McLaren let Lewis down again: Burning rubber

I am not always privy to what goes on behind Formula One's closed doors, but I would bet my Porsche that McLaren's motorhome was the epicentre of abject apology last weekend in Spain.

That is after the backroom boys blundered — yet again — and left driver Lewis Hamilton bereft of all but faint hope in the fifth round clash in Barcelona.

And whatever was said, however humbly, could not have been enough to placate Hamilton, whose brilliance in achieving pole position, and therefore the best chance of a win, was sabotaged by being booted to the back of the grid as a result of a mechanic under-fuelling his car for qualifying.

Rules state there has to be at least one litre of petrol left in the tank to be tested by the race stewards.

But a tap had been turned the wrong way and, instead of pumping in gas, it sucked it out. The car, with time lapsing fast, was then released from the garage for its flyer of a shoot-out lap with insufficient fuel.

Latest ham-fisted error

Over the radio a cock-a-hoop Hamilton was ordered to kill the engine as he crossed the line as the triumphant pole-sitter, and that's when the stewards' suspicions were raised.

The disappointment he suffered, allied to the rage he surely felt but publicly hid, after this latest ham-fisted error, can only have served to have Hamilton seriously question his team's level of expertise and discipline.

In that his contract with the team — beset by setbacks — is up for renewal at the end of this, for him, problematical season, I believe it is fair to assume he has borne enough incompetence to usher him towards the exit door at McLaren.

When the stoical and fearsome Ron Dennis, Hamilton's mentor, was McLaren's boss, the efficiency levels had to be militarily meticulous. Or else. When Dennis moved to head up McLaren's global supercar business, his team chief position was handed to Martin Whitmarsh, a pleasant chap, but clearly not enough of a disciplinarian in his predecessor's mould to streamline and perfect the efforts of the backroom boys.

The writer is a motorsport expert based in England.