7th of the season and 13th career F1 pole position for Lewis Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton will start the Chinese GP from pole position for the second year in a row. But it is a hostile territory around him, Kimi Raikkonen next to him, Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso right behind. Robert Kubica, the 3rd driver still in the title hunt, struggled with his car and missed out on Q3. He will start from P11 after Mark Webber (qualified 6th) will be demoted 10 places following his engine blow up in Saturday morning practice. Toro Rosso has again both cars in top 10.

Update: Nick Heidfeld was handed 3 place grid penalty for his role in the incident involving also David Coulthard.

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Sebastien Bourdais and Felipe Massa, 2008 Japanese GP

Another race, another controversy. And yet again it involved both main title contenders Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa.

Incident no 1 - Race start - Hamilton (and Kovalainen) vs Kimi

I watched the video replay of the race start few times (at the moment you can see it here). Raikkonen had quite good start and it looked like he is ahead of both McLarens. Kovalainen was next to him, Hamilton behind. Hamilton however seemed to be quicker and squeezed between Kovalainen and Raikkonen. Watching it from the front it looked like these three are next to each other. Then just before turning into the first corner Hamilton moved in Raikkonen’s direction leaving Raikkonen with nowhere to go but straight. It is hard to say if Hamilton touched Raikkonen or not. Raikkonen says that both McLarens hit him, Hamilton (when commenting on the penalties imposed on himself and Massa) insisted that he did not hit anybody:

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Lewis Hamilton, McLaren Mercedes

The verdict is out, the penalty stands, Hamilton still leads the championship, but still only by a point. I have been expecting no other result but my feelings about the whole issue are rather mixed. On one hand I do agree with the actual penalty. But the way FIA swept the appeal off the table raises fresh questions about the integrity of the body that among other things also rules Formula 1.

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2008 Belgian GP - The podium

As many predicted, FIA rejected McLaren’s appeal against Lewis Hamilton’s 25 sec penalty for the chicane cutting back in Spa. The FIA’s reasoning - drive-through penalties could not be appealed:

“Article 152 of the International Sporting Code states that drive-through penalties are ‘not susceptible to appeal. The competitor Vodafone McLaren Mercedes appealed the Steward’s decision before the International Court of Appeal in a hearing in Paris on September 22nd. Having heard the explanations of the parties the Court has concluded that the appeal is inadmissible.”

That means the result of Belgian GP remains unchanged. Felipe Massa keeps the win and Nick Heidfeld the 2nd place they inherited following Hamilton’s penalty. That also means that the gap between Championship leader Hamilton and 2nd Massa remains 1 point.

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Full text of the FIA decision inside this post:

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Norbert Haug

Kotenok is another F1Wolf reader who went to see some live racing action last week. Kotenok went to the DTM days on the Barcelona track and during his walk around the paddock stumbled upon Norbert Haug, the main Mercedes guy in McLaren operation. He did not hesitate and decided to ask Mr. Haug some questions for this website (although he forgot to tell him the name of this site ). The interview was conducted in German, so what you read here is translation:

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The Singapore Grand Prix, the first ever Formula 1 night race, is just around the corner. I will have several posts leading up to the race, I will also resurrect some of the older ones I made in the past 12 months, just to refresh the memory. And of course there will be some reporting directly from Singapore once we arrive there in the afternoon of September 26.

This post was supposed to end here. But then I received email from Daniel from F1Bloggen with a video he found on Forumula1.com that fits well to this topic. So let’s kick off with a look at the preparations for the Singapore night race at McLaren:

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Adrian Newey

Adrian Newey did it again. After winning races and titles with both Williams and McLaren he ended his winless streak and added another race win to his already impressive tally of Formula 1 race wins.

Williams raced Newey built cars between 1991 and 1997 winning 59 races in the process (Red Bull’s website says 58, I counted 59). McLaren relied on Newey car design between 1998 and 2005 winning 41 races in that period. I am not sure if all these 100 race wins can be contributed to Newey’s design or not. I haven’t found any source that would state this high number of race wins for Newey built cars, most sources say “over 80″. What we can say for sure now is that he has won one more.

Many people believed that it is only matter of time before Newey designed Red Bull car wins a race. But I think no too many expected that it will be STR instead of RB …

The STR03 first appeared in April test in Barcelona and scored first points on its race debut in Monaco. Then came it’s ninth race weekend, the pole position and the win.

Photo: Red Bull/GEPA

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2008 Belgian GP - Podium

The penalty imposed on Bruno Senna during the Belgian GP2 race renewed the debate about pro-Ferrari bias from FIA. No, Bruno Senna is not yet racing against Ferrari. But he received drive through penalty for almost an identical “offence” that brought Felipe Massa under investigation in Valencia - dangerous relase from the pits. Felipe Massa however received only reprimand and the team fine, no other penalty that would have some effect on the race result. (See video of Senna’s incident inside this post). Few could have expected that few hours later after the Belgian Formula 1 race the debates will heat up even more following a decision that went against Lewis Hamilton and for Ferrari. The irony is that the main beneficiary, Felipe Massa, was not even involved in that incident …

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Felipe Massa, 2008 Belgian GP

So, we finally had a race that went to the wire. It actually went even further and the final result was amended about 2 hours after the race with 25 second penalties to Timo Glock (overtaking Webber under yellow flags) and the controversial one to Lewis Hamilton for cutting the chicane. The debate on that Hamilton’s penalty has already begun below another article. I wil focus this review more on the race action itself and later today post my take on the whole controversy.

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2008 Belgian F1 GP - Podium

Lewis Hamilton was handed 25 secs penalty for cutting the chicane in the wheel to wheel fight with Kimi Raikkonen in dying stages of Belgian GP. This move, following Massa’s no penalty in Valencia, will no doubt spark new hot debates about the stewards’ decision making.

The penalty means Felipe Massa was handed the race win, Nick Heidfeld moved up to 2nd, Lewis Hamilton dropped to 3rd. Only 2 points now separate Hamilton and Massa …

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FIA cinfirmed McLaren have lodged an appeal against Hamilton’s penalty that demoted him to third place in the Belgian Grand Prix.

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