Okay, let’s cut to the chase. Lewis Hamilton’s drive-through penalty was harsh – but what else could the officials do? There is no lesser punishment and there is no question that Hamilton gained an advantage when he passed the Toro Rosso of Sebastian Vettel going into Turn 6.
It doesn’t matter in the slightest that he had gained the place before turning in to the corner. The fact is that he did it by carrying so much speed that there was no way he could get round the corner, as demonstrated by the McLaren having to take to the run-off and by-pass the second part of the chicane, Turn 7.
I don’t blame Hamilton for pressing on – in fact, it was great to watch – but his biggest mistake was not to let Vettel re-take the place immediately, much as drivers do when they over-shoot the harbour chicane at Monaco.
Then it would have been ‘job done’ rather than undergo the drive-through that wrecked his chances of taking points.
Should the team have advised Hamilton immediately the incident had taken place? Maybe they missed the initial television shots. Maybe they didn’t. That is a matter between Hamilton and his increasingly embattled team.
Hamilton’s biggest threat now is letting a perceived injustice play on his mind as the season reaches the half way point and he finds himself 10 points behind the championship leader going into the British Grand Prix. Ten points is not an insurmountable gap with 10 races to go. It’s been done before. Ask Kimi Raikkonen.
When raikonnen did it, he and his team seemed to be improving. Hamilton and his team do not.
Another week, another Hamilton clanger. I’m almost tired leaving “Hamilton clanger” comments on the TG website! There is no doubt he is immensely talented and over a single lap is one of the best two or three in the world… but put a bit of pressure on, give him a task in the front of the biggest audience in the world and the boy crumbles fast. I’d still like to see him win the world championship some time but it’ll be a travesty if he wins it this year with his poor form and temperament.
Hamilton is quick,no question about that, but what I find irritating about him is his faux altar boy attitude. Watching the season review DVD you get a feel that Hamilton isn’t really what he comes across in the interviews, and in this season it’s even more evident. Last year it was all the evil Spaniard’s fault, but this year there’s no scapegoat for him. I hope he get’s his act together, but I also hope he matures.
You guys can say all that you want about Kimi being boring to interview, but at least he isn’t pretending to be something he isn’t.
thats stupid. he had already overtaken vettel by the corner as he had the racing line, it was just he ddint slow down enough to take the corner due to having to navigate past vettel
What a stupid movement. Why he didn’t leave Vettel to pass him back?
Anyway, Forza Ferrari!
The world’s media have since last season , Painted a larger than life picture of Hamilton. The British Press in particular, and perhaps buoyed on by the lacklustre performances of both Button and Coulthard in recent seasons, were extremely pleased to ” overhype the new young rookie” last season and at the start of this one. His mistakes and those of his team in recent weeks, were bound to happen sometime in his new career , and the media and his fans should actually be glad that it is happening now- and we expect that he will learn valuable lessons from the same- rather than later this season, or indeed in his career.The lad will settle down and do his most impressive racing soon, so i think the media and any hype or illusions they may have had about him, should back off , and give him breathing space.
Oh come on, he was already past him! The FIA expects him to steer harshly back onto the track and risk T-boning Vettel?
Nonsense. But maybe if there were more camera views to see it from, we could see it better. Darn French, limiting camera views to the one that makes the British guy look bad.
What? Biased?
Justified or not, Hamilton’s penalty raises two issues.
First, why did it take until lap 14 for an incident to be punished that happened halfway around the first lap? Why couldn’t the stewards have acted quickly and told Hamilton to let him back through? What we got was a ruined race whether you like Hamilton or not because we were denied the spectacle of a driver trying to force his way through the field.
Second, everyone agrees F1 lacks overtaking. Being this harsh on an arguable incident will make drivers think twice before attempting a daring pass. Great, let’s just have 70 laps of follow the leader.
He deserved it!
I don’t see where the controversy comes from, except it seems that the ITV F1 team don’t know the laws of F1. He clearly gained an advantage (as per the laws). The laws don’t seem to say anything about gaining a place, just gaining an advantage.
ITV are very biased towards hamilton- calling him ‘a young senna’ and such, so when he was punished for breaking the rules they could not believe it. But the fact of the matter is he broke the rules and got punished.
Given it was so early on in the race, I just cannot believe that he didn’t yield the position on his own accord just in case; beter lose 1 position instead of x many seconds from a drive through penalty.
Hamilton yet again proves that he is a child behind the wheel of an F1.
Try watching the video again. The only reason he didn’t make the chicane is because the rolling road block Coulthard was so slow through there.
Funny how we do not have any shots of the incident from Vettels car to see whether Lewis was past or not, why is that?
The Ferrari International Assistance do it again. Why was Kimi not shown the Black and Orange flag?!? Surely a part of the car hanging off for 30 laps (especially a hotand heavy part) is a dangerous situation for drivers, marshalls and spectators?
Whether he deserved it or not, Hamilton’s punishment was unfair in the way it was handled. F1 can learn a lot from American motorsport where penalties are handed out within minutes of an incident occurring, not 13 laps or so later. What exactly were the stewards doing between laps 2 and 13 that prevented them from making a decision earlier? And what if a couple more incidents had occurred while they were looking at Hamilton’s? Would we have seen a driver being punished on lap 65 for something he did on lap 20? It’s farcical the most technically advanced sport in the world can’t reach decisions quicker. Cricket, rugby and even tennis use replays and virtual images to give almost instant decisions. Come on FIA, you’re becoming a joke.
This is digusting that a whole section of your website should be dedicated to the overrated driver that is Hamilton.
He once again proved in Magny Cours he is no good when the going gets tough, and can only do well when EVERYTHING is going his way.
He is buckling under the pressure, and his driving is scruffy. He struggles to come back through the field (think Nurburgring last year, Bahrain, France this year) unlike Felipe Massa, who is hugely underrated and can overtake, unlike Lewis, as he proved in Britain last year and in Canada.
And yes I saw Lewis at Istanbul in GP2, but F1 GP2 is not.
The shortest distance between two points is a straight line… But you see, Lewis, that doesn´t really apply when overtaking someone during a F1 race.
Young Senna… yeah, right.
Lewis’ punishment was harsh but UNFAIR. He’d already made the pass so there was no advantage except that, if he hadn’t left room by ‘cutting’ the chicane, both he and Vettel would have been out.
I am a Ferrari fan, but can’t understand the FIA double standards. If they don’t sort out a fair way of applying the rules, the audience will disappear.
The penalty was fair but was handled wrong. They should have dealt with it straight away and not waited 13 laps!
As far as Hamilton goes and for that matter any F1 driver, I have great admiration for what they do. To travel at the speeds they go and be as precise as they are takes great skill and guts.
Max claims to be doing his best to make F1 more exciting and make more overtaking to try save us from a boring sunday afternoon.
Yet when Hamilton livens things up by making some daring overtaking manoeuvre he get penalised… hard. This did not even cost Vetell bugger all.
If you race in a Ferrari you can plough into the back of a Force India and take it totally out of the best finish its ever likely to acheive (and in the most highly prized race) and get no penalty at all.
Max should focus on what he gets paid to do more…
M
Yeh and if you are McLaren you can steal a 750 page document, have your driver cause a crash behind the safety car, have Ferrari compromised due to an email they never received, and still lose the championship!
Both Lewis’s penalties were fair, remember on the Vettel incident, the stewards had footage we did not.
For all of those wondering why it took so long, remember that McLaren (more specifically Ron) decided to fight with Charlie Whiting, the race director, over it. This is what dragged out the process. If he did what many team principles do, which is shut up, accept it, be glad it wasn’t worse, rework the strategy, and race the race, he, and Hamilton would be much better off.
It seems we have a group of lawyers defending Hamilton here… “He was past Vettel”
So what is essentially being suggested, that regardless of what comes after, if your car is past another you can pretty much take the line you want with no consequences – so if you’re in Monaco through the tunnel you keep your foot down, down the hill when the car in front brakes you guarantee you’ll be ahead and wont have to cede the place (sure your car may break but this an example).
It seems the feeling, and basis, for defending Hamilton and Maclaren (who I feel were at fault here) is a supposed conspiracy that is designed to keep Ferrari ahead and winning titles – despite this being a commercial negative to the sport in general. A conspiracy that large, simply could not be kept quite – the funds that would be required to keep it going would be phenomenal given that the merest suggestion from a steward to the press would make that steward a multi millionaire overnight.
It seemed evident, and if we could see the full set of camera angles and view the telemetry (Interesting to compare to the rest of his laps in that corner), the overtaking move was achieved by braking too late – most likely a result of the common error of braking too late when behind a much slower car/driver. The commentators noted the incident at the time; the team should have advised Hamilton to allow Vettel back past.
And lets just take a view on Maclaren here – given the commentators felt it would investigated, why on earth would a team with a conspiracy working against them not make the safe call and reverse positions?
just to add to my last coment, how are we meant to talk to a finnish person who cant he is like the fliping stig great driver poor social skills
hamilton can really go a long way. i do agree when most of you say that he cant handle any pressure and all, but come on! this is only his second season, and his 1st without traction control, most of the drivers have atleast 3-4 years of experience but he still manages to give them a serious run for their money. admit it. both kubica nor kimi had a chance againt lewis at the canadian gp if it wasnt for the safety car coming out due to adrian sutil retirement. he was pulling away about a second per lap which by no means is an easy task when you have a ferrari on your tail. it’d be nice to see him win in silverstone after those last 2 races and really prove his worth.
i think his penalty was not harsh, it was totally deserved, he should have given the position back and he did not, if that was a track like monaco he could not have got away with cutting the corner and that is why tracks should not have large run off areas.
if it had been Ferrari who made the same move as Hamilton, the stewards would have asked ever so kindly, “If it’s not too much trouble, could you…um…please ask your driver to slow up and let Vettel retake the position? Um, if that’s alright with you. No rush.” But since it was a McLaren they jumped right on the opportunity to give Hamilton a drive-through penalty. I’ve seen this same thing happen many times before, and this is the first time I can recall that someone was given a drive-through penalty for overshooting a corner. Especially when Hamilton made the pass before the corner. Yes, you can say he never would have been able to make the pass had he been traveling at the speed he would have needed to be going in order to make the corner, but come on, it’s not like the pass happened as he was overshooting it. Hamilton probably figured he was in the clear since he passed Vettel before corner and that the stewards would chock up the overshoot to brake lock-up. There is no reason the stewards could not have made an attempt to ask him to give the position back. Especially since it was VETTEL! Not exactly someone who’s in the fight for the championship.