Australian GP 2009

[endless psych]

Aye I think the spectacle and the story will triumph over the big teams sour grapes. Hopefully anyway

[poprock]

Total fairytale stuff, an outstanding start to the season. A team with no sponsors picks one up the day before the event, qualifies 1st & 2nd, and goes on to take those places. Amazing. The world champion ends up with an underperforming car and qualifies last, but comes through to take third place from the back of the grid. Also amazing.

Weird to see the Brits dominating the start of a season so much. British drivers first and third, and a British team taking first and second under a British main sponsor.

Felt pretty bad for poor Mark Webber though on his home turf.

[The_librarian]

Big oops for Hamilton

http:http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi.../7978186.stm//

[starchildspace]

Total fairytale stuff, an outstanding start to the season. A team with no sponsors picks one up the day before the event, qualifies 1st & 2nd, and goes on to take those places. Amazing. The world champion ends up with an underperforming car and qualifies last, but comes through to take third place.

SHame about this then...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009...ian-grand-prix

[poprock]

Ooh, drama.

[Largest of Als]

None of the news sites are giving too much detail about this, so I'm not sure what it's about.

Someone said it was McLaren pit told Hamilton to pull over that let Trulli pass him??



Al

[poprock]

The most info I’ve found is that the FIA listened to Maclaren’s radio recordings and decided that they deliberately did something “against the sporting code”.

Fuck knows, maybe the sporting code says something about not pissing Ferrari off two seasons running.

In all seriousness, it’s this sort of thing that makes the sport look fucking ridiculous. The winner might not be the winner, we’ll find out in two or three weeks. Same for second place. Third place got demoted, then reinstated, meaning that fourth place became third, then got disqualified completely. I mean really—arsebiscuits to the lot of them.

If the scrutineers pass a car for racing, it shouldn’t be questioned after the fact. If the scrutineers are wrong, punish them, not the racers.

As for the rest … changing positions after the race is over has always been completely ridiculous. If the stewards can’t make a call on the spot, then they need more information and a bigger team to enable them to do so. The stewards should have all team radios piped through to them throughout the race, not be needing time after the fact to pore over recordings.

[Largest of Als]

Lewis Hamilton and Jarno Trulli were summoned to the stewards' office in Malaysia today after the inquiry into their exchange of places behind the safety car in Melbourne was reopened.

Trulli was given a 25s penalty after the Australian Grand Prix, dropping him from third to 12th, when he was adjudged to have illegally repassed Hamilton under the safety car after sliding onto the grass.

The stewards’ ruling suggested that Trulli had intentionally reclaimed the place, but the Italian has always insisted that Hamilton slowed to let him past, and that he thought the McLaren had a problem.

“The FIA really got it wrong in that decision,” Trulli told Malaysian newspaper the New Straits Times.

“We have all the evidence, including Hamilton’s admission, that I did not overtake him.

“He let me pass.

“Under those circumstances, Hamilton had a problem and he slowed down, almost stopping, and he allowed me to pass.

“There was nothing else I could do but keep going, and in order to do that,
I had to pass him.”

And...

Trulli had originally been given a 25s penalty, dropping him from third to 12th place, for illegally re-passing Hamilton during the safety car period, having dropped behind the McLaren when he ran off the road.

But Trulli always insisted that he had no option but to overtake Hamilton because the world champion had slowed dramatically and appeared to be in trouble or letting him past.

The stewards reconvened at Sepang to consider the matter further after new evidence, believed to centre on radio transmissions between Hamilton and his team, came to light.

"The stewards having considered the new elements presented to them from the 2009 Australian Formula One Grand Prix, consider that driver number one Lewis Hamilton and the competitor Vodafone McLaren Mercedes acted in a manner prejudicial to the conduct of the event by providing evidence deliberately misleading to the stewards at the hearing on Sunday 29th March 2009, a breach of Article 151c of the International Sporting Code," said a stewards' statement.

"Under Article 158 of the International Sporting Code, the driver Lewis Hamilton and the competitor Vodafone McLaren Mercedes are excluded from the race classification for the 2009 Australian Grand Prix and the classification is amended accordingly."

Doesnt really make things much clearer to me.....
Was Hamilton told to hit the brakes and let Trulli past?
If so, what's the reasoning for it?

Did they think he'd illegally overtaken Trulli and were trying to get him back beofre Hamilton got penalised?


Al

[Semprini]

Ron Dennis is a cunt.

[heartworm]

Ron Dennis is a cunt.

Good job he's no longer in the job then...

[Semprini]

I know that, I just felt everyone needed to be reminded. Never forget.

[heartworm]

I know that, I just felt everyone needed to be reminded. Never forget.

Its hard to forget... who's taken over his job now, whitmarsh?

[poprock]

All that matters is that it ain’t Dennis.