I don’t know if you saw the Belgian Grand Prix, but it was full of excitement. That’s not actually true. It was exciting in the way that F1 normally is. Which is to say, lots happens at the start, there’s a boring middle where there’s a few changeovers thanks to pitting and then there’s a wonderful ending. In this case, an ending that began, for Raikkonen at least, somewhere around the fifth lap.
Let’s fast forward again. There was Lewis Hamilton, taking the top podium position and spraying people with champagne. He thought he’d won. Well, he had won, according to the stewards and just about everyone else that mattered (barring, one would assume, Ferrari).
In the second to last lap, after gaining ferociously on the prime tyres, Hamilton roared up behind Raikkonen, just waiting for him to make a mistake. The time came, he overtook him, the opposite then happened and it was a genuine battle of wills between two great machines and two great drivers. Unfortunately though, Raikkonen locked up, smashing his car into a barrier that resulted in him being taken out of the race.
However, it wasn’t that incident that the stewards were interested in (at least not for the purposes of the title anyway). It was the moment when Hamilton and Raikkonen were head to head, or rather wheel to wheel. It literally couldn’t have been closer. Unfortunately, Hamilton got pushed wide and had to use the ‘escape route’ commonly found on many corners. This meant that he had to give Raikkonen first place. Hand it back to him if you will, as otherwise it would be declared an unfair advantage.
Lewis Hamilton, showing more wisdom than he would have done last season, did so. He did it with honour and then came back with a roaring challenge. Therefore, I’m at a loss, as a motorsport fan, to explain why he was then penalised with a 25 second penalty and knocked down to third place. If he hadn’t given back first place, I would get it. But he did. So where does the unfair advantage come from?
If we are racing and I push you wide, you’re entitled to use the escape route – it’s in the rulebook. You aren’t allowed to benefit any positions from it mind you, so perhaps the stewards are mad that Hamilton pushed into first – but he did drop back into second. There are of course other rumours… something along the lines of ‘well, keeping the scorelines closer makes the sport more exciting’. If that’s truly the case, I think they need to look at how they can encourage more overtaking and keeping the cars more even in terms of performance rather than making what appears to be poor decisions such as this one in the name of the sport.
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