fast_freddy

Yep... For Fragile Freddy to call a race result manipulated is hysterical. What an *******.

multi21

I admit, Alonso calling someone else for race manipulation is laughable considering he and Flava Flav sent Nelson Pinquet into a wall to get him a win in a season where he wasn't even in contention for a title (not that THAT would make it any better and I'd love to hear A. Whine defend that one).

But getting back to Hamilton, the drive through penalty was given 17 laps after the infraction!!!! I don't buy that the FIA stewarts didn't know what they were doing as Hamilton had benefited from the situation and a drive thru would not be enough of a penalty after gathering up a gap running for 17 laps! Absolutely inexplainable.

Let's go back to Michael Schumacher in Monaco. He was taken out of the points for a technicality and interpretation of the rules when he passed Alonso after the safety car but before start finish. The FIA admitted that there was a gray area and promised to rewrite the rules because it was not clear, but didn't restore his position to 7th! As a result, they dropped him to last but just before all the cars that DNFed. Compare that with Hamilton's penalty and get back to me. Total favoritism to Hamilton and BS IMO!

fast_freddy

How about Spa in 2008? There are many many others that have gone the other direction. That one is the most glaring example.

FGL28

I just finished watching the race on TiVO. Alonso and Ferrari suld just shut the hell up. They need to man up, Kobayashi passed the little tampax at theend of the race.

I swear that they whine and complain more than World cup players.

KurtC

I read this and thought of this.





If that was Lewis' intention, and it very likely was, then well done to him! She deserved it.

enduro911

Radio said Heikki was defending his position despite what the American announcers said. Webber was in a draft, and what happened was essentially what happens when you bump into someone in a hallway and neither of you can pick the proper direction to move without shadowing the other guy. I haven't seen telemetry but most of the slower cars are fast in a straight line but have no downforce. Because the accident occurred before Turn 12 that means that they were coming out of a slow corner where mechanical grip is everything, indicating that that the slow car of HK wasn’t really that much more of a hindrance than any other car would be.

Agree, Q1 times are not indicative of overall pace for two reasons. First, the faster teams don’t necessarily have an incentive to show their hands and go all out. While that may point to the fact that the gap would be greater between the front and back of the field, remember that the slower teams are losing time as well in an attempt to get out of the way of the faster cars. The 107% rule should be implemented but only after the teams have had a chance to TEST. I know, we can’t do that because Ferrari will cut a deal with HRT to test some new parts on the HRT car which will help the Ferrari win everything, God forbid we should let EVERYONE test, even if it’s just on a limited schedule…too logical, I know. By curtailing the testing of the faster teams who will be gaining half a second at a time, the FIA is denying the new teams the opportunity to pick up twice that in a given session because the learning curve is NOT LINEAR.

DING DING DING, CIRCLE GET’S THE SQUARE!!!

Wouldn’t surprise me if the drama instructors who work with soccer players also work extensively with Hamilton, formerly with Ralph Schumacher as well.

Larry, you bring up a great point and I’d be inclined to agree with you 100% if I knew more about the Renault guys and what they’re capable of doing. Maybe he should stay with them, but I know what Ross Brawn is capable of doing, especially when he gets an early start on things and my guess is that Mercedes’ commitment is stronger than Renault’s. Time will tell if your suggestion has merit.

Agree that if the sports car guys can deal with it, then so too should F1 drivers be able to deal with it. However, two things make me skeptical of whether they should have to. First, these are open wheel cars. Gilles Villeneuve’s accident seems to resonate well here (R.I.P.). Second, the speeds these guys are doing is much higher so that means getting caught behind someone slower costs you more time than in a sports car race. Furthermore, the consequences are potentially more dangerous at those higher speeds.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot that we want to bring KERS back to further increase these differentials. S**t, can’t we just bring back turbos and toluene?

Mhmm.

Luis de Prat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKYyvHvO-jA

Yes, he knew fully well what he was doing. Just like when the Oz police pulled him over for aggressive driving.

We've all been reckless at the wheel at one time or another, but the point here is that this is supposed to be a sport, where the same rules and penalties should apply to all, just as they do on the street.

wanna911

You can't be serious when 5 other people got penalties, only 2 of which cost them any positions. This isn't ALMS, when was the last time you saw a 10 second stop and go penalty? Penalty's are often issued many laps after infraction and EVERY TIME the team tries to push to get a much time back as possible before serving the penalty. This just HAPPENED to be a case where Kobyashi was holding up the rest of the field. 9 times out of 10 that penalty would have cost Lewis a position.

Suggesting that the stewards should have the power to "make up" penalties that would make sure the competitors lose positions completely blows the point of having rules, because now your punishment is subject to the stewards deciding how many positions you should lose.

So what happens if a guy runs away from the field as we've seen in the past and has a HUGE lead and commits and infraction, should they make it a 1 minute stop and go just to make sure he loses a position?

What kind of sense does that make? You are on some serious stuff if you think Hamilton has any sort of favortism in this sport. However good to see your true colors shining through again.

multi21

The entire point is that the stewards do have a say in what penalty is given out. There is nothing in the rule book that says Hamilton should have been given a drive through. He could have been given anything.

The fact remains is that he broke the rules. That is unquestionable right? The other fact is that it took nearly 1/3 of the race to give him that penalty. The result of the infraction gave Hamilton a HUGE advantage as far as track position. Then what is the use of penalizing anyone for breaking the rules if it's not going to hurt?

You break the rules, you pay the price. In this instance, Hamilton or anyone else would gladly pay the price of a drive through if it meant not getting collected by the safety car and then getting 17 laps to make up a gap on track.

The FIA is a joke with this drive through penalty and really, the rules in general need to be more black and white, not this arbitrary, we'll see after the race BS and 5 seconds here, or 20 seconds there.

wanna911

Your are still missing the point. Which is that the Stewards don't just get to hand out whatever penalty they want, they have guidelines based on the infraction.

Hamilton broke the rules and was penalized, it cost him a legitimate shot at winning the race by putting some pressure on Vettel's fragile Red Bull. Occasionally penalties are handed down long after the infraction, don't act like you've never seen it before. It's not all that out of the ordinary.

The fact remains that it's hard to make a penalty that will cost a driver much when they put a huge gap on the person behind them, as it should be. Just because you're that much faster than the guy behind you doesn't mean you should get a bigger penalty than if he weren't that much slower than you and right behind you as that is a rare occasion in F1, especially in the top 3 cars.

The penalty is the penalty and should be the SAME penalty regardless of the race situation (barring end of the race). If it were a tight race like it would have been were Kobyashi not in the picture, Lewis would have lost 5 spots or more. But as it were he lucked out. Luck is a part of racing. PERIOD.

Suck it up and deal with it.

Sean F

Agreed - the rules need work/clarification but the penalties need a do over. The fact that you can watch a race, see a rules infraction and have no idea what penalty will be given and when (during or after the race) is simply unacceptable.

Luis de Prat

Isn't that the truth. We just sat there for 17-20 laps wondering where the huge change in positions had come from. Never saw the above footage anywhere, either.

Sometimes I think we should just stick to racing Thoroughbred horses where the stewards know what to do before making a race official since it's the bettors' money they're fooling with.

Spectators don't seem to matter much in F1, since nobody's betting 'officially.'

multi21

English isn't your first language is it? You have absolutely no reading comprehension. The stewards do hand out arbitrary penalties. If you read my post again, it says they have to be more black and white. The fact is they hand out whatever they seem fit, whether it's for or against Hamilton, Ferrari, or anyone else because there are no guidelines.

Whiting waiting for (once again for Dez' benefit) 17 laps says enough in my opinion that the penalty they deemed fit to bestow on Hamilton would not cause him undue harm in terms of his on track position. F1 commentators have stated that he could have/should have received a 10 sec. stop and go at minimum.

Your bias toward the benefit of Hamilton is unbelievably blinding. No matter, he will not win the WDC. The Red Bulls are too strong unless Vettel/Webber/Horner F it up which is still a possibility based on what has happened so far this year.

multi21

Here is a guy that knows about being banned and disqualified

Hamilton should have been disqualified, says Briatore



Former Renault F1 Managing Director Flavio Briatore believes that Lewis Hamilton should have been removed from the results of the European Grand Prix after the Englishman overtook the Safety Car in Valencia.

With the Safety Car having been deployed on Sunday for Mark Webber’s accident, both television and amateur video footage do confirm that Hamilton narrowly passed the Safety Car as it made its way on to track – something for which he was handed a drive-through penalty later in the race.




However, Briatore – who was present in Spain but is barred from working in the sport until 2013 for his part in last year’s ‘Crashgate’ race-fixing scandal – believes the Englishman got off lightly.

“The rules are not precise,” the 60-year-old explained to Italy’s Sky Italia.

“They (FIA stewards) shouldn't have penalised Hamilton after 20 laps – it should have been after two or three laps and passing the Safety Car should gain you a black flag.
"Hamilton is lucky - everything he does ends up turning out well.”

gums

There was a shot of Flav in the pit lane, so he was very definitely back.