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It's Penalty After Penalty For McLaren
By Emma Aitken June 23 2008
Even with an exhaust flapping around in the wind Kimi Raikkonen managed to get his Ferrari to finish second, after having to hand an easy win to his team mate Massa. The stewards decided that Hamilton's run off at the Nurburgring chicane enabled him to take Vettel's position and he paid the price for it.

Another race and another horror for Lewis Hamilton. Getting in to any decent points winning position was always going to be tricky, what with his ten place penalty and with both Ferrari’s looking so good in France this weekend. But incurring a drive through penalty during the race itself was pretty much game over for the young Brit.

Now, I’m no great expert, but from where I was sitting it looked to me like Lewis had already taken the place from Vettel before he cut across the Nurbugring chicane. The McLaren team are the experts though and they thought the move was legitimate too. These guys have seen enough to get straight on to the radio to inform their drivers to cede their position if they thought the move was questionable. Lewis didn’t see it as a problem and neither did the team on the wall.

Martin Whitmarsh said,

“We weren’t aware that the incident was questionable until a number of laps later when it was displayed on our monitors that Car 22 was under investigation.

“When the footage was replayed, it looked to us as if Lewis was comfortably past the other car before he straight lined the chicane.

“We expressed our opinion to the FIA but, by that point it was not possible to ask Lewis to drop back and relinquish the position.”

Obviously not, as it took seven laps for McLaren to find out that the stewards were taking a look at the move. Little wonder Whitmarsh’s final comment was this.

“We fully accept that in this instance the guys on the pitwall didn’t have all the information available to the stewards working in the calm and quiet of the race control office.”

Enough said. Things just don’t seem to be going McLaren’s way of late. I’m not leaping on the McLaren witch hunt band wagon just yet though. People said after the chequered flag fell in France that what with a ten place penalty for Lewis coming in to the weekend plus the five place penalty for Heikki after blocking Webber in qualifying, followed by the drive through penalty for Lewis during the race, it seems the team might be, for want of a better phrase, being picked on. OK, it’s been a rough weekend for them but let’s put this in to perspective. Lewis made a huge error in Montreal and paid the price for it (along with Rosberg who did exactly the same thing and who doesn’t, as far as I recall drive a McLaren) and Mr. Kovalainen did block Webber during qualifying and whether it was intentional or not, to block is to be penalised.

In my opinion (which isn’t worth much I grant you) Lewis had taken Vettel’s place fair and square but the stewards said otherwise. Those said same stewards could have given Lewis a stop go penalty or, according to the ever knowledgeable Martin Brundle, could have sent him back down the grid by ten places in Silverstone in a couple of weeks (God forbid; I’m going to that race to see our boy win) but they didn’t. They gave him the lesser of the penalties available to them so I’m inclined to think that if the powers that be were bullying McLaren they would be making a better of it.

It wasn’t all bad though. Heikki Kovalainen did a tremendous job to finish in fourth and his battle with Trulli for that final podium place provided us, the viewers, with some fantastic racing action which is, after all, what we all tune in for. Despite all the penalty issues there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with the MP4-23. It’s certainly handling well and does have great race pace.

In saying that though, those Ferrari’s are looking far too good for my liking. They’re both lean, mean fighting machines. Massa was race winner yet we hardly saw any coverage of him. Once away from the starting lights both the F2008’s charged off in to the distance, seemingly in a little race of their own. Had it not been for the exhaust of Kimi Raikkonen flailing around in the wind, we wouldn’t have really seen anything of him either. The camera’s popped back to them occasionally, probably just to check they hadn’t finished yet. And even with a red hot exhaust pipe losing him precious horse power and burning a dirty great big hole in his car’s body work, the Finn still managed to trot home in second place. It makes me weep.

It was an interesting turn up for the books to see Trulli do so well in Magny-Cours. Just when you think BMW have all the answers both Kubica and Heidfeld have a pig of a race. It’s made the Red Bulls sit up a bit too. That best of the rest mid-field pack just refuses to settle in to a routine.

So Formula 1 moves on to Blighty. Lewis Hamilton may have jumped ship to Geneva but this is where his heart is and this is where he really wants to win. I can hardly wait to get there!  

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