2008 Belgian Grand Prix

[daan]

Finally to pre-empt the point that normally follows, that he didn't give enough back, I ask the questions that has still not been answered.

• How are both drivers to know and agree what the gap was at the start?
• How does the driver returning this now measure it?

Now I know why they have not been answered, because you can't know either of these things, certainly not during a race.

You give the place back, and then you don't overtake into the next corner. Once you're through that corner, racing is resumed.

All the drivers agree that Lewis shouldn't have overtaken Kimi into La Source. Given Lewis' superiority at that point, the pass was inevitable.

The drivers have now been told that. Now, Lewis wasn't to know that at the time, but something always has to happen to set a precedent.

 

[TheCracker]

I think in a day and age where overtaking is rare in F1, this ruling and rule clarification could really effect things in a negative way. Not only will it put drivers off from having a go at overtaking into a tight chicane but it also gives the potential overtaken driver an advantage as they can now freely place themselves, pretty much in their own time, however and wherever they want in the following corner too, totally removing any momentum a following driver may have built up.

 

[Famine]

You give the place back, and then you don't overtake into the next corner. Once you're through that corner, racing is resumed.

All the drivers agree that Lewis shouldn't have overtaken Kimi into La Source. Given Lewis' superiority at that point, the pass was inevitable.

The drivers have now been told that. Now, Lewis wasn't to know that at the time, but something always has to happen to set a precedent.

Given that the law wasn't in effect (or even proposed) during the GP, I expect the FIA will now go back and amend the race results from all events in history with similar incidents (Schumacher/De La Rosa springs to mind). Of course, with less than three laps remaining of all of these events, the drivers at fault must be given 25s penalties, against which they cannot possibly appeal.


And of course, lest we forget, Hamilton was penalised, according to the laws cited by the stewards, for leaving the track. Not overtaking while doing so, failing to give back an advantage, failing to give back sufficient advantage, but for not driving between the white lines like every other driver at Spa that week. Retroactive 25s penalties all round?

I'm still mystified why a McLaren FIA appeal about a race in Belgium needed representation from Ferrari at the behest of Italian motorsport's official body. Or why, if the FIA's position all along was that the drive through penalty Lewis was given could not possibly be appealed against (quite right - it's actually in the FIA rulebook this time), they granted an appeal hearing and wasted everyone's time for a day giving evidence and allowing a Ferrari official to cross-examine a McLaren driver when they were not even going to consider any of it anyway...

 

[Scaff]

You give the place back, and then you don't overtake into the next corner. Once you're through that corner, racing is resumed.

Which is not how the sporting regulations have ever been interpreted in the past at all. I 100% agree with TheCracker here, all this is likely to do is stop people overtaking.

Its a 'clarification' that popped up well after the race and that the FIA didn't seem to keen to have discussed in an appeal hearing.

All the drivers agree that Lewis shouldn't have overtaken Kimi into La Source. Given Lewis' superiority at that point, the pass was inevitable.

And all the ex-drivers agree that he was fine to overtake into La Source.

Lets be honest about this, the other drivers on the grid are his direct competitors and work for teams in direct competition to his tea. Quite frankly they have a vested interest in him not gaining the full set of points for the win.

A far more interesting question would be, if you put any of the other drivers in LH's position would they have acted a great deal differently?

The drivers have now been told that. Now, Lewis wasn't to know that at the time, but something always has to happen to set a precedent.

I agree that something has to be done to set a precedent. I just don't think that either the sporting regs clarification that has come out of this will help F1 as a sport, nor do I think the precedent is a healthy one at at that.

LH returned the place in a manner that totally matched the regulations as they existed at the time, he returned the place (by approx 7 metres and a slower speed) which is all the regs at the time stated must be done. Not a single word in the regulations mentions when you can or can't then attempt to pass again.


Regards

Scaff

 

[prisonermonkeys]

From your point of view.

Many of us consider this to be a case of a driver penalised for doing the right thing, just not right enough in the FIA's eyes.

No one has ever claimed that LH did not cut the chicane or that when he returned to the track he was in front of KR. However he then returned the place to KR and at one point was 7 meters behind him and going 6km/h slower, that however has been deemed to be just as serious an offence as not bothering to return the place at all.

As I said quite a while ago in this thread, this now sets a precedent that a driver should not bother returning any advantage gained, after all if the penalty for gaining an advantage is the same as the one for attempting to return it, then why bother returning it.

Finally to pre-empt the point that normally follows, that he didn't give enough back, I ask the questions that has still not been answered.

• How are both drivers to know and agree what the gap was at the start?
• How does the driver returning this now measure it?

Now I know why they have not been answered, because you can't know either of these things, certainly not during a race. Which is why it has always been accepted that returning the place (and to my mind being around two car lengths behind and moving slower is returning it) is all that is asked.

The FIA's clarification of the sporting regs was nothing of the sort, I've read the sporting regs and nothing even close to this clarification ever existed before this incident.

Its then rather telling that despite precedent being set, the FIA refuse to even hear the appeal.

Thats why a very large number of us believe the FIA has been unfair in this, now despite a few tongue in cheek posts I have made, I can assure you that I would be equally stubborn in my position regardless of the colour of the car.


Scaff

I'm pretty sure that if you look back over the regulations - or, more specifically, the history of when those regulations were introduced - you'll probably find that a lot of them did not exist prior to an incident similar to this one because those rules didn't need to be clarified until the time arose.

My ownself isn't buying into the notion that the FIA is in Ferrari's pocket. In fact, I think it's wholly natural that McLaren would draw the eye of the Powers That Be, and will continue to do so for some time because of the events of last year. Let's say you have a jar of cookies sitting on the kitchen counter, and that you have two kids named Ferrari and McLaren (we're going to ignore the fact that you have serious issues in naming your children as such). When you made cookies last week, McLaren took some of Ferrari's without Ferrari knowing about it, and then told Ferrari they had always had that many cookies. But when you looked at McLaren's cookies, you found they had more than they should have. You know how many cookies you made, and you know you divded them equally between Ferrari and McLaren. So it's apparent that McLaren took some of Ferrari's cookies.

Now this week you've made another batch of cookies and you're going to split them up equally. But when you go to count them, you find there are nineteen cookies in the jar, when you're certain you made twenty. It could be that you simply miscounted them when you were making them, but you remember what happened last week when McLaren took some of Ferrari's cookies. You're certain of what you're doing, so you decide it's more likely McLaren took one of the cookies before you could divide them up. So you investigate that first; if that comes up with nothing, you consider other possibilities like maybe you did mis-count them after all. If you were favouring Ferrari, you'd divide eighteen cookies up between the two, and then give cookie number nineteen to Ferrari simply because it's Ferrari.

It's the principle of Ockham's Razor: given two (or more) conflicting stories, the one that is more likely to be true is the one that requires less stretch of the imagination. You can believe that the FIA is corrupt and that Ferrari have been calling the shots for years simply because they have come out on top more often than not ... or you can believe that the FIA is once bitten, twice shy: McLaren were caught out in the past and awarded now the FIA are wary of them. The FIA are acting as the policeman of the sport, and if you watch policemen when they're investigating a crime, they'll look for people who hve committed similar crimes and were in the area at the time of the one they're investigating because they have a prior record. It doesn't mean that they are guilty of the crime this time, only that they're more likely to be guilty until proven otherwise. It's not favouritism at all.

 

[daan]

And all the ex-drivers agree that he was fine to overtake into La Source.

And 5 out of the 7 "Autosport Experts" agree that there were grounds for a penalty. (Page 9, Sept 11th issue)

I just think that what Lewis did deserved sanction, but that the penalty given was a bit harsh (but drive through/added time is the only penalty they have, as dropping him grid positions in the next race wouldn't have been right either), and that the FIA have made themselves look stupid. Again.

 

[P3nT4gR4m]

The one other factor that hasn't been mentioned here is that the result would have been different if Kimi had been (even in the slightest) competitive.

Any car, other than Kimi's Ferrari (and I'm not saying it was all the car's fault) would not have had to brake so early going into the chicane, ergo hamilton would not have had to take evasive action and, subsequently, never have left the track in the first place.

Any car other than Kimi's Ferrari would have pulled away from Lewis when presented with the gap and speed difference yielded. In a nutshell - Hamilton would only have caught Kimi's Ferrari, where he did, any other car would have been defending his racing line into la source, not zigzagging all over the place trying to keep the damn thing on the road.

I don't even see how this qualifies as a racing incident. Surely Raikkonen should have been blue flagged. How much longer was it till he hit the wall?

The FIA are acting as the policeman of the sport, and if you watch policemen when they're investigating a crime, they'll look for people who hve committed similar crimes and were in the area at the time of the one they're investigating because they have a prior record. It doesn't mean that they are guilty of the crime this time, only that they're more likely to be guilty until proven otherwise. It's not favouritism at all.

Of course you do realise that these "coppers" watched the CCTV footage and still nicked the wrong guy?

 

[Metar]

Two thirds of a lap later, he hit the wall - but he spun and left he track a few times before.


As for other cars, they were struggling just as much. Bourdais went from 4th to 7th, even though Heidfeld was the only one behind him who had a real advantage (wet tyres). Almost everyone was wiggling, spinning or barely moving, and Hamilton was pretty much the only one (save for the two running Wet tyres) who was still pushing successfully (Kimi was, too, and spun it several times), before he regained the lead.

 

[Scaff]

Oh look all the F1 drivers who were so sure that the penalty handed out to LH was bang on the money appear to have approached the FIA and asked them to look at the whole situation afresh.

The FIA has been asked by Formula One drivers to find a better solution to the problems caused by chicane cutting in the wake of the Lewis Hamilton Spa controversy.

With Hamilton having lost his appeal over the penalty he was handed for gaining an advantage by cutting a chicane in the Belgian Grand Prix, there remains some unease about the expected driver etiquette in similar situations.

Grand Prix Drivers' Association (GPDA) chairman Pedro de la Rosa thinks there has to be a better option to punish drivers for cutting chicanes, rather than the current guideline of handing back positions.

"The bottom line is that there is the need to find a better solution that keeps everyone happy," he told autosport.com. "We have spoken with Charlie (Whiting) and the FIA, and they are looking for a solution as well."

Chicane cutting has become a modern day issue because of the wide-open asphalt run off areas that now surround corners. Mistakes by drivers result in them simply running off the circuit without penalty and resuming further up the road.

De la Rosa admits there is a difficulty in finding an answer as to how to design chicanes whereby they are both safe and do not encourage drivers to cut across them.

"At the moment we have the best compromise," he said. "We all push for the asphalt run-offs, but one of the downsides of that is that you can cut corners without being penalised as much as with gravel or grass. So it's not all positive, but safety is first.

"We have that because it's the safest measure, so the second step is to make sure that if a driver jumps a chicane he gets a proper time loss so there is no controversy. That is the main objective. But the GPDA perspective is just about safety.

"I have nothing to say about jumping chicanes. We are happy with the run-off areas because we pushed for them, and now it is up to the FIA to find a solution to get proper time loss for a driver that jumps a chicane, not the GPDA."

De la Rosa does not believe that the wider use of speed bumps to hinder drivers who cut across chicanes would improve matters.

"It depends where you locate those. They should never be on the run-off areas, because it makes the car jump. But I am sure that there are other ways, or placing them in other areas. We are very happy with the asphalt, it is a massive step forward, but you cannot have all positives."

Source - http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/70800

Seems that as a collective body they are more than a little worried about ending up in the same situation.


Scaff

 

[livemusic]

The current solution seems just fine to me. Give back the position and only try to overtake after the next corner.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Of course you do realise that these "coppers" watched the CCTV footage and still nicked the wrong guy?

How did they "nick the wrong guy"? If that were the case, Raikkonen would have been the guilty party and Hamilton would have been the one to take the heat. And while Hamilton got in trouble for it, it wasn't Raikkonen's crime: he didn't do anything wrong.

 

[Famine]

How did they "nick the wrong guy"? If that were the case, Raikkonen would have been the guilty party and Hamilton would have been the one to take the heat. And while Hamilton got in trouble for it, it wasn't Raikkonen's crime: he didn't do anything wrong.

Except pass Hamilton on lap 2 at La Source by going off the track to the run-off on the left, pass Hamilton under waved yellows on lap 42 and drive off the track on lap 43 at Pouhon using the run-off on the right to increase the radius of the corner and close up on Hamilton - and in all cases fail to relinquish the advantage gained by performing these manouevres.

 

[P3nT4gR4m]

Except pass Hamilton on lap 2 at La Source by going off the track to the run-off on the left, pass Hamilton under waved yellows on lap 42 and drive off the track on lap 43 at Pouhon using the run-off on the right to increase the radius of the corner and close up on Hamilton - and in all cases fail to relinquish the advantage gained by performing these manouevres.

You forgot "Driving like an old woman, braking way early and way too much into the chicane and, in doing so, causing a perfectly innocent driver to be penalised for the crime of avoiding him"

Räikkönen should be have been charged with loitering!

 

[Touring Mars]

Räikkönen should be have been charged with loitering!