Comments on: 2008 Australian Grand Prix qualifying

By: C-type

C-type — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 08:24:41 +0000

Feel I should own up to being wrong with my ‘discretion’ post. Article 33.2 pertains to qualifying and clearly states no further participation in the event . Amazingly rubbish research on my part.

By: theRoswellite

theRoswellite — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 20:08:28 +0000

Keith is correct on this particular rule being essential to safety, and I’m positive it didn’t matter who the driver or the car was. A sport as complicated as F1 must have extensive rules, and they must be followed as closely and impartially as possible……………or you have chaos!

By: Alex Andronov

Alex Andronov — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 17:00:27 +0000

And to be fair. While Ron might have wanted the marshals to push Lewis they didn’t.

By: C-type

C-type — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 16:36:15 +0000

That’s my point Keith, the stewards exercised their judgement and fair enough, good for those drivers. Anyway that’s my bit on the stewards discretion, which I hope doesn’t become an issue this season.

By: Keith Collantine

Keith Collantine — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 16:18:30 +0000

The stewards did talk to Jarno Trulli, Nico Rosberg, Giancarlo Fisichella and Jenson Button after the session about the yellow flag incident but chose not to punish them.

By: C-type

C-type — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 16:13:03 +0000

To avoid going on, all I’ll say is I hope the stewards are equally hard on all incidents this season where they have discretion (which is an awful lot of the time!), their KR decision seems, to me, to be at odds with what was expected by Ron in a similar situation last season (or MS 3 years ago, to not be partisan), if not the yellow flag fastest times earlier today.

By: oliver

oliver — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 15:22:48 +0000

Talking about the stupid rules, nothing stopped kimi from pushing the car himself. Some years back, I believe Mansell was disqualified because he overshot his pit box by a few feet, and his pitcrew pushing him back into position infringed on this very same rule.

By: Keith Collantine

Keith Collantine — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 14:53:12 +0000

It’s not a stupid rule. You can’t have drivers who have stopped out on the track having marshals push them into the pits – it would be dangerous. So you have to set a point at which you say ‘right, beyond this line you can’t get pushed back into the pits’. Raikkonen was on the other side of that line. It’s a fair rule and it’s the same rule for everyone.

But I agree with you that Ferrari’s tactics were questionable – they seemed high-risk for no obvious gain.

By: don wilson

don wilson — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 14:41:53 +0000

Keith, "Rules are rule & its the same for everyone", misses the point, the point I was making, was, we did not get to see Kimi race for pole position, because of a simply stupid rule, but I agree with you on one thing, it will make the race more interesting, as Kimi battles his way to be in it at the end with the front runners, as I am sure he will. There was another thing I found difficult to understand was the Ferrari team’s logic in not letting him out to practice until 7 mins before the end, when there was only 20 mins, available for the first session.He should have gone out immediately, set a time, & then sat in the pits.When I was racing, you tried to get in as much practice as possible, to get the feel of the car, & the condition of the circuit. If his problem had developed in the first few minutes of practice they would have had more time to sort it out.

By: Keith Collantine

Keith Collantine — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 13:16:30 +0000

Rules are rules Don and it’s the same for everyone. Anyway, he’s won races from further down the grid, and seeing that again really would be worth getting up at 3 in the morning for.