So McLaren are now accusing Renault of spying on them in much the same way that McLaren were accused of spying on Ferrari.

The accusations were first raised at the McLaren -v- Ferrari hearing which to me made it look like McLaren were simply trying the “but they have done it as well” tactic more often seen in primary school classrooms, so I didn’t pay them much heed.

Now various documents have been leaked which seem to point to there being more evidence and indeed a much more serious breach of the rules in this case than in the McLaren case - if the evidence really does stack up that is.

So Fernando Alonso has finally left McLaren once and for all.

Even after all that’s happened this year I’m relatively surprised to be honest, as his best chance of being in a car capable of winning races and the title in 2008 was surely with the Woking team.  Ferrari’s announcement that Massa has been handed a new contract until 2010 has surely scuppered any chance of Alonso joining Raikkonen in Italy next year - that’s assuming Alonso would even have been happy being in the same team as the current World Champion.

Well it’s certainly been an eventful season, I don’t think anyone could argue with that! Some of it has been good and some of it has been bad, but from both of these we can learn things which should be either repeated or avoided next year when it all starts again.

It would be easy to say that the FIA are the ones who should be changing, and in some instances that is correct but from a personal viewpoint I think there are a few other people who also need to change in some areas.

But let’s start with the FIA:

This was being billed as a big weekend for English sport - first up today was the final of the Rugby World Cup, followed tomorrow by Lewis Hamilton striving to win the F1 World Championship.

Unfortunately, the first part hasn’t gone to plan, as the English were beaten in a pretty poor, nervy game by South Africa.  There wasn’t a huge amount of good flowing rugby played, and as seems to be the norm these days the emphasis was on kicking penalties and drop goals rather than winning by scoring tries.

It has been noted in the past that following revelations this season, McLaren have been issued with an FIA supervisor who is to oversee all their goings on this weekend and ensure that Fernando Alonso has a fair chance of winning the world championship ahead of his teammate Lewis Hamilton.

This is surely the most damaging thing the sport has seen this year, and that’s saying something.

To think that the governing body feels the need to take a proactive step to stop cheating, rather then the usual reactive step of punishing someone after they have broken the rules, is worrisome in my view.