Motorsport: Likely end to Kiwi's top career

The McLaren Formula One crisis goes from bad to worse.

With the announcement that they had parted company with their recently appointed sporting director Kiwi Dave Ryan after the Australian Grand Prix debacle, they are at their lowest ebb for many years.

It all started so well for New Zealand's Bruce McLaren-founded team, when they started the 2009 season with the No 1 plate and the No 1 driver in their new car.

McLaren F1 had overcome the Stepneygate affair where it was alleged Nigel Stepney got hold of some super-duper Ferrari data and handed it over to McLaren. After being found guilty and fined US$100 million, it seemed things could only go up.

Not so.

With this latest revelation of duplicitous standards, it appears McLaren's image and standing in the F1 community may be irrevocably tarnished. Hamilton will come out of it all right but it's Ryan who will forever be tarnished.

It's humbling to think that, what could be construed as a small, snap error of judgment can destroy 30-plus years of hard work and passion.

Formula One is a sport fraught with underhand dealings. Normally a team a notch above the rest when it comes to underhandedness, it's only recently McLaren has found itself embroiled in intrigue.

One wonders if Ron Dennis' move away from the racing side of things to concentrate on McLaren Inc, has seen the steady hand of a man born to run race car teams sorely missed. It's almost as if McLaren have mislaid their moral compass.

However, it's the Kiwi at the centre of it all who has had to carry the can for this unsavoury affair.

Ryan has given 30-plus years of his life to the McLaren F1 team, starting at the Woking outfit in 1974 as a gearbox specialist and then mechanic working on Jochen Mass' car. By 1982, Ryan had risen to the top post as chief mechanic, a role he fulfilled until 1987 when he made a lateral move to become the manager of the McLaren factory.

Three years later, Ryan was back at the sharp end when he became team manager in charge of the race and test outfits. In 2008, he moved up another notch taking the role of sporting director and its wider brief.

Someone who has known Ryan almost from the day he started, a fellow McLaren veteran of more than 30 years, Bob McMurray, has fond memories of the man who made it to the top of the McLaren tree.

He remembers him as the bloke who had only the team, and drivers at the time, best interests at heart.

"Although I knew Dave was part of the McLaren set up in the 70s, I didn't really get to know him until he became chief mechanic," said McMurray.

"It's a very difficult job and a pain in the arse as you're getting it from the management telling you what to do and also from the mechanics who are griping about things. Dave handled all that very well but there was a hard streak in him.

"He had his own way of doing things and before anyone had really picked up on fitness and motor racing, he'd decided his mechanics were getting too fat. He banned all fattening stuff from the fridge in the garage. No chocolate or anything like that."

When Ryan was appointed team manager the McLaren team really started to fly and results soon followed.

Not universally liked by all the mechanics, because he wanted most things done his way, he was neverthe-less well respected for his work ethic. Not only did he oversee just about all the running of the F1 team, he also went away on all the test trips as well.

During his time as team manager, Ryan was one down from team principle Dennis and for all intents and purposes ran the racing side of things. He was the manager of the entire race team and in charge of all racing activity.

The only things not part of his remit were driver signings and car design - the rest he controlled.

"I believe Dave was a straight-up-the-middle bloke who always had the team's best interests as a goal. I always found him to be a hard but fair guy who was always running into problems with the marketing department of the team, who wanted more access to the drivers when he wanted less, so they could get on with their job of driving," said McMurray.

"But Dave would always manage to find a way around it, always see logic in things and could always see both sides of the argument. He has always had a huge amount of respect from the Formula One community so to speak."

When dealing with other teams, Ryan was always by the book but was always on the lookout to try to find ways to do some things a little differently.

This was exemplified when he headed the technical working group and was always trying to find ways of improving how teams were run, how to increase overtaking opportunities and the such-like.

"If not quite loved, Dave was well respected and Ron and Martin [Whitmarsh, now team principal with Dennis now having taken over the reins of the McLaren Group chairmanship] knew they could leave the running of the team with Dave," commented McMurray.

If the incident that started all this off in the first place had happened 10 laps earlier, none of the resultant fallout would have happened.

Ryan must be kicking himself for not being able to get his hands on the mike fast enough to belay Hamilton's tactician's (Richard Hopkirk) order to let Trulli pass back into third.

Hamilton would have got out of the car cursing at losing a podium finish after fighting his way up from the back of the grid. Add this to Ryan fuming at a schoolboy error in misunderstanding the rules, it's easy to see the quick solution would be to say to the stewards that Trulli passed under caution - which he did.

Then it got all complicated when Hamilton and Ryan denied any chats over the radio.

Everyone has to carry a bit of the blame, including the race director, Charlie Whiting, who held the first stewards' meeting without the radio transmission transcript, which would have removed any doubt as to what was, and what was not said.

As a result, knee-jerk answers by a frustrated team brought the whole thing tumbling down around their ears.

Through all this Whitmarsh has been between a rock and a hard place - damned if he didn't do something about Ryan and damned if he did.

Anyway, two rounds of the 2009 F1 championships done and dusted and enough intrigue to fill a thriller novel, not to mention scintillating racing we've not seen the likes of in years.