Controversy ensued today as after Lewis Hamilton somehow controlled his car in treacherous conditions, celebrated his deserved win on the podium, sprayed the champagne and even did the press conference, the FIA announced that they had stripped Hamilton of the win.
They decided to give him a 25 second penalty for “gaining an unfair advantage” when passing Kimi Raikkonen is the closing stages of the race.
For those of you who were somehow not watching, this is how things went down.
Blanchimont—Hamilton begins to close on Raikkonen, who is clearly feeling the effects of he light shower earlier than Hamilton.
Bus Stop Chicane—Hamilton passes on the outside, but Kimi won’t have any of it and forces Lewis wide and to cut the corner. If he did not, both would have retired from the race in one big heap of carbon fibre, good decision from Hamilton.
Start/Finish Straight—Hamilton yields the position back to Kimi, obviously learning his lesson from Magny Cours. After Kimi re-takes first place, Lewis launches a brave move up the inside.
La Source—Hamilton takes Kimi into turn one, Kimi tries to cut back across and hits Hamilton, almost breaking the front wing of the Ferrari and shredding the rear tyre of the McLaren.
Eau Rouge—Kimi has a look at Lewis but decides not to, good decision. At this point, radio communications take place between McLaren and Charlie Whiting, who accepts that Hamilton yielded the position back fairly.
Pouhoun—Both Hamilton and Raikkoen barely make it round the corner and struggle for grip, Kimi is clearly the quicker of the two.
Fagnees—Nico Rosberg aquaplanes off the road and rejoins, but in doing so distracts Hamilton and the young Brit takes avoiding action and run wide, barely keeping it out of the wall. Raikkonen re-takes the lead, only to spin immediately and rejoin in second yet again.
Blanchimont (Again)—Hamilton goes as slow as humanly possible, whereas Kimi believes he can push a bit harder, but then drops it and flies into the wall. Hamilton inherits the lead yet again, but now has to contend with a charging Felipe Massa.
Final Lap—Hamilton and Massa both remain on dry tyres and nurse the car around the circuit on the final lap, at this point the Ferrari and McLaren mechanics are waiting nervously as Nick Heidfeld and Fernando Alonso take on intermediates, and are lapping 45 seconds faster.
Finish—Hamilton and Massa survive with Hamilton taking the win, Massa second, and Heidfeld third. Staticians showed that if the race was just 15 seconds longer, Heidfeld would have won the race. THAT is how slow Massa and Lewis had to go.
Celebrations begin, but the FIA immediately announce that they will investigate the happenings between Raikkonen and Hamilton, something which confuses even Ferrari and they say after the race that Kimi regained the lead twice, perhaps three times after that.
Then, after the fans have left and the celebrations are over the FIA announce that they have stripped Hamilton of his victory. The decision is not popular, even with Ferrari fans who were quoted by one TV station as saying “it does not matter, it did not affect the result. It’s a silly decision.”
Now for the rant, this is a disgusting decision. After somehow defying the laws of physics and driving the car home with no TC on dry tyres in treacherous rain, the FIA do this. Yet again it shows a blatant bias towards Ferrari.
I want to makes this abundantly clear—I like neither team. I am unbiased in decisions normally, but this is disgraceful. The incident had no effect on the result at all, and Hamilton followed the rules and yielded the place back before passing him again. To make matters worse, Kimi re-took the lead three times after that.
It did seem that when the wee bar came up saying that it would be investigate, it may as well have said “GIVE US TIME TO THINK OF SOME EXCUSE THAT EVERYONE WILL HATE, CHEERS.”
Ridiculous, and I am currently writing a fierce letter of complaint to the FIA right now.
I hope you lot do the same.
Now, some people are wondering what the specific rules are, well I have a lot of knowledge of the rulebook, so her is my absolute best explaination.
The rules state that if you pass someone through a chicane by cutting it, you must yield immediately. You are allowed to pass at the next corner, and if you yield then no action can be taken as no advantage was gained.
What annoys me as well is the fact that Raikkonen passed Hamilton three times over the lap, so if he did gain an advantage, he wouldn’t be passing him would he? Plus, Kimi retired after a shunt at Blanchimont, so it had no effect AT ALL on the result.
Felipe Massa almost hits Adrian Sutil whilst exiting the pits in Valencia, and if he did he would have hit the cameraman on his kness and probably have injured him severely. It gets a tiny fine, less than what he earns in an hour.
Raikkoen takes out Sutil in Monaco through driver error in an completely avoidable accident, but it goes unpunished. Four cars used illegaly cooled fuel in Brazil last season and should have been disqualified, but that would have handed the title to Hamilton so the FIA took no action.
Raikkonen’s car was illegal in Australia last year, and the FIA acknowledged that but took no action. If they had, Hamilton would be champion.
In 2006, Renault were running the innovative mass damper system which had passed many FIA scrutineering tests and been passed as extremely innovative. Then, Ferrari found out and just because they had no idea how to make one themselves, they complained and it was promptly banned.
After that, Ferrari were beating Renault all over the place and nearly won the title, but Renault were still too good. Oh how the FIA must have been fuming at that.
It has gone too far, and the above is all I can thinkof off hand, tell me if you can think of anymore.
So, are you a Ferrari fan? Do you think that this was very harsh on Hamilton?
Or, are you bigoted enough to think that it was a fair decision?
