One of the key arguments the McLaren lawyer tries to make is that the WMSC must hold the evidence to an extremely high criteria of lack of any reasonable doubt. He actually goes so far as to compare it to a capital crime such as murder. Except the difference is its not murder, its cheating in sport. The evidence provided makes it pretty clear something untoward was going on, and in my humble opinion is plenty to prove that there was cheating going on.

Ron Dennis’ comments are utterly nonsensical and ludicrous. If they don’t prove the case that McLaren management wasn’t aware of the cheating, his comments certainly prove that he has lost his mind along with his hair.

Paddy Lowe goes so far as to say that a dossier of data on a competitors car would be of little or no value to another team. This is in the same hearing that Paddy Lowe and Pedro de la Rosa both confirm that teams routinely analyze video footage for visual data and sound data. They also basically look at any angle they can get from TV or photos to analyze a competitors car. And a 800-page volume of data would be of little value? Are you guys fucking nuts? Or just lying cheats?

The lawyer and some of the McLaren engineers try to argue that no actual parts have been copied that can be identified on the McLaren chassis. There are a few problems with this line of argument:

1) The McLaren engineers themselves point out that its virtually impossible to directly copy a part from a competitor’s car. Since the cars are built with completely different design philosophies, you can’t just graft a part from another car onto yours. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t get an idea from another team and built a similar-acting component on your car. This happens ALL the time in Formula 1. This therefore shatters the “you can’t find an exactly copied part on our car, so we must be innocent” line of reasoning.

2) Who would actually be able to analyze the McLaren chassis and determine if anything had been copied? McLaren says they have offered to let the FIA come and inspect everything, but is the FIA really qualified to analyze the car and determine similarity to the Ferrari chassis? If the FIA isn’t qualified then the next most likely candidate would be Ferrari. However if Ferrari would go over the McLaren car with a fine-toothed comb to see if any unique parts had been copied directly, they would be then gaining intimate knowledge of the MP4-22 which would kindof render this whole process moot. So really, McLaren is full of shit here too.

Paddy (Patrick) Lowe actually tries to make the assertion that he is so intimately aware with the MP4-22 and the design process that no FOREIGN (ie: from another team or another team’s data) idea could have been introduced into the development of it without having risen a red flag with him. Yeah, right Paddy. So your engineers never come up with the off-the-wall ideas that get at least tried or tested?

Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the 115-page transcript:

Patrick LOWE: The value of the dossier is overstated. I have 780 better pages which I do not have the opportunity
to read. I don’t know why Mike Coughlan took position of the dossier, as is alleged. I can only
think that he had some sort of collector’s mentality. I have come across engineers who like
collecting things, like people collect stamps. It is of so little use, genuinely.

Patrick LOWE: I see what you are getting at. We do not know, ultimately, where we are going to stop. The
prediction is not precise. Teams want to save fuel wherever possible. That is why my first answer
still applies. Hypothetically, it would be useful, but practically speaking, it is never sufficiently
accurate to be useful.

Pedro DE LA ROSA: Yes, we are interested in all of our competitors, especially after qualifying, based on the delta in lap
time, between the Q2 and Q3. We deduce from this – as do all participants – the expected pit stop
strategy arrivals. We do this for everyone.

Pedro DE LA ROSA: Had it been an interesting figure, I might possibly have at least tested it. Unfortunately, at that moment, I did not think that it was interesting.

Ron DENNIS: Is that not a double-negative? How can we assume what someone did or did not do? Either it
exists or it does not. The forensic nature of those processes, as I understood, was not only very
detailed, but could reconstruct most of the material held in a computer. That is why they are
experts. They did reconstruct a great deal of material, as I understand it.

Huh?

Nigel TOZZI: It strikes me as odd that, to stop someone from contacting him, the best method was to fly to
Barcelona. What is wrong with sending a letter, making a telephone call or sending an e-mail?

Poor Mercedes. How far they’ve fallen.