Ok, it’s a bit of an obscure question, but Lewis Hamilton was penalised in the Japan F1GP race on 12 October 2008 for braking late at the first corner of the race. Late braking happens all the time at the first corner of an F1 race. I suspect that this is the first time that someone has been penalised for this type of incident when there was no collision! It could be another case of McLaren being unfairly penalised, especially if you could provide some recent evidence of drivers doing the same thing and not getting penalised.
Check out http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=CG6ZyQ7Xddo to see (kind of) what happened.
Copyright © 2009
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I think Lewis was petulent, reacted poorly to being passed, overly-optimistic and I agree with the decision – but the start has always been one of the most exciting parts of F1….I just hope this is not another sanitising-in-progress, just a stern one off decision.
I recall Raikkonen cutting the corner at…..errr, I forget, gaining an advantage and not receiving a penalty. He was kinda(?) avoiding being hit though.
@Y2K – I’m not defending Lewis because he was driving beyond his ability, but you only have limited grip available from tyres…he was beyond the degree of slip afforded by his tyres and had no choice but to go straight because there was no grip to turn….
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Lewis did more than brake late, he went straight when he was supposed to turn the corner! That is dangerous driving in my opinion as it could have caused a multi car pile up if the other drivers were not alert.
He was lucky there no collision becuase Kimi braked and avoided him. If Kimi had made his turn as usual, there would have been a massive pile up.
I seem to remember Senna deliberately taking out Prost in turn 1 at Suzuka 1990 so he could win the championship.
No penalty.
They were both driving McLarens.
It was a bit harsh in my opinion, although the move was over-ambitious and perhaps a fine or something might have been the correct punishment. To give Massa the same punishment for actually hitting and then spinning Hamiltons car seems very lenient in comparison.
It’s more madness from the FIA, are they seriously going to penalise everyone for similar incidents? We’re going to see a dozen penalties a race if this carries on!
I’ve been working on a database to record penalties, feel free to have a look and add any more:
http://www.ogreview.org/fia/index.php