Q. The German nation is waiting for a clear statement from Mercedes-Benz now. Is Mercedes still wanting to be a part of the McLaren team when it makes one image disaster after another? Does Mercedes have to think about their relationship?
Norbert Haug: First of all I have to explain my role in the team. We are not running the team, we are a 40 per cent shareholder as everybody knows. I am one of the directors on the board of McLaren, and of course we discuss these issues internally. I am in permanent contact to Stuttgart, I am reporting to Dr Zetsche directly and of course we will sit down next week.
I'm not absolutely of the opinion that McLaren is creating one disaster after the other, in the meantime we won the world championship. I have full trust in Martin, just to point that out, and the whole affair is not what we want. Absolutely not. But still I have the feeling that these guys went and they were probably a little bit afraid of losing fourth place. And then all of a sudden they said no when they should have said yes. Because in hindsight you should have had a print out of the radio conversation, because you can look at it anyway. And if we are honest probably something like that has happened to all of us.
This is not an excuse, but we are not creating one problem after the other and I think we had a good relationship. I know exactly what money we are spending and I know exactly what positive values we got from last year. This is currently not a positive value ? the newspapers are full of our stories. It is certainly not creating the right image. If it would not be bearable, then we need to sit down in Stuttgart and take our decision, but for now I have all the faith and all that I can put behind Martin. He is a great guy and runs the team in a very good way.
Q. There seems to be two interpretations of what has gone on over the past few days. One is this vast conspiracy of lies and the other just seems to be sort of incompetence in the way the situation has been handled. What's your response to that?
MW: There is no conspiracy of lies. Whether it is competence, incompetence, the fact is do I feel comfortable that I went on holiday on Sunday and I had a few days away of course I do. But that's in a pretty busy programme I think you have to do some of those things. Now that the scale and the enormity of it is clear you can look back, just as Dave, Lewis and feel that this is something so ridiculously small to start with and so innocuous that has grown into something so large. And that is something of massive regret. Ultimately as I have said earlier I am accountable to the shareholders at McLaren, and it is for them to make that judgement which I have no doubt they will do.
Q. Why did the stewards not listen to the radio transmission before they interviewed the drivers and the people involved? Can you explain what the protocol is, and whether they had heard the transmission and they were trying to see if someone was going to lie and be put on a hook? Also, in the decision you took about Davey, did you consult Ron about that?
MW: In answer to the first one, certainly Davey believed that Charlie was fully aware of the radio communications. And Charlie was sat in there. When I asked Davey if he felt the stewards had listened to it, he did not know but he was on the assumption that this was information they either had heard or would hear as they contemplated the case. I guess frankly, and I am not trying to criticise any process, we are not here to do that, the stewards ultimately faced with the facts that they could see, made the right decision and we were heavily penalised for that.
This thing has unravelled by a heat of the moment panic. I don't think anyone could have contemplated that, so I don't subscribe to the view that the tape was listened to, and it was a trap that was set. Because it would not have seemed like a trap it was a very unusual and totally unpredictable outcome in my view.
Talking about Davey, it was my decision. On Thursday night I thought I would go and speak to Charlie because Charlie was there, and one of the questions I was going to ask was did he think he had lied, did he think Lewis had lied? In the end, I came to the conclusion without talking to the FIA, that I had no alternative with regard to Davey. So I made that decision. I wasn't prompted by anyone not the FIA, not Ron.
It was my decision, and it is one of those issues where on the one hand, if you do it you are accused of scapegoating, and if you don't do it you are accused of not taking matters seriously enough. So I realise in this situation that there wasn't going to be a right outcome and certainly I was going to be judged badly either way.
But the primary issue, was I had to do what I thought was right. And that was with a very heavy heart, because as I say Davey is to anyone, he is an incredibly hard working diligent individual, a very tough individual, who I had to shatter on Friday morning. But I have to accept that that was my decision. I think it was the right decision. However, sad that I am, I know Davey, I know his family, then having to talk about it in front of the media makes it a lot, lot harder. You want, inevitably, these decisions within the family to be private ones but clearly, as is demonstrated by what has happened now, we are not able to keep these things private. They are poured over in intimate detail, which is painful for Davey, for this team and for his family.
Q. After the stewards meeting in Australia, Davey must have come back along with Lewis and spoken to the team. Surely at the moment he would have told you what he told the stewards. So how come nobody at the team said to him that that was not what happened? And if that hadn't happened, why had he not discussed it with anybody?
MW: Davey didn't discuss it on Sunday evening. I am sure I spoke to him when he came back from the stewards, but there were a lot of things going on and we were packing up and leaving. He, even until Friday morning, did not believe that he had lied to the stewards and that is human nature to seek to justify to yourself. Again, while on Wednesday, there started to be the stories in the media, I was then travelling here and had no knowledge that the situation was going to accelerate.
I didn't expect the Australian stewards to be here. I didn't know there was going to be a stewards hearing again. And by the time I was here, obviously in the aftermath of Thursday evening, I spoke again to Davey and I spoke to Lewis, and there was a degree of denial still going on there. And, that is why I had decided to speak to the FIA but after a night of reflecting on it, [that is why] I came to the decision I did on Friday morning.
Q. If Davey and Lewis had told the stewards that there was no call to pass Jarno, and yet on the radio transcript it was clear that it was. How come when they came back from the stewards, and even in passing conversation, they did not mention that? And how come no one said, we are going to get busted for that?
MW: It is clearly on the radio, and I think that the questions that were put were Davey interrupted a question that was put to Lewis, so he maintains that they did not answer the question which was: Was he asked to repass? And Lewis was asked, did you slow up to allow Trulli past? And Lewis said no, and at the time he had justified it to himself because as the telemetry later showed, he did not particularly slow up, he pulled over.
The two I am sure were uncomfortable, but we were not aware. And I've said to Davey: Did you deny the radio conversation? And his response on Thursday evening, was dont be ridiculous. Charlie was sat there. Charlie heard it, and it is recorded, how could I have done that? What I believe he did was, when Lewis was asked about it, before Lewis gave an answer, Davey interrupted the questioning and that is the start of this misdirection.
Q. McLaren's image as an ethical team has once again come into question. Are you expecting any commercial ramifications?
MW: Your premise is right, but this is something that has unfolded over a race weekend. In dealing with it, and going motor racing, I haven't spent time contemplating longer term. We have to, after this event, regroup and contemplate how we go forward.
Q. When a misdemeanour is committed by a group of people, usually action is taken against them. Davey Ryan has already paid a price, and he could pay the full price in terms of his career at McLaren, your own future is in question, do the team really believe Lewis was an innocent virgin being misled by the big bad wolf? Or will the team be taking action against him?
MW: The team and Lewis have been penalised because of this, and had the points and the race classification removed. I think there has been quite a lot of other suffering. I think Lewis has admitted that he is not entirely innocent, and I think he did that for himself very bravely two days ago. We've got to reflect on how we got from something so innocuous at the start to this situation, and learn from it.
Q. Will action be taken against Lewis?
MW: I don't contemplate any further action against Lewis.
Q. Going forward, the FIA is bound to be looking at this and previous times that you were up against them in the stewards office. Can you categorically say that Davey has never had a pattern of this behaviour before, and has never told half-truths in the previous occasions you have been up against the stewards?
MW: I can tell you what I believe, and that is that I believe Davey has 35 years of an unblemished record and I think that is my sincere belief, and that is the belief of most people in this room. In the heat of the moment, when he felt he had made a mistake, Davey was not trying to get an unjust result he thought, wrongly, he knee jerked into something that he thought was just securing the right outcome. But I do not believe that Davey has misled the stewards, or withheld information, from the stewards before.
Q. It is a well trodden ethos that McLaren wins as a team and loses as a team. How badly has that been damaged this weekend, and what will it take to repair it?
MW: I dont think it has been damaged. I think the team has pulled together. The loss of Davey is a huge hole in this organisation, and in reality it is not just picking up all of the things that he did, because there was no list of it, but it is about how we operate as a team, of McLaren and Mercedes, about how we come together positively to the circumstance. I haven't yet seen the benefit coming out of this weekend, because I am not quite that optimistic, but I do think that we have to learn from it and we have to be better in the future. So, I think that the team has held together very well this weekend and I am very grateful for the support that I have had and the team have had from lots of people here.
Q. One key touchstone of McLaren is that no one is bigger than the team. Did you contemplate suspending Lewis, if Davey Ryan had done something wrong and Lewis had not been as truthful as he might have been? Could you have stood him down for this race?
MW: There is no doubt, and Lewis has already accounted for himself, that what happened was very serious. I had to reflect on the fact that Davey, as sporting director was the senior member of this team. He had the duty of care to guide Lewis as an ambassador. We fell short in that regard and that is why I came to the conclusion with regard to Davey, and whilst Lewis inevitably just as a team comes out with blemish and shame, I think he has been penalised both in a tangible sense in terms of points removed, and quite a lot of other sense of pain and shame that has happened over the course of this weekend.
Q. What is Ron's involvement in all of this, and what sort of dialogue have you had with him? Is it true that he did not want Lewis to make the apology, and that he cancelled plans to be here on Thursday?
MW: Ron wasn't planning to be here officially. But Ron is a racer and this race last year he did not plan to come to but came at the last minute. I've had three or four conversations, relatively short ones, and in truth they were: do you need my help? How are you holding up? I am grateful that I had some sense of support from him. But he knows that I had to make these decisions. So I have had that sense of support, but Ron has not been pulling the strings on this one. And, it is clear that I have to take accountability for what has happened this weekend.
Q. When you took over the role as team principal, it was downplayed the difference that it might make to your role. Have the events of the last week changed your perception of the role of team principal, or maybe change how you approach the job in the future?
MW: I think it has been an accelerated learning curve, let's put it like that. I have been in this team for 20 years and I hope over those years I have made some contribution. This has been an experience that perhaps I was not as prepared for. McLaren, with Lewis Hamilton in it and with this sort of controversy gets a fair bit more attention than most of us are accustomed to. So I have to learn from that. I hope that once weve understood, learned from it, and can come out of it, then we can return to focusing on a racing team, which is what I joined in the first place to do.
Q. The FIA has made it fairly clear that it considers Lewis was put in an impossible situation and it is not going to take any action against him. You as a team are not off the hook. In your conversations with Max did you get the impression, or did he hint, that there would be a summons to the WMSC or further action against you?
MW: I think the reality is that I rang Max to tell him what was happened. I think he was kind enough to give me views and advice, and I think I have to treat that as a confidential conversation. Max was helpful and I am grateful for that, but it was not a conversation that I should be talking publicly about.
I rang him, one to inform him and to seek his guidance. I am not sure it is appropriate or fair that I then disclose what the content [of that conversation] was, but I very appreciative of the time he gave me on the phone. In the course of the conversation he did not refer to the [WMSC], I've spoken to Charlie and he didn't, and I've spoken to Alan Donnelly and it is clearly a decision that Max will take, and he will take the decision that he thinks is right.
Q. FOTA has been hugely concerned about the image that F1 projects to the fans, its customer base, yet we have controversy after controversy. You head up to the SWG for FOTA how badly do you think these various controversies, diffusers or this issue, are affecting the image of F1 worldwide.
MW: Well, it clearly isn't helpful. F1 is going through a very difficult time. We have a lot of automotive manufacturers who have made a tremendous commitment to F1 over the years. They have got huge challenges as businesses.
Ironically this year we have opened up all the radio conversations during the race. We have made our drivers more available. We are contemplating ways in which we can improve the spectacle and information for fans around the world. FOTA is a body that hasnt happened before. It is in its early days. There are diffuser controversies and a whole range of issues that challenge the unity that has been achieved within FOTA. There are a number of things that those within FOTA are very proud have been achieved in a few months, but as I have said several times this weekend, certainly McLaren isnt perfect.
We have made some big mistakes which are damaging to us. And we are very sorry for that. But they are also sadly damaging to F1 and the image of F1. That is not something that any of us can feel comfortable about.
Q. F1 is about drivers, not teams. McLarens role in this will probably be forgotten by the wider world, but the bit that wont be forgotten is the part of this affects Lewis and there have been comparisons now between Lewis and Michael Schumacher as being a great driver but having a tarnished career. He will carry this for the rest of his life, whereas you guys will be forgotten. How do you feel about that?
MW: Well, I feel sad. But I think Lewis has I think an enormous humanity. He has put his hand up and said that he has made some mistakes, and that he is deeply regretful of that. He has been very brave in making those statements that he has during the course of this weekend, and we for our part are trying to put our hand up and demonstrate our concern and our humility over what has happened.
It is not something that any of us feel very good about. Anyone who sits back and looks at what this started from, and what this started from, [knows] it is quite ridiculous. Although people like the idea of conspiracies or those sorts of things, it was an innocuous and silly incident where we were not guilty of anything that has led to this. I think Lewis is still a young man, but he is a world champion and he has to be accountable and responsible for his actions. He is an important ambassador to this sport, and I think the greatest shame that we as McLaren haven't given him and led him well enough to uphold the standards that he intended to or wanted to.
Q. What about the comparison to Schumacher?
MW: Lewis has openly and bravely admitted what he has done wrong, and he has apologised. I think that is in contrast with some other things that have happened in F1, so I think there is a difference.
This process, at the heart of it, are a group of committed, dedicated, hard working individuals who are fallible, and have made some mistakes in the heat of the moment. They are damaging, but I think people understand that no one is perfect, and it is for those people from that to decide whether they forgive and balance the equation of the greatness of various people.
I fully acknowledge and have a great passion for drivers, and the public ultimately are interested in the driver achievements and their bravery, but all of the 20 drivers that are taking the grid today are extraordinary young men with huge bravery, who are going to participate in a very dangerous, very exhausting, very challenging contest this afternoon. Sometimes there is a sense when we talk about F1 that we dont always appreciate that.
I have been very fortunate to work with a lot of great, great drivers. And Lewis is very much one of those, and people will ultimately judge him to be a great world champion, and hopefully a great multiple world champion, and they will recognise that he is human.