The Holy Pasty?

After the absolute boredom of Valencia I was delighted with the race in Spa. Lewis and Mclaren won, despite seeming the underdogs thanks to the rain and Kimi’s inability to deal with the rain and him spearing off into the wall. Lewis tiptoed around the final lap with Massa trying hard to keep the car pointing in the right direction behind him, whilst Nick Heidfeld on intermediate tyres waltzed from 9th to 3rd place. It was a good show and a great race for all concerned apart from Kimi. Lewis came out on top thanks to the rain and his skill in keeping the car on the road (for the most part).

However after the race the stewards announced that they were looking into an incident concerning Kimi and Lewis. Fair enough, racing incidents need to be looked at but I was sure that Lewis hadn’t actually done anything illegal apart from racing. What happened is on the approach to the final chicane (known as the Bus Stop) Lewis was alongside (if not slightly in front) of Kimi. Kimi took a different line into the corner to his normal line (probably because of the conditions getting wetter) and ran very deep into the corner as Lewis was trying to dive around the outside. Caught out by this Lewis chose to avoid a collision and jinked his car left down the escape road cutting the chicane. He avoided an accident something his teammate hadn’t managed to do earlier in the race when he collided with Mark Webber and received a drive through penalty for. So Lewis avoided the collision and came out of the corner faster than Kimi and in front. However he gained an advantage by going off the track so he backed off and let Kimi pass him completely. Kimi swerved a number of times as the McLaren rebuilt it’s charge over the rain impeded Ferrari, and quickly repassed Kimi just after the start finish line.

Half a lap later and Kimi is still behind Lewis and slide off the road, using the extra grip around the outside he brings his car back into contention as Lewis begins sliding a little only to meet a backmarker (Rosberg) coming back onto the track at the same point. Lewis steps on the brakes to avoid a collision and in some excellent driving (if questionable according to the rules and the advantage gained) Kimi slots his car between then into the lead – a lead that is short lived as about 20 seconds later he is in the wall after trying to pass other back markers! Lewis passes Kimi’s parked car and tiptoes around to take the win.

At best these are all racing incidents, none of them are punishable offences in my opinion. Yet the stewards have handed Lewis a 25 second penalty. The reason the stewards gave is;

“Hamilton was deemed to have “cut the chicane and gained an advantage”, thereby breaching Article 30.3(a) of the sporting regulations and Appendix L chapter 4 Article 2 (g) of the International Sporting Code.” – Source ITV-F1

What are these articles from the FIA Sporting Regulations;

“30.3 a) During practice and the race, drivers may use only the track and must at all times observe the provisions of the Code relating to driving behaviour on circuits.”

and

“g) The race track alone shall be used by the drivers during the race.”

So this is their justification for the ruling. A couple of very vague rules about only using the track which seem to have immense grey areas and don’t seem to be applied in the majority of cases, such as Kimi who ran wide and clearly gained an advantage. Not to mention others like Rosberg who ran off the track because they stayed out on Slicks.

Off the back of the previous Valencia decision for Massa and Ferrari who only got a fine having been found guilty of unsafe release in the pits so that he didn’t lose his win, it seems ridiculous. However with this penalty if he was guilty the only punishment that could be handed to Lewis was the drive through (if early enough in the race) or a 25 second penalty added to his time. This was the penalty he got.

Of course McLaren fans are filling the forums with cries of bias and so on against McLaren and after last year you can begin to see why. Not to mention the previous years when the FIA or Stewards have handed penalties to title rivals such as the incident with Renault’s “Mass Damper” system. The interesting thing about this penalty is that many, many Ferrari fans are also crying “foul!” on behalf of Lewis and McLaren. This penalty may discourage the use of chicanes to gain an advantage an Monza, but I think it will discourage real racing because someone going for a risky move will know that they may be penalised for doing what they are paid for.

I am biased towards Lewis and McLaren but I am even more biased towards the spectacle of the race and the idea of drivers actually being able to race on track without being taken to task after the race. I want the result to be about what happens on track and not decided by men in a boardroom who are subject to their own bias to keep a championship exciting or to hand the win to someone who was blatantly off the pace as Massa seemed to be!