I think FOM holds the commercial rights for all F1-related media. Actually I would be disappointed with Bernie if he doesn't.

According to F1-Live.com:

"While FOM can and does legitimately claim ownership of official Formula One broadcast footage, the copyright to private recordings is by law possessed by the owner of the recording device unless a separate agreement is reached.

A copy of the original clip was, however, copied prior to its removal and can be viewed by clicking the link below."

you can find the above mentioned link, if it still exist, right here in their article... good on them~!

Thanks for that, now that makes sense and that's how I thought.

Anyway, here's the time sheet for first practice

Chinese GP free practice session 1 times
1. RAIKKONEN Ferrari 1m37.024s
2. ALONSO McLaren 1m37.108s
3. MASSA Ferrari 1m37.128s
4. HAMILTON McLaren 1m37.210s
5. ROSBERG Williams 1m37.707s
6. KUBICA BMW 1m38.055s
7. TRULLI Toyota 1m38.208s
8. FISICHELLA Renault 1m38.217s
9. NAKAJIMA Williams 1m38.270s
10. HEIDFELD BMW 1m38.445s
11. KOVALAINEN Renault 1m38.551s
12. SCHUMACHER Toyota 1m38.661s
13. COULTHARD Red Bull 1m38.700s
14. BUTTON Honda 1m38.942s
15. BARRICHELLO Honda 1m38.945s
16. SATO Super Aguri 1m39.238s
17. LIUZZI Toro Rosso 1m39.497s
18. WEBBER Red Bull 1m39.535s
19. DAVIDSON Super Aguri 1m39.539s
20. VETTEL Toro Rosso 1m39.898s
21. YAMAMOTO Spyker 1m40.126s
22. SUTIL Spyker 1m40.149s

the times means nothing of course.....

Lewis Hamilton: "I had a good weekend. I did nothing wrong neither put anyone in danger. Then I come to china and suddenly they want to penalise me of something. I think it's a shame for the sport. F1 should be tough and fair. I have tried to be fair this season. There's been several odd situations, where they have made me look like a bad person, and by the way things are looking right now, I'm probably getting a penalty."

That's not a straight quote, but my poor translation of a finnish headline originally taken from Reuters, because I couldn't find the original one. Didn't Lewis really have a clue what he did, or is he just lying and trying to play innocent?

It'd be pretty silly to admit to anything, no matter how vaguely. Although, I can't decide whether the part about getting the penalty is admitting he deseved it or more bs whining. Once you say you are innocent once, you gotta keep to the story. You know, admit nothing, deny everything

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/ ... es-shock-quit-threat.html

What a baby... LH has threatened to quit if he gets penalized for driving like a mo-ron at the Japanese GP.

BBC tv news just said that it was just announced that lewis hamilton will face no penaltys, but i cant find it anywhere online yet.

Reuters are reporting that no action has been taken. Hardly surprising, even if he did drive like an idiot there was no way he would be punished. If golden boy didn't win it would be bad for business.

even worse if he quit...

Quote from srdsprinter :

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/ ... es-shock-quit-threat.html

What a baby... LH has threatened to quit if he gets penalized for driving like a mo-ron at the Japanese GP.

Confirmed, the crybaby gets his way

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/63039

On the bright side, Vettel's 10-place penalty has been removed

Shame.

But at least we now know who the FIA's boy is. For ten years Hamilton will escape pretty much any penalty.

With any luck McLaren will have another 6 years in the doldrums

:thumbsdow

He lost a lot of respect in the last 6 days.

Am I missing something? I don't think he deserved to be penalised for two other drivers crashing behind him at low speed. It doesn't matter if he slowed down or what - Vettel wasn't looking where he was going and drove into the back of Webber.

If Vettel complained that Hamilton's car was shiny and it distracted him, will the stewards investigate that, too?

Quote from thisnameistaken :

If Vettel complained that Hamilton's car was shiny and it distracted him, will the stewards investigate that, too?

If only to find out what polishing agent McLaren uses, I would think they should.

Quote from mythdat :

On the bright side, Vettel's 10-place penalty has been removed

Some kind of real 'justice', at last...

All in all that's good news, at least I'll keep on sleeping on Sunday morning instead of waking up early for watching at a stupid / boring / useless so called 'race'.

I think I have enough of F1 as it is nowadays.
Let's put the drivers names into a hat and let the hazard to decide who gonna win the championship. Even better than seeing people overtaking in the pits only...

Quote from Lotesdelere :

Some kind of real 'justice', at last...

All in all that's good news, at least I'll keep on sleeping on Sunday morning instead of waking up early for watching at a stupid / boring / useless so called 'race'.

I think I have enough of F1 as it is nowadays.
Let's put the drivers names into a hat and let the hazard to decide who gonna win the championship. Even better than seeing people overtaking in the pits only...

Agreed. Some classic clear favoritism from the FIA. Even when MS was in the FIA's good graces, enough of the right people complained to make him accountable at least half the time.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Am I missing something?

Apparently?

From the official site:

Vettel was initially blamed for the shunt and was given a ten-place grid penalty for this weekend's Chinese Grand Prix as a result. However, after hearing evidence from all three drivers, and in light of the unusually severe weather conditions at the time of the accident, the stewards decided that sanctions were not appropriate and reduced Vettel's punishment to a reprimand.


Compared to these guys Al Capone was a total noob.

I do not think LH was completely innocent in the vettel/webber crash but from the footage that was shown LH, as everyone else, was accelerating and braking. Maybe he did it to a more extreme amount, I don't know, but from what can be seen and what, for example vettel said about watching LH not webber, then seems fair that LH shouldn't be punished.

Quote from Greboth :

I do not think LH was completely innocent in the vettel/webber crash but from the footage that was shown LH, as everyone else, was accelerating and braking. Maybe he did it to a more extreme amount, I don't know, but from what can be seen and what, for example vettel said about watching LH not webber, then seems fair that LH shouldn't be punished.

He was leading the pace, therefore everyone behind had to follow his idiotic/dangerous slowing/speeding random mix.

Tbh, I thought that move was a bit strange by LH and perhaps he should have been penalised for it, but from what that clip showed (I didn't see the whole race) it looked as if Vettel wasn't looking where he was going, and that he was going quite fast, even accelerating maybe.

Distracted by Webber or LH is beside the point, it was wet and visibility was crap which means he definitely should have been looking at where he was going, and he should be penalised for sheer, mind-boggling ignorance.

Quote from NotAnIllusion :

Tbh, I thought that move was a bit strange by LH and perhaps he should have been penalised for it, but from what that clip showed (I didn't see the whole race) it looked as if Vettel wasn't looking where he was going, and that he was going quite fast, even accelerating maybe.

This leaves a few questions unanswered: is the weather good enough as an excuse to get both of 'em out of jail for free? Why didn't the stewards recognise the weather was bad when they originally handed out the punishment to Vettel (and it wasn't during the race, so they had plenty of time)? Did the weather change in the memory of the stewards from the initial handling of the punishment?

There's no logic whatsoever in this decision. It just smells badly.

Weird, but when i watch the video i get the strange feeling of team-work, between hamilton and vettel

Were they friends before F1?

But, another DNF by webber, i haven't seen that before..

Quote from NotAnIllusion :

Distracted by Webber or LH is beside the point, it was wet and visibility was crap which means he definitely should have been looking at where he was going, and he should be penalised for sheer, mind-boggling ignorance.

I know this won't make the slightest bit of difference to the FIA, because consistency in governance is something they actively strive to avoid, but I don't think Schumacher or Montoya got penalised for crashing behind the safety car in the tunnel at Monaco that time.

Old stuff but new piece of info is that Renault really got the "ease off" advice from the race director...

"Kovalainen is at the centre of fresh intrigue about what was going on behind the safety car, amid reports that Renault advised him to stay well back of Hamilton on advice from FIA race director Charlie Whiting.

When asked about why that happened, Kovalainen said: "Honestly, you would need to ask Charlie [Whiting] from the FIA. I don't know why.

"I was surprised to hear from my team that I had a warning from the FIA to not get too close to Lewis. I was surprised, because I didn't feel I was causing any danger to anyone.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/63035

The plot thickens.


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