Comments on: F1.com reacts to criticism of Fuji penalties by releasing new videos

By: Haytham Hawamdeh

Haytham Hawamdeh — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 08:02:19 +0000

an interesting vedio and yes Hamilton do nothing wrong he close on kimi car and thats right for him, but when you look into the vedio we see massa come in front of Hamilton from cutting a corner, isn’t he deserve a 25 penalty for that?

By: Owen

Owen — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 19:10:35 +0000

Michael, sorry mate, I exaggerated the comments that have been made. I just feel that despite braking very late I don’t think a dangerous incident was on the cards. Or, more accurately, no more so than many other starts where drivers in the midfield make a mistake in their braking and cause/almost cause accidents.

Does this mean that we are now going to penalise every first corner instance of drivers locking up and running wide? Given the comments on here, it sounds like several people think it should be done. Which will ruin the spectacle of a standing start. Or is that the next step to improve safety – a rolling start like IRL?

By: Jian

Jian — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 12:32:10 +0000

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=IJJXIgnjug0
Montoya vs Shumacher on the first corner 2002. Parallells to Massa vs Bourdais, the difference? The faster car on the outside line was punished in 2002 while the car taking the inside line was punished this year.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y9DKCLLHjs
Massa vs Webber
Pause and watch this closely at seconds 13-14, it is clear that Webber made his one allowed move to the right seeing Massa coming from that side. Pause at 13sec and Massa could clearly see that there was no room on the track for an overtaking on the inside. He decided to leave the track (crossing the redstriped lines, jeopardizing any pitlane safety there should be) to complete his ballsy maneuvre. Now what did we learn from Spa? If you overtake while leaving the track you yield the advantage, right? Instead Webber was investigated for doing his one legal defensive move.

By: Keith Collantine

Keith Collantine — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 11:06:57 +0000

More drivers have spoken out against the quality of stewarding: story here.

By: Keith Collantine

Keith Collantine — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 10:11:04 +0000

Chaz – Actually the Massa/Webber incident was investigated – but the stewards were concerned about Webber’s driving, not Massa’s. Apparently they thought he went too far to one extreme of the road in his defence. However they didn’t punish him.

By: Chaz

Chaz — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 09:44:35 +0000

You know folks I’ve read many of the comments here and its interesting to note that nobody (and yes I’m open to correction of course) has mentioned to fact that Lewis was on the inside dirtier line. Its common knowledge that taking that line is riskier and likely of overshooting not to mention the usual bunching up and jostling we always see at the start of every race. As I say the inside line is commonly more precarious which we all know means he was likely to over-run the corner and thus ended up sliding further than probably he even anticipated. This is not an excuse or defence of his actions which I think were a little hot headed. He did say after all that he would “not allow himself to be beat off the line again” when Massa beat him to it at Valencia was it? In summary it was a racing incident of the kind we have seen in every motor racing event start since racing began and thus the penalty not warranted.

Based on many articles I’ve read all over the net by knowledgeable motor sport figures and ex-drivers, the Lewis / Massa incident is now widely regarded as very cheeky on Massa’s part and he was lucky to get away with a much deserved but relatively minor penalty. Massa was clearly at fault treating his Ferrari like a tractor he was so far of the track which is defined as being between the two white lines.

As for the Massa / Bourdais incident, the FIA really need to be made to answer serious questions. Even stupidity needs to be explained. It is now time for detailed reasons of decisions made and not these insulting two line pdf released statements. Bourdais clearly not at fault and “no red carpet” was needed.

Furthermore the drivers meetings with Charlie Whiting need to be televised. Remember the days (I think it the 70′s as I recently saw highlights of 70′s GP racing) when drivers did this in front of the crowd in the open and on a loud speaker an hour or so before the race.

I still want to know why the Massa / Webber overtaking maneuver was not investigated. Massa passed Webber so far on the right that he was in the pit exit lane which I thought was illegal. If a car was exiting the pits at the same time we would have seen an accident of the magnitude we have not seen since Kubica in Canada last year and quite possibly even worse or fatal considering the speed they were doing at that point.

By: Gusto

Gusto — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 09:42:27 +0000

So now you get penalty for outbraking yourself, so in China will anyone with smoking tyre`s get a drive through?. As for Massa to complain about cutting a chicane and gaining a advantage by making your rival face the wrong way on the track beggars belief. And then Boudais, well what can you say, if this doesn`t convince you of FIA bias for Ferrari then absolutely nothing will. No wonder the French have cancelled the GP, F1 is the laughing stock of the sporting world.

By: Oliver

Oliver — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 08:41:17 +0000

Those who even accused Lewis of trying to take his team mate out, should look at his on board video, – you will see that he looked in his right mirror before he moved to the right. The helicopter view of the start shows there was quite some gap between Lewis and Heikki, even if only about a meter or so.

By: Juhhi

Juhhi — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 08:38:52 +0000

Hamiltons penalty…totally right decision! Hamilton did locked he´s wheels very long time and did also went long at first corner. He blocked Kimi to turn. Heikki did also have little much speed and he also is a part guilty.
…could say butterfly effect…=)

By: MAK

MAK — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 08:34:54 +0000

I just watched the highlight video on F1.com it looks like lewis came very close to kimi first time they towards each other, and we can Heikki and kimi touching wheels, it also shows a Renault and Lewis touching wheels.

Watching the onboard from Hamilton made me realise he hadn’t actually out-braked himself by as much as I originally thought he had – he did go off the circuit, but not as far as I first thought.

if you had watch video closely you would realize this by now, anyway you can see in the video, that lewis and kimi came close twice on both occassions kimi trying to turn into the corner and lewis still braking and going straight. this face should be a great insight in to how late hamilton breaked. that is really really late.

This made me realise Raikkonen must have braked a bit late for the corner as well – though not as late as Hamilton – or surely Hamilton would have shot past him and Raikkonen would have been able to turn into the corner, as we’ve seen happen many times before (think Massa and Hamilton at Sepang last year).

are you trying to suggest kimi is responsible for what happened in the first corner? or that kimi should have just let hamilton pass him?