With Ron

First thing this morning Ron called us in to the McLaren motorhome for a briefing. There were Brits and a few others. Ron spent most of the time explaining why the WMSC judgement is wrong and you could see that he is in denial about its findings.

Ron told us about the row with Fernando on August 5th. He made no attempt to deny the allegation that Fernando threatened him but he did not spell it out - clearly he did not want to be quoted on that. There is no doubt whatsoever that this story is true. 

What Ron did say was that half an hour after the row(a row which has cost McLaren millions of pounds and yet more damage to its reputation), Fernando and Luis Garcia Abad, his manager, came back and apologised for what they had done. Fair enough but massive damage had been done because Ron had already called Max by then.

The most interesting aspect of Ron's briefing was this(and his failure to satisfactorily answer this question). We told McLaren in all its lurid detail what we were planning to write about Fernando in Saturday's papers during Friday afternoon. I myself put it to his PR person and said it was important Ron knew the detail ie that Fernando had threatened him with the e-mails and that he would go to the FIA unless Fernando was made number one or Lewis was slowed down or Fernando was allowed to leave at the end of the season.

To my knowledge Ron was told exactly what we were going to write but he made no effort on Friday either to deny the story or tell us about Fernando's apology which would have made it quite a bit better for Fernando. As it is Fernando's reputation as a man and as a sportsman has taken a huge knock and McLaren did nothing to stop it. Was this incompetence, a desire to deflect attention away from coverage of Ron and the judgement or was it a deliberate decision to throw Fernando to the wolves?

There are hundreds of comments this morning and I will try and publish them all, in between watching quali...