Lewis Hamilton has declared himself 'not a liar' and apologised to fans following the debacle of his 'off, on and off-again' third place at the Australian GP
Life at McLaren is far from rosy this weekend, with Hamilton’s belated disqualification from the Australian GP compounded by news that the team has suspended its sporting director Dave Ryan. Ryan attended a post-race stewards meeting at Australia with Hamilton, when the pair provided the ‘deliberately misleading’ information that saw Hamilton being retrospectively awarded his controversial 3rd place. That placing was withdrawn again and Hamilton disqualified when new radio evidence came to light. As the ‘senior team member present’, McLaren said Ryan must take the blame, although Hamilton was forced to call a press conference today in an attempt to mitigate any blots on his character.
In a reportedly impassioned display, Hamilton declared to journalists: 'I am not a liar, I am not a dishonest person, I am a team player.' He went on to blame Ryan for supplying misleading advice, and roundly apologised to fans, the stewards and the McLaren team.
One race in, and 2009 is already looking like a vintage year for F1 ‘shenanigans’. Now the circus has arrived in Malaysia for the second championship race, and the off-track entertainment continues unabated.
The new Brawn GP team has followed its dream start to the season by reportedly signing Richard Branson’s Virgin Group for a two-year sponsorship deal. According to SportsPro magazine there’ll be a straightforward $250k fee payable every race by Virgin to keep the Australia race logos on the car this season, but next year the bill goes up to $30m. Virgin will then control the entire livery package, so will be able to sub-let space and keep any additional revenue. It’s been speculated that space on the car could be worth up to $80m, so everyone’s a winner.
Meanwhile the diffuser row continues to rumble, with BMW Sauber confirming it has joined the ranks of protesters lining up against the aero packages campaigned by Brawn GP, Williams and Toyota. With an FIA ‘court of appeal’ set up for April 14
, results on the track at Malaysia – like those at Australia – could be affected by the outcome.
Ferrari, one of the teams in the complainant camp, has had a more upbeat start to the Malaysian GP. Raikkonen and Massa topped the times in today’s afternoon practices – and hope to be competitive on race day if reliability can be maintained.