Lewis Hamilton loses Spanish pole because of rules on fuel

[4me2]

Lewis Hamilton loses Spanish pole because of rules on fuel

McLaren's Lewis Hamilton has been excluded from qualifying at the Spanish Grand Prix after stopping his car out on the track at the end of qualifying .
Hamilton qualified on pole but will start from the back of the grid.
He was told to stop because there was insufficient fuel in the car for him to get back to the pits and provide a sample, as required by the rules.
The stewards rejected McLaren's argument that not putting enough fuel in the car was "force majeure".




The F1 rules require the car to return to the pits with one litre of fuel on board - running less fuel gives a performance advantage.
Although in this case the advantage gained in no way accounted for Hamilton's 0.578-second advantage over second placed Pastor Maldonado of Williams, the stewards felt they had to penalise McLaren.
Their ruling said: "A team member had put an insufficient quantity of fuel into the car, thereby resulting in the car having to be stopped on the circuit in order to be able to provide the required amount for sampling

"As the amount of fuel put into the car is under the complete control of the competitor, the stewards cannot accept this as a case of force majeure."
A McLaren statement said: "We accept that the stewards did not agree with our interpretation of force majeure. Our aim is now to maximise the points we can score."
McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh had argued that the size of the margin was a reason for Hamilton to be allowed to keep his position.
"It was a massive margin by the situation within F1 at the moment and he undoubtedly deserves to be there," Whitmarsh said.
The decision gives Venezuelan Maldonado the first pole position of his career, with Ferrari's Fernando Alonso promoted to second place.
The rules on fuel were changed by F1's governing body, the FIA, after a similar problem with Hamilton's car at the 2010 Canadian Grand Prix .




Analysis

Gary Anderson BBC F1 technical analyst



"The fuel rig guy put the rig on, but he had the handle set to drain fuel. He discovered his mistake and switched it to put fuel in the car. But as a result he didn't put as much fuel in it as he should have. You have to be able to drive back to the pit-lane and have one litre of fuel left for the FIA to test. He went across the start-finish line 20 seconds before the chequered flag but if they had sat in the garage for three or four more seconds to get more fuel in, they still would have had time to cross the line and complete another flying lap. Sometimes I don't think McLaren think on their feet."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/18047760

[blaggard]

A certain red team would have gotten away with it.

[Tim.Lad]

Ii think it's wrong that cars are aloud to just be park up after the race with because they do not have the fuel to make it back

[BIG-TED]

Just goes to show the race is rarely won on the track. This will give a certain red car with a Spanish driver to move up to the front row. fancy that at a spanish gp.

Ted

[bigtrevster]

bloody joke, i'm a supporter of mclaren ,hammy and jb...hate alonso with a passion ,i can't stop blaming mclaren for there mistakes over the past 4 or 5 season's...it seams since Ron left the team is making stupid mistakes...hammy should have won 3 races this year but the team has messed up his chances nearly every race.

[beerman]

Completely agree, too many mistakes since Ron Dennis left. The biggest one being JB's wheel at the British GP last year.

[casio]

didnt Vettel have to park it just after the flag saying he didnt have enough fuel to do another lap last time out? I dont remember them stripping him of the win

[bigtrevster]

Different rule in the race...i don't know why, surely it should be uniform across race and qually

[casio]

It would have been interesting to know what the punishment for not having the full 1ltr fuel sample was versus being thrown to the back of the grid,

On a side note I thought it was all going bad again when the mechanic didn't move the rear wheel far enough and the car lurched up my shouting "for f*cks sake" at the tv was a little premature and hopefully annoyed the neighbours after they told me I had quali turned up too loud I only had it on 13 and it goes up to 50! the race was on 29 lol I do hope I've not annoyed them

[tawny]

What would have happened if he "over cooked it on a corner, spun and stalled it"?

[Tim.Lad]

On a side note i think the FIA need to introduce points for getting quali positions to stop this stupid situation where they just sit in the garage or just getting sector times but not completing a lap, and maybe introduce a quali tyres something like a gun hoe supper fast tyre one two sets per driver for qualifying only..

[casio]

I couldnt agree more, getting pole used to have a bit of bragging rights now they dont want to waste their slicks on something as trivial as quali prefering to sit it out and have a spare set for the race.

give them a point for pole and another for the fastest lap making they all really compete to get the extra points, if they get pole, fastest lap and the win give them a car or something like they used to in the motogp when they got a bmw z4 as a prize.

it would be good to see some super sticky quali only tires that dont last more than 2 laps but that would mean they all start the race on new tires and could remove the questions about how far the tires will last, especially if they don't have to do 3-4 quali laps on them before the race.

I hate to sound like Plato but parity would be good, carry over the rules for the race into quali and quali into the race. that way theres no confusion and if they run out of fuel they only have themselves to blame -much like Mclaren this weekend

[Tim.Lad]

Ha ha another btcc fan, you are correct but something so fundament as the car getting back to the pits under its own steam should be in the rules

[tronads]

Indycar has a bonus point for Pole, and another for most laps lead. I believe Nascar has the same, and I think I read something about Nascar looking at a significant number of points being awared for the positions at the half way point to try and stop 90% of the race being a procession....definitely not required in F1 that though !

[casio]

Ha ha another btcc fan, you are correct but something so fundament as the car getting back to the pits under its own steam should be in the rules

couldnt agree more, if it doesnt get back be it in quali or the race I think there should be a uniform ruling, if you can run it to empty during the race and park it 50ft over the line you should be able to do the same in quali and the opposite should be true if its not allowed during quali then it shouldnt be during the race

I like how the btcc do it, if they lead a lap then they get a point, but its only one point regardless of how many laps they lead, if they did this the smaller teams that run longer and lead a lap or two would be rewarded for at least trying, that way if the smaller teams score the odd point here and there it'd help with getting sponsers and tv money and would force the likes of Marussia and HRT's to fight every bit as hard as the big teams for their championship position

[blaggard]

The point in this is that the punishment was too severe, back of the grid when he was already in Q3? Fucking shameful and just further evidence of the bullsit nature of F1 regulations.

[tronads]

Had to laugh on Brundle's gridwalk, when he spoke to the Indian driver who was in front of Hamilton, and asked what he was going to do to keep Hamilton behind him etc. The poor guy looked rather embarrased and very honestly said "he will be out of sight before the first corner!"

[casio]

The point in this is that the punishment was too severe, back of the grid when he was already in Q3? Fucking shameful and just further evidence of the bullsit nature of F1 regulations.

Look at it this way Lewis ran low on fuel and parked it and was thrown to the back of the grid, Shitstacher hit Senna taking them both out of the race and he gets a 5 place grid penalty. (you could argue it was damage from this incident that damaged the kers system and fuel system leading to the fire) When Lewis quipped that he was treat differently because of his skin colour I couldn't agree more

[blaggard]

Look at it this way Lewis ran low on fuel and parked it and was thrown to the back of the grid, Shitstacher hit Senna taking them both out of the race and he gets a 5 place grid penalty. (you could argue it was damage from this incident that damaged the kers system and fuel system leading to the fire) When Lewis quipped that he was treat differently because of his skin colour I couldn't agree more

Yep, more to do with the long lasting Ferrari bias than any Racist motives though I reckon.

[ka$h]

It seems the stewads at this race only had one person im mind and that was fernando.

there were drive through penalties for speeding under a yellow handed out to the likes of Vettel which again was very harsh and very unusual. Maybe they should be sticking to the rules either harshly or fairly, but whichever they choose, they need to apply them consistantly in all situations, all season.

The ruling still dictates that cars must have 1l of fuel at the end of a race for sampling, and also that cars are required to be parked in parc ferme foe scrutineering. that is no different between race to qualifying conditions from what I undersand so why was this race so different? Different Stewards, that's all and the fact that it appears they favoured the 'local hero'.

The fact I can't stand him is irrelevant. I'm not a Lewis 'Fan' but I do support the Mclaren team. I think there are a fair few decisions that go against Hamilton, but Mclaren make a lot of their own 'bad luck' with silly mistakes!

K