondering if it should point out with one of it's toes that the verdict has been handed down already and it's a doozy, so hurry up and inform our readers of this fact!
4:55pm - By jingo, The Foot speaks the truth! We have a Black Hawk down, we have a Black Hawk down!
5:00pm - As I catch my breath, the verdict is in, and it's a big fat GUILTY! McLaren have been confirmed as big smelly cheaters, and as such have been "excluded from both the 2007 AND 2008 World Championships". Despite all the gung-ho sarky comments earlier, I was still half expecting them to get a twenty quid fine and an ASBO or something, but no, the WMSC has come down with an iron fist, and fisted them good and proper! In the immortal words of a picture of a cat I've got somewhere: FAIL!
5:05pm - Hang on. Have I spoken too soon? Some sites are confirming it. Planet F1, for one, and GP Update for another. But theres nothing on the Beeb, and there's currently a lot of confusion as to whether this only affects the Constructors Championship, and McLaren cars will still be allowed to race. F5 just became the most important commodity in the civilised world. In a further twist, Autosport just took down their original Breaking News story. Curiouser and curiouser...
5.10pm - Hmm. The mad rush to be the first site to break the news seems to have backfired spectacularly here. Autosport has died, the Beeb are still silent, Reuters don't seem to care, and Planet F1 are now qualifying their "McLaren Are Expelled For Two Years" headline with a "It remains unclear whether the expulsion relates to both the Drivers' and Constructors' Championships" subtitle. I am hastily removing that mocking lolcat picture and bold font. The iron fist may have been passed over in favour of the velvet glove.
5.20pm - Sigh. The picture becomes clearer. A two year expulsion from the championship was the suggestion of the WMSC hearing in July, when insufficient evidence meant McLaren got off. This is "one of the options being considered". A verdict is immenent, however, and the refresh button continues to take a hammering. I would like to apologise for getting so excited, and place the blame squarely with The Foot. And the finger pointing begins. Planet F1 blames the Beeb for breaking the story early, despite the fact that no story appeared there. Incidentally, can everyone stop mashing refresh now, you're breaking the internet. K thx.
The Foot - TBKs is making Autosport.com crash, which is in turn making more TBKers head that way to get a look at the carnage in slow motion, from multiple angles.
5.30pm - By "imminently", they presumably meant "not for a while". The most likely result is the slightly bizarre expulsion of McLaren from the Constructors Championship, but allowing the team to still enter cars and have the drivers score points. How that is in any way practicable, or indeed a punishment, is still unclear. Will the drivers have to change out of their overalls before they go to the podium? How silly would it look presenting the constructor trophy to the bloke in 3rd place? Mad as a bag of tits, is F1.
QUOTE - "Nobody cares about the Constructors. Give them a massive fine!" - An anonymous source close to Patronise gives their informed take on what should happen.
5.35pm - THE VERDICT IS IN! ... no, REALLY!. Yes, finally we have a decision. All of McLaren's staff are to be fined their entire annual salary, and each will forced to take an injection of truth serum. This will be a followed by a public egging outside the Louvre at 7:30pm this evening. Notably, this will have absolutely no affect on the drivers whatsoever, and had it not been made such an unneccessary public spectacle, nobody would have even noticed.
5.45pm - Despite the fuzzy feeling I feel that someone may have read and believed that ramble, we're still waiting. And waiting. The only update so far is that the BBC have changed their headline from "McLaren wait for spy row verdict" to "McLaren sweat on spy row verdict", which infers they employ some kind of armpit correspondant who is monitoring the perspiration rates of Ron Dennis. Which frankly, doesn't bear thinking about.
The Foot - *taps itself*
6.05pm - This is getting silly now. Unless something happens soon, I'll simply invent a verdict and go to the pub. Any suggestions? Or should we just go with the Louvre-egg-pelting angle?
6.15pm - A combination of foot-tapping, lack of access to Imageshack and alcohol withdrawal is making me sad. One interesting snippet of rumour-filled speculation is that the team may be able to get around a potential constructors ban by fully selling up to Mercedes and effectively mothballing the team that received the ban. Not sure they'd get away with that, to be honest, but its still a metaphorical juicy gossipy lemon squeezed right between the eyes in an explosion of acidic liquid.
6.25pm - Huzzah! A verdict! BBC ticker reports that McLaren are thrown out of the 2007 Constructors Championship, but that the drivers will keep their points. I'll take that with a pinch of salt for a moment, seeing as it was apparently the Beeb that started the mistaken rumour earlier, but if true, it represents a bit of a halfway house of a verdict that will probably satisfy nobody. Us F1 fans are nothing if hard to satisfy.
The Foot - Sooooo McLaren have been fined $100m and excluded from the 2007 Constructors Championship...but the drivers will keep their points which have been acrued in illegal cars, and will be able to continue driving in their illegal cars. The Foot doesn't understand, I thought F1 was a team sport?!? WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CLEANING LADY!!!
6.30pm - Yes, it seems official. No McLaren in the 2007 WCC (i.e. Ferrari are the champions), coupled with a £50 million fine (which is the cost of keeping Fernando Alonso in beard grooming products for 12 months) and the team will have to "subject its 2008 cars to examination before racing" (i.e. suffer ritual humiliation as they are hauled up in front of the class for special treatment). The fallout from this will likely drone on around the paddock (and t'internet) for months like a bad smell, but there you go. There was no verdict that could have pleased everyone. The Foot in particular is hopping mad! Arf.
IN CONCLUSION - The Alonso v Tyler v Kimi title fight is back on, starting this Sunday at Spa. Patronise will of course be bringing a dodgy write-up of that at some point as well, so bait your breath in preparation. Perhaps there we shall see just how much this whole trial/verdict has ruined the season. This has been a lot of fun. We should do it again some time.
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