Symonds: Lewis penalty could have far-reaching consequences

Thursday 11th September 2008

Pat Symonds fears that Lewis Hamilton's Belgian GP penalty, which cost him the victory, has hurt more than just the McLaren driver's Championship campaign.

Hamilton clinched the victory in Spa on Sunday afternoon, however, two hours later was informed that he had been handed a 25-second penalty by the stewards for gaining a speed advantage by cutting a chicane.

The stewards deemed the advantage to have helped Hamilton overtake Kimi Raikkonen and therefore handed him a retrospective drive-through penalty, which dropped him to third in the overall race classification.

The penalty has already been lambasted by many in the media with former F1 driver Niki Lauda claiming it was the "worst decision in F1's history."

This is a sentiment echoed by Renault's director of engineering Pat Symonds who fears it could have a negative impact on F1 racing as drivers opt for caution instead of overtaking.

"As it happened in real time, we were talking on the intercom and said: 'Wow that was definitely a situation where he has to give the place back,'" he told Renault's latest podcast.

"I guess we weren't that surprised when the stewards were found to be investigating it. Having looked at it again, I feel very, very sorry for Lewis. I think he has been very hard done by.

"It raises lots of interesting questions, and I am not talking about 'Are the FIA on the side of Ferrari?' We have to believe that they are impartial, the sport would not exist if we didn't believe that.

"But I think it does call into question (the sport's) philosophy, because everyone is saying we need more overtaking in Formula One, we need more excitement, and we need more personalities.

"And yet it seems to me that everything that actually happens seems to be against that.

"Here we had a great race with people really challenging each other and for why? If it's taken away, then why take that risk?"

The Renault man added that in his opinion Hamilton did every thing right after cutting the chicane as he lifted off the power, allowing Raikkonen to retake the lead.

"To me the facts are quite clear in retrospect. I have had a look at the videos, I've had a look at the published data which shows that Lewis was nearly 7 km/h slower than Raikkonen across the line, you can quite clearly see on the in-car camera that he lets him get completely in front, and in my view Raikkonen just braked very early," Symonds added.

"Lewis went inside him, and if you look at the in-car camera stuff, Lewis drove around the hairpin very easily. He didn't have a big slide, he didn't have to correct it, he hadn't gone in too deep and come out wide, it was a perfectly legitimate manouevre, and it wasn't that much later that Raikkonen went past him.

"This is racing, this is what we want."

As for the stewards' decision being made two hours after the race had been completed and all the fans had gone home, Symonds reckons something needs to be done in order to ensure that decisions are made promptly.

"I think motor racing should be like football, not like cricket," he said. "Let's have action, let's know what is going on in real time, not wait for two days to find out the result."

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