My revving up to the F1 race series of posts gets off on the wrong foot. I had planned to write about a talk I attended about the old Singapore Grand Prix. That will have to wait for another day.
I am on the verge of giving up on F1. Perhaps the night race will the last race that I watch.
Why?
Over the entire time I have watched F1, there has always been a sense that everything is tilted in favour of Ferrari.
When they are in breach of the rules, they get off with a slap on the wrist.
When other teams fall afoul of the ‘laws’, the book - no, the entire forest - is thrown at them.
(Yes, the examples are cited are quite different, but note that Ferrari got away with breaking the rules scot-free and McLaren were slapped with total points deduction and a totally unprecedented £100 million fine.)
But these are not the only examples, there have been numerous racing incidents which attract race stewards’ attention. The outcome almost always is:
- If Ferrari were the transgressors, no action is taken.
- If Ferrari stood to benefit from a penalty to another car/team, then the penalty would be meted out.
So, last night (Singapore time), two laps from the end, Lewis Hamilton straight-lined a chicane at the last corner, allowing him to overtake Kimi Raikonnen. If he had stayed in front, he would definitely have been given a penalty for gaining an unfair advantage.
Instead, he slowed down, making sure his car was physically behind the Ferrari. Then he made another - this time successful - overtaking move on the start-finish straight.
Even before the race was over, I knew that they stewards would be investigating this. True enough, they did. And as I suspected, I woke up this morning to the news that Hamilton had a 25-second penalty imposed for gaining an unfair advantage in his initial overtaking attempt at the chicane which he drove straight through.
How far behind Raikonnen was he supposed to have dropped back? He was close enough to attempt an overtaking move (that’s within 0.3 seconds) when he went straight through the chicane instead of following the curves. Was he supposed to drop back to more than 1 second behind?
Utter nonsense.
Oh, and Raikonnen didn’t even finish the race because he eventually spun and crashed on his own accord. Hmmmm… if Hamilton had not tried to overtake, he would have won!
Is that was the F1 administration wants? No overtaking?
Yes, no overtaking of scarlet red cars that are leading the race.
Incidentally, football has left a sour taste in my mouth lately too. I just haven’t been interested in watching matches lately. Perhaps it was the Olympics which distracted me initially. Perhaps it was the Ronaldo nonsense. Whatever the case, we shall see if I’m all hyped up for United v Liverpool on Saturday.
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I know what you mean about the football! I think it’s sporting overdose and also the fact that this transfer window has been absolutely the worst with all the ceaseless hype and no action for months and months and months. But the story of Fergie hiding Berbatov under a blanket kinda cheered me up a little.
Just checked. The Poo(l) v United game is showing on HD at 7.40 pm.
finally an early match!
Nah, I’m not risking this one!!! I’m sticking to my routine so as to not jinx it. Any other match (besides perhaps the CL final) and I’ll be up for it.
This episode smells similar to the recent case of organ trading.
An organ buyer, a prominent business man, is sentenced to a day’s jail. The organ middleman has the book thrown at him, while the organ seller gets away with the cash.
A slap on the wrist for the prominent business man? Not so, says the country’s attorney general as “no one is above the law.”