Stewart fears for F1 future

Jackie Stewart fears for the future of Formula One if the spy scandal hearing fails to deliver a sensible verdict.

Ron Dennis and his McLaren team face the World Motor Sport Council in Paris tomorrow for the second time in seven weeks.

New evidence has surfaced in the case that could result in McLaren being kicked out of not only this year’s championship, but also of the 2008 season.

It means the world title hopes of McLaren drivers Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso are on the line, with three points separating the leading duo, and with only four grands prix remaining.

But crucially for Stewart, a three-time world champion and who ran his own team in the late 1990s, he concedes he is “concerned about the damage being done to Formula One.”

Stewart said: “I’m not trying to take sides, and I don’t want to take sides, but I believe this situation has grown from a molehill into a mountain.

“It is dangerous for the infrastructure of Formula One because the multi-national corporations are the heart of the sport’s activity.

“A car takes tens of millions (of pounds), if not hundreds of millions, to fund for a full season because the manufacturing facilities are among the most sophisticated in the world.

“The cost of that infrastructure means Formula One is the highest capital investment sport in the world.

“I understand the sensitivities of these multi-national corporations because I am a businessman, and on the board of a multi-national corporation myself.

“Looking at this, I would judge the whole sport by the manner in which it conducts itself.

“Of course you put your house in order, but you don’t have to do it in such open forum.

“The sport is washing its dirty laundry in public, which is beyond defence the way it has been done, and totally inappropriate.

“It could have been dealt with in-house very easily, and should have been dealt with that way.”

Instead, Stewart believes information has been released far too easily in some quarters, while earlier this week he claimed a witch-hunt was being conducted against Dennis.

It is why he now feels the 25 council members have to ensure the verdict they deliver tomorrow is the right one, and in proportion with the ’crime’.

“There will be a lot of hurt and wounded people, which is why I have maintained that preventative medicine is less expensive and less painful than corrective medicine,” added Stewart.

“They (the World Council) need to deal with this in an extremely intelligent, sensitive and thoughtful manner because the way it has been going these past few weeks has been completely out of order.

“It is why I fear for the future of Formula One if this is not handled correctly tomorrow.

“The two most influential people, (Formula One supremo) Bernie Ecclestone and (FIA president) Max Mosley, have to see the wisdom of defusing this to a level where it can be dealt with in a corrective and undestructive fashion.

“If they do, it will be a feather in both their caps.

“All I am looking to do is defuse the World Council’s position on this so it becomes a very calm and collected issue because we are looking at the entire entity and its future.

“Don’t damage that future.”