Sunday, September 7, 2008

Belgian Grand Prix: Hamilton Stripped, Massa Wins

Lewis Hamilton has been stripped of victory at the Belgian Grand Prix after he was given a penalty for cutting a chicane when fighting with Kimi Raikkonen in the closing laps. The stewards gave Hamilton a drive-through penalty after the race, which means 25 seconds were added to his time.

The win goes to Ferrari's Felipe Massa, who was running and finished 2nd. Due to the time penalty incurred by Hamilton, he is now officially classified as 3rd in the race results. An additional note, Toyota's Timo Glock was also penalized 25 seconds and finished 9th instead of 8th which gave Red Bull's Mark Webber valuable points.

The stewards just made the title fight a bit closer. Instead of an 8 point lead for Hamilton, Massa has cut the Hamilton's lead to just 2 points. A great drive has gone unrewarded. Below is the revised classification.

1. Massa
2. Heidfeld
3. Hamilton
4. Alonso
5. Vettel
6. Kubica
7. Bourdais
8. Webber
9. Glock
10. Kovalainen
11. Coulthard
12. Rosberg
13. Sutil
14. Nakajima
15. Button
16. Trulli
17. Fisichella
18. Raikkonen

2 comments:

Senor Soup said...

I think that the decision is frankly complete bullshit. Yes Lewis cut the chicane, but he then proceeded to give Kimi the place back before taking it again!!! Had the stewards really wanted to punish Lewis for this pass they should have told him to let Kimi by again, which happened anyways when Lewis went wide before Kimi spun and then proceeded to crash. Honestly, this will do nothing to calm the rumours of FIA-Ferrari collusion.....

Pete DaSilva said...

Yes, I agree. I just wrote an article detailing some of that. It reminds me of 2005 Japanese GP with Alonso. 25 sec penalty was unwarranted.