McLaren have always been about the persuit of perfection. They have always strived to go for the ultimate in speed and technology even at the expense of reliability. Mark Hughes in Autosport this week even manages to eek an admission to this out of the team. That all changed last year with a car that was fast and reliable. A car that was reliable first and fast second.

But the problem came last year in the driver department. Who could have known that Lewis would be so good?

But the question is this. If McLaren listened to Alonso about the reliability and cooling as has been suggested why didn’t they listen to him about holding back Lewis? If they had listened Alonso would have won the title. As it was Kimi won.

On the car side they learned from the begining of the season what a compromise on speed can bring you: reliability.

On the driver side they didn’t learn the lesson and they lost.

Alonso copied Schumacher’s game and beat him at it. McLaren were unable to do it because they ignored one of the fundamental rules – only one driver can win the title.

It might not be very fair to Lewis – but what’s fair got to do with it?

McLaren isn’t a charity – as far as I know – they were there to win.

The problem was that Lewis was just too good.