Rookie sensation Lewis Hamilton has stolen plenty of limelight from his fellow teammate and defending F1 champ Fernando Alonso this season, and Saturday, Formula One's sanctioning gave him the pole for Sunday morning's (in the States, 7:30am/ET) Hungarian Grand Prix.Alonso will be moved from his starting spot on the point to 6th on the grid, slotting Hamilton into the pole, due to FIA saying Alonso and his team were involved in actions "considered prejudicial to the interests of the competition and to the interests of motor sport generally."
Wait, FIA has rules against that?
The penalty in starting position is huge in F1 and Alonso will only be scored for driver points, with none applied to the constructor's championship.
Hamilton complained after qualifying that Alonso -- yeah, his McLaren teammate -- remained in a pit stall idling for an extra 20 seconds, preventing Hamilton from making an efficient stop. Race stewards didn't determine a problem, but FIA stepped in later and took action.
And people wonder why America isn't in tune with F1 as a whole, still?
What's the difference in the 2002 U.S. Grand Prix debacle when Michael Schumacher gave Rubens Barichello the win on the last lap? Is that not "prejudicial to interests of competition and to the interests of motor sport globally"? And what exactly does McLaren have to gain from Alonso's maneuvers?
I must just not understand that level of sophistication.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-05-2007 @ 5:20AM
Icheb said...
What is so difficult to understand here? He made an UNFAIR maneuver, one that prevented Hamilton from having a shot at defending his pole position in the qualifying.
So what on earth has Schumacher vs. Barichello got to do with this? Schumacher made a conscious decision to let Barichello take first place, he certainly didn't gain an unfair advantage like Alonso did.
"And what exactly does McLaren have to gain from Alonso's maneuvers?"
Nothing, because that's not the point.
Seriously, stop writing F1 posts if you don't understand shit. It's embarassing.
Reply
8-05-2007 @ 10:14AM
AShu93 said...
And if you remember, the only reason Michael gave up that lead for Reubens to win is because of the earlier race where Ferarri gave the "Team Orders" to Reubens to let Michael pass him for the win so Michael could collect more points. That was way more "prejudicial to interests of competition and to the interests of motor sport globally" than when Michael returned the favor at Indy.
Reply