i'm saying that if he'd been realistic about who he was racing, he wouldn't have put himself in a position where cutting the track was his only option.

Quote from evilgeek :

i'm saying that if he'd been realistic about who he was racing, he wouldn't have put himself in a position where cutting the track was his only option.

The reality was that Kimi wasn't handling the wet nearly as well as Lewis. On the way into the chicane Lewis was way infront, just by the gain from the braking zone. Turning in at that point nearly a whole car length ahead, would you have thought "Nah" and backed off?

In one way I do agree with you. He should've realised "I'm racing a Ferrari" and instead given Kimi a 3-second lead back, then passed him a couple of miles later. Although he probably still would've been penalised for it.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

The reality was that Kimi wasn't handling the wet nearly as well as Lewis. On the way into the chicane Lewis was way infront, just by the gain from the braking zone. Turning in at that point nearly a whole car length ahead, would you have thought "Nah" and backed off?

In one way I do agree with you. He should've realised "I'm racing a Ferrari" and instead given Kimi a 3-second lead back, then passed him a couple of miles later. Although he probably still would've been penalised for it.

Whole car length?!

Watch it again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXVT4CO6ALM

Hamilton was barely a wing's width in front, if that.

Erm that is a VERY bad angle to judge the distance. Look at the picture in page 18 (last page) that someone posted. At least its a bit more sideways and you see clearly that Hamilton's rear right was at Kimi's front left wheel.

Fair enough.

Anyway, point being: Hamilton didn't take the lead at La Source because of any advantage gained in the chicane, he took the lead because Kimi was too timid braking for the corner. Should he really have let Kimi back infront again just because he was so slow?

Either way he would've (and did) had him later in the lap, that much was obvious, there's just no need for this judgement at all. All the stewards have done is cast the race winner in an unpleasant light and diminish his achievement, not to mention hugely shortening the championship lead he should have. And they've made the sport less credible yet again - twice in two weeks. Good going, idiots.

Quote from evilpimp :

Erm that is a VERY bad angle to judge the distance. Look at the picture in page 18 (last page) that someone posted. At least its a bit more sideways and you see clearly that Hamilton's rear right was at Kimi's front left wheel.

Sideways photos are very dangerous. Unless you analyse the angles, the distances can be very misleading.

However, I'm open-minded, so I took that picture you refer to and drew how far ahead Lewis actually was. Lewis' lead is coloured yellow. It's the lead you'd see if the left-most part of Kimi's car is touching the right-most part of Lewis' car.

The nose of Kimi's car would have been about two feet in front of Lewis's helmet if you factor in the angles.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Anyway, point being: Hamilton didn't take the lead at La Source because of any advantage gained in the chicane, he took the lead because Kimi was too timid braking for the corner. Should he really have let Kimi back infront again just because he was so slow?

Either way he would've (and did) had him later in the lap, that much was obvious, there's just no need for this judgement at all. All the stewards have done is cast the race winner in an unpleasant light and diminish his achievement, not to mention hugely shortening the championship lead he should have. And they've made the sport less credible yet again - twice in two weeks. Good going, idiots.

Yes, I agree that the judgement was unnecessary. However Hamilton is partly to blame because he did create the ambiguity.

Alonso had to cede position twice in the Alonso vs Klien case, and whatever protests we fans might have regarding Michael Schumacher's preferential treatment in another similar case, the stewards had decided to stick to the harsher precedent.

The thing for Hamilton to do would have been to back off completely and stayed at least partially on track, even though it would have given Kimi quite a big lead.

Yep, I agree actually. But the lead seems a little bit bigger... Like were the circle ends on the cars painting :P Either ways his car is like half a car length in front so I really dont see why he'd back off... Is braking late on perpous just to push someone off the track really allowed in F1? If so I've just lost quite a bit of respect (the little amount left after such a stupid decision)

There's been a lot of talk about the overtaking incident but a lot less about Hamilton's weaving after the incident. David Hobbs on the SPEED coverage mentioned this at the time. If you watch it he definitely made 3 moves and possibly 4 on the straight. Raikkonen initially followed him for the first couple so he was trying to slipstream back past. Even if Hamilton didn't deserve the penalty for the chicane incident, should he have got it for weaving?

Quote from amp88 :

There's been a lot of talk about the overtaking incident but a lot less about Hamilton's weaving after the incident. David Hobbs on the SPEED coverage mentioned this at the time. If you watch it he definitely made 3 moves and possibly 4 on the straight. Raikkonen initially followed him for the first couple so he was trying to slipstream back past. Even if Hamilton didn't deserve the penalty for the chicane incident, should he have got it for weaving?

I thought that might have been just trying to warm his tyres up~? or at least I hoped he was... lol

but no matter what a drive through have been handed down, and apparantly you can't appeal to a drive through penalty so the McLaren's appeal might not be "admissable" or whatever the FIA person said... nothing can be done about it anymore other than knowing in many of our hearts the very exciting racing (which doesn't happens very often) has been screwed by the FIA.

amp: AFAIK you can only be penalized for making excessive moves on a straight when you're the lead car trying to block someone from passing you, which was not the case here. The chasing car can make as many moves as he likes, but the lead car can only make one move. In this case there isn't really a clear lead car - Hamilton has a lead at the start of the straight, then relinquishes it and cuts across the back of Raikkonen more or less in one movement - so I can't really see that rule applying.

Quote from AdamW :

amp: AFAIK you can only be penalized for making excessive moves on a straight when you're the lead car trying to block someone from passing you, which was not the case here. The chasing car can make as many moves as he likes, but the lead car can only make one move. In this case there isn't really a clear lead car - Hamilton has a lead at the start of the straight, then relinquishes it and cuts across the back of Raikkonen more or less in one movement - so I can't really see that rule applying.

I think he was refering to after Eau Rouge, when Hamilton was in the lead and weaved right-left-right.

but just to reiterate what I said above, the drive through wasn't handed for this anyway.

Quote from S3ANPukekoh3 :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWNN5W_B-Zk

3:28-3:50

Can't believe they even thought about penalizing Hamilton for this, The FIA seriously just lost like a million fans

the FIA NEVER had a million fans to begin with anyway~

If you watch the video you can see when he cuts he doesn't seem to let go of the throttle to let kimi past, kimi just had better speed, which would mean there is a clear advantage.

Yes but if he hadn't of cut he wouldn't be anywhere near that close to him for a overtake on the next turn.

hence the advantage.

Well well well...

Of all people, Ferrari's team principal reckon's Hamilton's move was just racing:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/spo ... aikkonen-pass-racing.html

Talk about friends in strange places! Somehow, I don't think the mafia will be too happy about that.

Massa, naturally, thinks otherwise:
http://f1.gpupdate.net/en/news ... ove-was-optimistic-massa/

Quote from Massa :

Incidents like this have often been discussed in the official driver briefings when it has been made absolutely clear that anyone cutting a chicane has to fully restore the position and also any other eventual advantage gained...
...If Lewis had taken the chicane correctly, he would never have been able to pass Kimi on the very short straight that follows it. That was my immediate opinion after seeing the replay. Maybe if Lewis had waited and tried to pass on the next straight, that would have been a different matter.

Interesting.

Well of course thats Massas oppinon, he wants to keep that 4 point gain on Hamilton doesn't he!

Don't blame him.

Quote from amp88 :

There's been a lot of talk about the overtaking incident but a lot less about Hamilton's weaving after the incident. David Hobbs on the SPEED coverage mentioned this at the time. If you watch it he definitely made 3 moves and possibly 4 on the straight. Raikkonen initially followed him for the first couple so he was trying to slipstream back past. Even if Hamilton didn't deserve the penalty for the chicane incident, should he have got it for weaving?

True, the weaving was a bit dodgy but not penalty worthy as he wasn't blocking Kimi by doing it. In fact I believe it may have been an angry reaction to Kimi ramming his front wing into Lewis' rear tyre in La Source, which was by far the most dangerous and unsporting move of the day.

And samjh thanks for the new perspective and picture analysis. I have to concede that AdamW was right to be very careful with respect to camera angles. But even if he is a bit less ahead than I though, the fact that he is ahead under braking at all still means that the idea that he should go through the chicane behind Kimi is absurd. It's either side by side, crash or one car leaves the track.

The real issue that nobody is talking about though is who are these steward guys anyway? They certainly don't have any credentials that should allow them to make sporting decisions like this one. How long is F1 going to continue letting amateurs make important decisions, having rules that are so poorly defined that consistent penalties are impossible, having guys in their eighties in the most powerful positions, having a leading representative who is known to enjoy twisted sado sex? F1 is stuck in the past and needs to catch up with modern times. I'm not watching until they do.

Quote from samjh :

Massa, naturally, thinks otherwise:
http://f1.gpupdate.net/en/news ... ove-was-optimistic-massa/

But who cares about Massa's opinion. He's the guy who said in Valencia that Sutil had no right to do 80 km/h in the fast lane of the pit lane because he was a backmarker.

Well let's face it Massa, as good as he is becoming as a racing driver, isn't going to be solving the Einstein connundrum yet (German, green door, btw).

Quote from J.B. :

But who cares about Massa's opinion. He's the guy who said in Valencia that Sutil had no right to do 80 km/h in the fast lane of the pit lane because he was a backmarker.

and don't forget his blatant view of what is "blocking" in qualifying. Monza 2006 I believe it was...

Massa is doing a reasonable job on the track lately, but someone please tell Massa to just STFU.

Quote from samjh :

Quote from massa :

Incidents like this have often been discussed in the official driver briefings when it has been made absolutely clear that anyone cutting a chicane has to fully restore the position and also any other eventual advantage gained...
...If Lewis had taken the chicane correctly, he would never have been able to pass Kimi on the very short straight that follows it. That was my immediate opinion after seeing the replay. Maybe if Lewis had waited and tried to pass on the next straight, that would have been a different matter.

Interesting.

"also any other eventual advantage gained."

but in doing this, what people seem to forget is that lewis hamilton actually lost his normal racing advantage. he was already overlapping raikkonen - the second part of the chicane, hamilton had inside line, and was squeezed off the track. in slowing his car down, he actually lost the half-car overlap he had going into the second part of the chicane, AND yielded a cars length. in my opinion, hamilton did more than he was required, in terms of playing fair. also, the resulting overtaking move was under breaking into a corner, not slipstreaming down a long straight, so there was no advantage gained there either.

it's just about applying high school physics to a little bit of common sense.

have you seen the cockpit video, he never slowed down to let kimi past, kimi just got better grip.

http://en.f1-live.com/f1/en/he ... detail/080908154353.shtml

Quote :

But it is suggested that the court's first task might be to assess whether the case is even admissible, because the Hamilton penalty was actually issued as a "drive-through" that was unable to be served in the normal way because the incident occurred so late in the race.

Drive-through penalties cannot be appealed.

Referring to McLaren's appeal, an FIA official confirmed to the British newspaper The Times that he was "not sure if it would be admissible."

I don't see what the problem is either. He came into the corner behind Kimi, and left the corner much closer to Kimi than he would have been had he not cut.

Surely being closer is an advantage. And it was gained by cutting the track. Which bit doesn't make sense here?

He'd have still won if he hadn't cut it, and he'd have passed Kimi later in the lap. But by what is effectively cheating he got a deserved penalty.

Quote from FIA Official :

Referring to McLaren's appeal, an FIA official confirmed to the British newspaper The Times that he was "not sure if it would be admissible.

The FIA don't even know how their own rules work...

The video clip below was posted earlier in this thread but no one seemed to pick up on it's relevance.

If all you Hamilton haters are suggesting that Lewis fully deserved a 25sec penalty for going off track and gaining a sporting advantage, then by the same token these two should be due to start the 2008 Australian GP a fortnight come Sunday http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... 5Ixas&feature=related

Anyway, enough of this bollocks, lets hear about this wall of yours Tristan