Despite the disappointment of seeing erstwhile Formula One championship leader Lewis Hamilton go scoreless in Bahrain on Sunday, the McLaren team has attempted to play down suggestions that the Briton was deliberately targeted by former colleague Fernando Alonso.
The collision between the team's 2007 team-mates provided good fodder for pro-Hamilton journalists and commentators, who remained convinced that Alonso had either 'brake-tested' the Briton, or lifter off just enough to precipitate a clash that damaged the front of the McLaren, but the Woking squad's CEO, Martin Whitmarsh, believes that there could be a more simple explanation.
"It's an interesting situation for those of us on the pit wall, because you see an incident such as that and have to respond in terms of pulling him in, getting the car repaired, looking at fuel load options that might help him recover and so on," Whitmarsh explained.
"At the time, we didn't actually know how it all unfolded - people come up immediately after the race and ask 'was he brake-tested?' and you can't answer. It is assumed that you are being evasive but, in truth, you simply don't know. It was only when I went into the engineers' room and started looking at the details that I realised Lewis' upper front wing had disappeared about two seconds before the accident, so he suddenly lost downforce.
"We haven't analysed why that happened, but we suspect the structure had been weakened by previous contact. To be fair to Lewis, it could have broken of its own accord, but that has never happened before so contact is the most likely cause. There's certainly no evidence that Fernando did anything wrong. The impact damaged other elements of Lewis's car apart from the wing though, and he just had to cope as best he could."
crash.net
The collision between the team's 2007 team-mates provided good fodder for pro-Hamilton journalists and commentators, who remained convinced that Alonso had either 'brake-tested' the Briton, or lifter off just enough to precipitate a clash that damaged the front of the McLaren, but the Woking squad's CEO, Martin Whitmarsh, believes that there could be a more simple explanation.
"It's an interesting situation for those of us on the pit wall, because you see an incident such as that and have to respond in terms of pulling him in, getting the car repaired, looking at fuel load options that might help him recover and so on," Whitmarsh explained.
"At the time, we didn't actually know how it all unfolded - people come up immediately after the race and ask 'was he brake-tested?' and you can't answer. It is assumed that you are being evasive but, in truth, you simply don't know. It was only when I went into the engineers' room and started looking at the details that I realised Lewis' upper front wing had disappeared about two seconds before the accident, so he suddenly lost downforce.
"We haven't analysed why that happened, but we suspect the structure had been weakened by previous contact. To be fair to Lewis, it could have broken of its own accord, but that has never happened before so contact is the most likely cause. There's certainly no evidence that Fernando did anything wrong. The impact damaged other elements of Lewis's car apart from the wing though, and he just had to cope as best he could."
crash.net