“You just need one example to debunk that theory: At Monaco the stewards noticed that on [Kimi] Raikkonen’s F2008 the wheels had not been fitted before the three-minute mark as required by the regulations.
“So the stewards penalised Kimi with a drive-through at a track where you can’t overtake.”

I can hardly believe it! follow the link to this previous post…

http://vee8.doctorvee.co.uk/2008/10/18/alan-donnelly-inadvertently-reveals-fias-ferrari-bias/

Keep up the good work Alan…

Without “bringing the sport into disrepute” (which one presumes would have a Mosley vendetta, large fines and infinite bias as its result), no one dares to speak out from within the F1 circus; you can see Ron Dennis chewing his lip right off after every penalty, misrepresented racing incident, and justification of Ferrari dominance (let’s be fair; the Ferrari is by far the better vehicle).
If there is arrogance in F1 it is from Ferrari and Massa who seems to know that Mosley, sorry, God, is on his side. So move over, Force India, the red car wants to leave the pits; move over Toro-Rosso; don’t you know you can’t leave the pits when a Ferrari is racing you?

F1, sadly, is a joke in 2008.

Is it too late to hope that Kubica brings himself into contention as possible WDC for this year? Because the way Lewis is having brain fades lately and the points ‘given’ to Massa by Ferrari International Assistance, its looking like Massa for 2008 WDC – a fate I don’t even wish to contemplate.

Oh and BTW Go Alonso ! What an absolute storming drive by Fernando, which put paid to the ‘oh he only won in SG because of the safety car’ chorus.
His win(s) are the more special because they have not been from pole, not in the best car on the grid, and have been anything but easy cruises to the chequered flag. I knew he had it in him !

*very happy Alonso fan*

To some extent I feel sorry for him, if he loses two championships in a row this way, it is going to be really tough for LH to recover.

At this time it is quite obvious FA should stay at Renault, don’t you think?

You say that “Räikkönen spends a lot of time going straight trying to avoid Hamilton when undoubtedly he would otherwise be turning into the corner” – and that is the result of allowing another driver to get inside you. It’s called racing and Kimi’s mistake was in letting Hamilton get there at all. Then you say that “Räikkönen even moves slightly to his left, away from the apex of the corner, to avoid the out-of-control Hamilton”. In fact and as the video shows quite clearly, Raikkonen moves left while Hamilton is still tucked in behind him. That Lewis must be quite something if he can affect a driver’s actions from behind him.

What happens next is quite interesting. Raikkonen starts moving left, Hamilton sees the opportunity and pops out from the Ferrari’s slipstream (let’s ignore the matter of Kovalainen as it’s a different argument and the stewards apparently couldn’t see Heikki anyway). Very quickly he is alongside Kimi and (this is the bit I had to run through over and over again because I could hardly believe my eyes) Raikkonen moves back right until they bump wheels. I know, sounds like a Hamilton groupie excuse, but watch it again – there is no question that it was Kimi that caused the contact between the two.

Anyway, that’s racing and no big deal until the stewards start handing out penalties – selectively! I do also quibble with the idea that Hamilton’s move set up a chain reaction and endangered everyone in the race. Once it was clear that Hamilton’s wheels were locked up and he was not going to make the corner, all Raikkonen had to do was wait for him to plough straight on and then turn in – standard racing procedure and executed by Hamilton on Massa a couple of times last year. But that is the point at which Kovalainen comes into play, preventing Kimi from turning in.

I do not argue with the point that Hamilton dropped a big one by going for the gap – with hindsight it’s obvious that he would have done better to have sat behind Kimi through the corner. But to penalize him for such a typical first corner mistake after ignoring similar incidents for decades looks far too much like victimization by the stewards.

Samuel — I’m not sure how you conclude that Massa was the one who was disadvantaged by the penalties. It may be so that Massa would have had a good result, more so than Hamilton, without his penalty. But the Bourdais penalty was a plain straightforward gift of one world championship point to Massa, no racing required.

Neil — What’s up with my RSS feed? It’s working fine for me.

Ponzonha — You’re absolutely right that strange stewards’ decisions are nothing new. My worry is that these strange decisions happened only once in a blue moon. You are absolutely right about Alonso in Monza, and indeed in Hungary.

This year, however, it is beginning to happen on a race-by-race basis. Whether we are talking about the stewards getting it all wrong with Alonso and Massa in Valencia; Heidfeld and Barrichello in Singapore, before the Nico Rosberg bungle; Hamilton in Belgium; and now the travesty of Fuji — these decisions are becoming worryingly frequent and are beginning to seriously spoil my enjoyment of the sport as a whole.

I think in Britain primarily the outrage is about the Bourdais penalty. When I saw the ‘package deal’ penalties of Massa and Hamilton being given out, I didn’t particularly like it but I tolerated it. Our commentators on Radio 5 Live said straight away after the start that the stewards might want to look at what Hamilton did, and so it proved to be the case. And Martin Brundle on ITV began the post-race analysis by asking, “Did Lewis Hamilton leave his brain on the grid today?” I think most people here are under no illusion that Hamilton completely fouled it up yesterday (I’ll have a post about the race itself coming up later). They are not particularly outraged about his penalty, though many think that Massa’s was more deserved. The Bourdais one, though.. that’s what’s got everyone stumped I think, and that’s certainly the one that has got right under my skin.

Cheers.