High Tech Lying

The Formula 1 race in Malaysia last week was stopped before it ran its course due to huge rainfall. The tracks got flooded and the poor daylight due to the late start of the race forced the organizers to cut short the race. This has caused anger among the various F1 supporters who came from all over the world to watch the race.

But the real drama actually happened even before the race started. The McLaren team was found to have lied to a committee looking at McLaren's complaint on a rival drivers action in the Australian race, which was held a week earlier. The issue was whether McLaren's star driving and reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton willingly allowed a Toyota driver to overtake him back during a safety procedure. Lewis and McLaren said that they did not but evidence later showed to the contrary. The committee heard Lewis being interviewed by reporters just after the race, where he mentioned that he allowed the Toyota driver to overtake him.

Its amazing that these sort of things happened in such a high tech sport. Even though McLaren can argue that the Toyota driver was wrong in overtaking Lewis back after making a mistake, they should not have lied to get their points across. They should have been clear from the beginning and told the race stewards what really happened and then the Toyota driver may have still be punished for overtaking.

Sadly that did not happen and McLaren and Lewis are made to look like untrustworthy people. Lewis' brand image may have been damaged due to this incident and will hang like a cloud over his career. What really happened between Lewis and his team are still not clear but usually when the organization that employs you orders you to do something, you trust the team to know what they are doing. This is not the first time that McLaren was found to have been behaving in less than stellar manner - Fernando Alonso, McLarens former star driver was responsible in divulging some wrong doing allegedly done by McLaren's staff and for this the team got fined very heavily.

Lewis rightfully made a press conference and salvaged his reputation somewhat. McLaren must pay the price and they could end up losing much more than money.

F1 is one of the most technologically advanced and complex sports in our modern history. Each team employ hundreds of specialist staff with budgets in the hundred of millions just to get 2 cars compete around a track for about 2 hours each alternate week somewhere in the world. Yet with all these mechanical and electronic wizardy and with organization excellence, people still hark back to their evil base self - hiding the truth.

Is it any wonder then why civilization destroy themselves after achieving the zenith of their culture and technology? What can we do to control the urge of people to destroy all the work they have done in achieving great things in life just to indulge in some base feelings? Or is it an inevitable test of humans, to see their true characters in extreme times, whether in joy or despair?

I think it will come as a shock to many people, especially fans of Lewis and McLaren if all the accusations are proven true. The F1 sports organizers need to ensure that team and drivers are provided ethical training so that each know their own personal responsibility when cheating or appearances of wrong doing appears. Unsavory actions like cheating and lying can turn off huge number of fans and may end F1 look like a wrestling championship.