McLaren send mystery Finn to Moscow
Woking, Sunday: McLaren’s Human Resources department have revealed that they have sent a mysterious Finnish man, spotted several times at the team in the last few years, to a demonstration event in Moscow in order to buy themselves time in working out what to do with him.
Moscow-bound: The unidentified McLaren driver
The strange figure, who has not yet been identified, has apparently been driving the team’s second car for the last two years without anyone noticing, and his discovery has sent waves of shock through the Woking-based squad. “What? We have a second car?” asked team principal Martin Whitmarsh when informed of the Finn’s existence.
“Following our fairly surprising discovery that we do in fact have two drivers, we have decided once and for all to take action,” Mercedes director of motorsport Norbert Haug told reporters. “While we work out what to do about this Finnish character, we have sent him to a McLaren demonstration event on the streets of Moscow. This will allow us to assess his ability in the key skill areas of marketing and PR, as well as allowing us the opportunity to determine whether he is any good at crashing to distract attention from when Lewis makes a mistake.
“Of course, it also means that with him out of our hair for a few days, we can focus on the important task of improving the team and the car for Lewis.”
The team have pointed out that had they realised they were fielding two cars last season, they could have made more of an effort to win the Constructors’ championship as well. “Unfortunately, as with all of these things, the realisation came too late,” Haug said. “Instead we simply have to hope that we can farm him off to some other team at the end of the year and get a nice, comfortable number two for Lewis like Nico Rosberg.”
