03-Mar-08: McLaren Continue to Dominate the Headlines

Listen to this episode

This is F1 Minute for the 3^rd March.

The Italian police have said the statement they made last week that upset McLaren enough to send the team to the Home Office to complain, was misunderstood. It looks like the evidence the statement suggested they had found came from previous investigations into the team and had nothing to do with the visit to the factory and to staff’s homes.

McLaren have other things on their mind at the moment though, with the rumour mill going into overload speculating on the future of Ron Dennis. Autosport.com is reporting today that Dennis is ready to hand over his team principal status to Martin Whitmarsh, and will do so at some point before the end of this month. This is still unconfirmed though.

Elsewhere, Sebastien Bourdais has said his main concern about making the transition from Champ Car to F1 is his performance in qualifying. He said that Toro Rosso have been concentrating on letting him practice during testing so far, rather than on qualifying specifically. Now he feels it is his main weakness but he’s not too worried saying: “I’m not confident, I’m not un-confident.”

That’s all for today, please join me tomorrow for another F1 Minute.