OCTOBER 19, 2007

Troubles for Lewis

There are problems for Lewis Hamilton at the Brazilian Grand Prix. After the end of the first practice session, the FIA Technical Delegate Jo Bauer reported to the FIA Stewards that Lewis Hamilton, Takuma Sato and Jenson Button had all used two sets in the session. According to the Sporting Regulations "no driver may use more than one set of wet and one set of extreme-weather tyres during P1 and P2". Bauer thus concluded that the three drivers were in breach of the rules. The FIA Stewards will thus have to decide whether action should be taken.

"We just made a mistake,¹ said a McLaren spokesperson.

There was little or no gain from the move as Hamilton did only 10 laps of the track while many of the other drivers did 20 or more.

Punishing the teams involved may be rather difficult as there is a very recent precedent of inappropriate tyre use which went unpunished, when Ferrari started the Japanese GP on intermediate tyres. Ferrari claimed that it had not received any notification of the order and the FIA took the blame. It will be interesting to see whether the FIA is allowed to make mistakes and McLaren is not.

One way or the other we can only hope that the punishment will fit the crime.