By Sam Cooper
May 29 2007

So, what will happen to the team because of this? Well they could have the points they scored taken away, they could be disqualified, or they could be forced to start at the very back of the grid for the next race, whatever the FIA do to McLaren, it will be costly, and could quite easily lose the world championship. Which will unquestionably cause a major outburst of anger among McLaren Fans.

The team orders are deemed illegal, after Ferrari ordered Rubens Barrichello to pull over and let Michael overtake in order to win the race, which helped him win the championship, are McLaren tiring to do the same thing, or did they order both their drivers to keep it steady under safety grounds? Whatever the team used them for, they are certainly against the rules.

In a statement released on Monday, the FIA have said to have “The FIA has launched an investigation into incidents involving the McLaren Mercedes team at the 2007 Monaco Grand Prix in light of a possible breach of the International Sporting Code,"

This news is crippling to McLaren.

McLaren’s team boss Ron Dennis has been heavily criticised after he allowed this order to be taken place, and has strongly denied that he breached the sporting code. "We do not favour anybody. There will be times and places when they are free to race, but this isn't one of them,"

Has Ron brought this on himself, as he appeared to have called out to the press that he had pre decided who would win the race, which doesn’t help Ron, it disadvantages him, and makes the FIA more likely to impose a ban on the team, something that other teams would be wanting as this would gain them more points.

As many of you will know, Fernando was leading the two drivers at the first round of pitstops, but the strategy once again favoured Fernando, Lewis was carrying five laps more fuel than Fernando, yet Lewis came in only a lap or two after Fernando, which suggests even more that McLaren are favouring Fernando, and that McLaren’s team orders were not only the other device that was present in McLaren’s winning strategy at Monaco.

The biggest task that Ron has to do now, is convince the FIA that he, and his team didn’t break the rules, something which will prove incredibly difficult, as the team are likely to be banned from the Monaco, Canadian, and USA grand prix, which will lose the team a maximum of 54 points, which will effectively hand Ferrari the constructors championship.

As the main victim of the team orders Lewis Hamilton was surprisingly modest in his disappointment, or is this Ron putting words in Lewis’s mouth? “To see that I'm at a similar pace to Fernando is a positive for me, but it's just something I have to live with," he said. "I am in car number two so I am the number two driver.”

So, why would Ron allow these team orders?

The Reason behind Ron’s decision.

In the past Mercedes engines haven’t been the most reliable, and with Monaco presenting high revs and equally high engine ware, the team could be wanting to save their drivers engines, giving them a better chance of winning the world championship and the Canadian grand prix.

Ron could of also have indicated the order to save his cars from crashing into the barriers which would be very embarrassing for the Woking based squad. At the way that the McLaren’s were sliding about, who could blame him.

Ron’s reasoning could be to do with Fernando, since Alonso has received some unwelcome criticism from the press all over the world, the criticism came in the form of suggestions that Fernando was losing his pace, and that his rookie team mate was faster than him.

What still remains unclear is why Ron publicised that he had broke the rules, it is confusing to say the least.

If this carry’s on for the team, Lewis could be looking elsewhere on the F1 grid, as Lewis is being denied wins, and points for Fernando’s championship cause, not to mention he is getting paid under $1 million a year. McLaren need to be careful not to let Hamilton go.

Commenting on the FIA investigation, a McLaren spokesman has stated "We are very confident about FIA's investigation into our race strategy. All the decisions that we took before and during the race respect perfectly the International Sporting Code.

Ron Dennis had this to comment on the matter, "Team strategy is what you bring to bear to win a Grand Prix. Team orders is what you bring to bear to manipulate a Grand Prix. And we do not, and have not, manipulated Grands Prix, unless there were some exceptional circumstances, which occurred, for example, in Australia (1998), when at that time someone had tapped into our radio and instructed Mika Hakkinen to enter the pits.

"He entered the pits and I reversed that, because that was unfair, that was an outside influence on the outcome of the race. That is one of the very rare occasions that there's been a team order. I don't feel uncomfortable with them. I sleep easy. I have a clear conscience, both on that particular race - and this race today."

From Ron’s comment he has very carefully avoided the question asked, and from the sounds of it he isn’t going to apologise for his actions.

As soon as we receive anymore information on the matter, we’ll let you know it.

Talk about this on the McLaren Fans message board.