That's my point, he never gave the team a chance to punish Lewis as he took the punishment into his own hands.Lotus49 wrote:That's what I always felt (That if he'd played it differently he could've left Hungary with the backing from Ron because of Lewis's action) but I assume after both the Monaco reaction and the refusal to punish Lewis in Hungary, not just for ignoring the order but (allegedly) telling Ron to go beeping swivel and not getting so much as a wrist slap for either, he didn't think the team were ever going to go against Lewis in any situation.Laz_T800 wrote:If true, the allegation that he wanted the team to let Hamilton run out of fuel during the race, is a sign of a massive character flaw.JN23 wrote:Just read parts 1 & 2. The bit about Hungary in part 2 is very interesting, never heard some of the detail before!
A different man would have taken the higher ground when Hamilton went out first in Qualifying and would have come away from that race with the full backing of the team.
One petulant decision and a blackmail plot later and instead of multiple WDC's he won nothing again.
This was Ron Dennis getting told what to do by a rookie in no uncertain terms and for the whole team to hear twice within a handful of races, the big scary Ron. That's pretty unthinkable back then and he did nowt in return. That's obviously going to influence Alonso's thinking about who holds the power there right now.
Not that it makes the threat any better, he should've been sacked on the spot*, but I don't think McLaren were ever going to go against Lewis however Alonso played it tbh.
*Didn't know that was an option Macca were going to do, I knew Whitmarsh wanted to but not Ron. I wonder why Mosley convinced them not to? Did he really just dislike Ron so much he wanted him to suffer those two going at it all year or what?
What Lewis did was subtle to the audience.
Alonso was not subtle and came out of it looking the bad guy.
It really could have been so different for him if he didn't make that decision.