Same old story…
Apparently, the stewards at Sunday’s race missed two things that are obvious in this video. Firstly, Hamilton IS marginally ahead in the run down to the chicane; unfortunately, he’s on the outside, which is not the racing line for that corner. And secondly, he immediately gives the place back to Raikonnen - as they go down the pit straight, the McLaren is fully behind the weaving Ferrari.
McLaren have appealed against the penalty, but their appeal may not be allowable under FIA rules; it is unclear whether a time penalty (as opposed to a points penalty) can be appealed. Perhaps people wouldn’t be crying “FOUL” quite so loudly if it hadn’t been Ferrari that benefited from Hamilton’s demotion to third. After all, over recent seasons the FIA, and Max Moseley particularly, do seem to have been more than generous to the Italian team.
Lewis, where did it all go wrong?
This weekend’s French Grand Prix was not a good one for Lewis Hamilton. Following on from his disastrous mistake in Canada (running into the back of Kimi’s Ferrari, which was stopped at a red light on the pit lane exit), this weekend Lewis was deemed to have “gained an advantage” when he straight-lined a chicane as he tried to overtake Vettel. Hamilton is now fourth in the Championship, ten points behind leader Felipe Massa.
These things happen; Formula One is a fast, high-pressure sport where split-second decisions are required constantly and where even blinking at the wrong time could cause you to have a big accident. You can put them down as just racing incidents - just wasn’t having a good day. But after the promise of last season, which ended so crushingly with poor tactics in the second-last race and an attack of the nerves in the final race, it seems that Lewis is (already) in danger of doing a Coulthard (or a Button, in fact). Promising so much and not quite managing to deliver.
At the moment, Lewis’ problem seems to be that he thinks everyone is out to get him, saying in an interview this week “You can keep on giving me penalties, whatever you want. I’ll keep battling, and trying to come back with a result.” Lewis, they keep giving you penalties because you keep breaking the rules. You ran into the back of stationary car - in the pit lane, no less - two weeks ago, and didn’t have the grace to apologise properly for it (”I saw the red light but it was too late to stop. I don’t think it’s a racing incident. It’s just unfortunate when this stuff happens… I apologise to Kimi if I ruined his race”). Now, you straight-line a chicane because “I couldn’t turn in on the guy, or we would have crashed”, which seems to indicate that you hadn’t overtaken him until you went straight on.
I want to see Lewis win the Championship (it’s about time another Brit did) but I’ve got a horrible feeling that his chance this year is not as good as it was last year.
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