Belgian GP - Winners & Losers

Sunday 7th September 2008

Lewis Hamilton won it fair and square. The stewards failure to spot Raikkonen's pass under waved yellows makes Andrew Davies think there's a political agenda.

Star of the Race
Max Mosley's FIA Race Stewards
How do you turn a magnificent sporting occasion into an utter farce? Ask Max.

The decision by his stewards at the Belgian Grand Prix to penalise Lewis Hamilton for cutting the chicane has to figure in the all-time list of worst sporting decisions. It's as bad, if not worse, than the favouritism shown towards Ferrari at Monza in 2006 when Fernando Alonso was penalised for supposedly holding up Felipe Massa on his qualifying lap and being relegated down the grid.

The subsequent outcry was deafening.

This time round, though, there's a political implication. We have a situation where the stewards are moderated by Max Mosley's race representative Allan Donnelly. Hmmm.

This wasn't the first stupid mistake the stewards had made during the race weekend. During the GP2 feature race, Bruno Senna's championship challenge virtually came to a halt when he was adjudged to have had an unsafe release from a pit-stop and incurred a drive-though penalty.

Last time out at Valencia, the stewards couldn't come to a decision over Felipe Massa's "unsafe release" and waited till after the race before handing him a small fine.

Senna was leading the GP2 race when he pitted, was released by his pitcrew and because the pitlane was wet incurred wheelspin getting out of his box. As he slithered into pitlane, an approaching car which he would normally have got out in front of, actually passed him by and he had to slot in behind. No contact and certainly no running alongside like Massa had done with Sutil in Valencia.

Senna's pitcrew certainly had no idea that he was going to encounter a whole load of wheelspin as he rejoined, yet still he was penalised. (The only good thing to be said about it was that the stewards didn't pussy around like they did in Valencia and made a decision immediately - even if it was a crap one)

In the F1 race we saw Heikki Kovalainen make a move on Mark Webber that didn't come off. It was poor, it was clumsy and frankly it deserved a penalty - which he duly got. But let's replay the tapes and see how many more passing moves we could argue that for this season. How about Kimi Raikkonen crashing into the back of Adrian Sutil in Monaco...? David Coulthard on about six other cars in six other races...?

And how come you're allowed to cut the chicane so often in Montreal to keep ahead of pursuing cars...?

Exactly. It sucks.

There'll be enough debate about the chicane incident itself, so let's leave that to others. But why wasn't there action taken against Raikkonen for not slowing down when both he and Hamilton came across the waved yellows of the Rosberg incident on Lap 42. If you replay the tapes you see Hamilton slow down for the yellows and then Raikkonen almost hit him because he isn't taking any notice.

Hamilton steers his car off road to avoid Rosberg and then Raikkonen overtakes under waved yellows. Anyone spot a penalty there...? Certainly not the stewards. It's interesting to note that they came up with the Bruno Senna decision within a lap, the Kovalainen decision within a lap, and yet the Hamilton decision to investigate came after the race.

No doubt there will be all kinds of repercussions over this and it's certainly worth Mclaren taking it to appeal. The fact that the most experienced man of all - race director Charlie Whiting - saw nothing wrong with Hamilton's driving tells you all you need to know about the standard of person that acts as a steward.

The stewards and Donnelly should now face a charge of bringing the sport into disrepute. Though, come to think ot it, it's hard to think of F1 as a sport now.

Real Star of the Race
Spa-Francorchamps Circuit
Even though the FIA stewards have left all but the sportingly maladjusted with a bad, if not disgusted, taste in their mouths, the true star of the race came shining through.

It was the race of the year and all thanks to the Spa circuit which has everything - fast corners, long straights, changes of altitude, history, and best of all, unpredictable weather. With a tiny pitlane and smaller-than-average garages, it still runs the risk of falling behind sporting behemoths like Shanghai and Bahrain - but where would you sooner see a GP...?

WINNERS
Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, Winner*
No, he did win. He wasn't faultless, but he did enough to win. What will be infuriating in years to come is that if they don't reverse this catastrophic decision all the 'official' statistics will be wrong.

But...

A better result in Championship terms would have been to let Raikkonen win. Though it's hard to stand back when the adrenalin is pumping and it's against all the instincts of an F1 driver (apart from, maybe, Nelson Piquet Senior) Lewis would have gained two points on Massa had he come second and given Ferrari a much bigger headache for Monza.

As it is, he went for the win and Raikkonen ended in the wall. If there is a true god of F1 then the remaining races will all be wet and we can see Lewis sort the men from the boys.

Felipe Massa, Ferrari, 2nd
Massa was the third best driver in the race and the second best Ferrari driver. He had the luxury of not having to try too hard when it mattered at the end. Ferrari will swing their weight behind him now and the protestations from the Scuderia that they haven't really, finally, truly, properly decided if they are going to devote all their love and attention to Massa are about as ludicrous as the stewards'decision. Raikkonen's now behind Kubica in the World Championship for Jean-Todt's sake.

Nick Heidfeld, BMW, 3rd
Heidfeld was 7th not 9th when he made the choice to go for wet tyres at the end, which makes the decision all the more ballsy (he could have thrown away two points). A great race for under-pressure Nick. One more of those and surely Dr.Mario will be convinced.

Fernando Alonso, Renault, 4th
It would have been fun to take a final lap trip with the on-board camera of both Alonso and Nick Heidfeld. Fernando just about made the places back

Sebastien Bourdais, Toro Rosso, 7th
Sebastian Vettel, Toro Rosso, 5th
Bourdais was so close to the result of his career and then the heavens opened. All credit to him that he got into a great position on the opening lap, but that was largely thanks to following Jarno Trulli through at the start and then punting him out of the way in La Source. Bourdais must have watched too much NASCAR in the States. Had Trulli spun his car into an accident then the stewards would probably have had Bourdais executed. Oh no hang on, he has a Ferrari engine. Then it was probably Jarno's fault for braking early, let's give him a 10-grid place penalty for Monza.

What was remarkable was that Bourdais's front wing survived the impact and joking aside, the sheer grunt produced from what is far and away the best engine in F1 right now.

Vettel started his race off badly but finished it well. His blanket finish with Alonso, Kubica and Bourdais was a rarity in an F1 race not affected by a Safety Car.

LOSERS
Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, DNF
Raikkonen had the kind of collision that had been coming ever since the Japanese GP of 2007. He could have lost his front wing against Hamilton's rear tyre at la Source, he could have hit the wall at Pouhon, he could have hit Rosberg and he could have hit the barrier soon after - but avoided them all. His luck couldn't go on forever.

As Kimi said afterwards, it was either a win or nothing, so he didn't care if he took Hamilton out at the Bus Stop chicane. If that had been the case then it would have been a bit like Michael Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve at Jerez where the much quicker closing car was slammed by the car that wanted a win at all costs.

So ends his Championship campaign - he'll just love supporting Felipe...

Heikki Kovalainen, McLaren, DNF
It's a good job for Heikki that he has a signed contract for 2009 because he was poor at Spa. Leaving aside the start - it may be that McLaren had a problem with the bite point of the clutch as Lewis was complaining about it on the way to the grid - his racecraft went missing. Several times this season we've criticised him for lacklustre overtaking and his half-baked attempt at getting past Webber was a little cameo of that.

* Until we get a full explanation as to why the result was changed, we're going to stick with what we saw.

Andrew Davies

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