Formula 1 - 2009 Season

From what I understand, the problem is as follows:

Trulli got off the track under the safety car. Hamilton couldn't break and at that point couldn't know if Trulli would be able to get back onto the track or not.

He correctly overtook Trulli.

Trulli made it back onto the track, taking the position 4 behind Hamilton.

Hamilton saw this and the Team (as far as read) not fully aware of the rules during safety car, instructed Hamilton to let Trulli pass. How far Hamilton went to let Trulli pass or not, I'm not sure, but obviously Trulli either took his slowing down as a gesture for him to reclaim his 3rd position or he thought Hamilton had a problem.

He then overtook Hamilton under safety car.

The stewards saw this and punished him for that.

I can see this going both ways. Either Hamilton forced Trulli to overtake in which case, Hamilton should be 4th, or Hamilton didn't and Trulli reclaimed his position against the rules. He then should be punished.

Hamilton should be at worst be able to keep his 3rd or 4th place. He wasn't the cause of the situation after all and acted either on behalf of his team which instructed him in what they thought was the most sensible thing to do (perhaps let Trulli pass again).
 
Tze tommies were lying! Well I think the main problem is that the stewards sometimes seem to be too fast with their conclusions of what happend. This could have easily been avoided if they just said under investigation and than checked all the data first. Same thing with Vettel which also has to appear before the stewards to discuss his penalty.
 
They should just stop televising the races and put on a daytime dramatized soap detailing the rest of it. It's not like the championship will get decided on the track anyway...
 
What a freaking mess. Reading the safety cars regs it's all so vague.They don't clearly answer the quesions (unless someone can point me at other regs that do)

Was Hami entitled to pass Trulli when he slid off-track?
Was Trulli entitled to pass Hamilton, even if he slowed ?
 
From F1.com
The punishment is for intentionally lying to stewards...
Hamilton excluded from Australian results, Trulli regains third
Lewis Hamilton (GBR) McLaren. Formula One World Championship, Rd 2, Malaysian Grand Prix, Preparations, Sepang, Malaysia, Thursday, 2 April 2009 Jarno Trulli (ITA) Toyota and Jens Marquardt, Toyota General Manager F1 Operations, heads to the Stewards Office to re-discuss the events at the end of the Australian GP. Formula One World Championship, Rd 2, Malaysian Grand Prix, Preparations, Sepang, Malaysia, Thursday, 2 April 2009

McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton has been disqualified from last weekend’s Australian Grand Prix after a second stewards’ investigation on Thursday decided both he and his team had provided ‘misleading' evidence during a hearing held after the Melbourne race.

Hamilton crossed the finish line in Australia in fourth, but was subsequently promoted to third after Toyota’s Jarno Trulli was handed a 25-second time penalty for passing his McLaren under the safety car during the race’s closing laps.

Stewards, however, decided to reinvestigate the incident after fresh evidence came to light and convened a second meeting in Sepang. After the hearing, the stewards issued the following statement:

“The Stewards having considered the new elements presented to them from the 2009 Australian Formula One Grand Prix, consider that driver No 1 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.

"Under Article 158 of the International Sporting Code, the driver No 1 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."

In addition to Hamilton’s disqualification, Trulli’s penalty has been withdrawn and the Italian therefore regains his third place - and six world championship points.
Click to expand...

weird... why Hamilton lied to stewards, only to tell the story later on TV?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
You are allowed to overtake if the person before you has a problem. So if you go off the track, go so slow that you can assume someone has a problem etc you can overtake. Otherwise you cant overtake. Trulli by the rules was not allowed to overtake as Hamilton did not have a problem nor was there a situation in where trulli could just not overtake him. But the point is that Hamilton got orders from his team to slow down to let trulli pass. Trulli thought hamilton had a problem because he suddenly slowed down. So he passed as the rules would allow. But than Hamilton got going again, Trulli reported this and even slowed down to let hamilton pass again but Hamilton did not do that (obviously).

So the problem is Mclaren telling Hamilton to suddenly slow down and Trulli not being able to know that mclaren told hamilton to slow down.
 
V3 said:
So how did Hamilton misled the stewards exactly ? This is BS.
Click to expand...

Apparently claimed he didn't slow down / pull to side to let Trulli past him, and also didn't mention that Trulli had slowed down again to let him pass him after it was apparent that Hamilton didn't have problems
 
He talked about slowing down to the press though. Trulli slowed down was new. But surely Trulli would have said that when he was called to the stewards to report his side of the story.

Basically neither drivers broke the rule. The stewards just screwed up big time. They were a joke last season, great start.
 
It can be that basically Hamilton didn't feel like slowing down to much probably because he was busy talking with the team, but the truth is that he was slowing down too much... So that when they asked him, he told that he didn't slow down... (at least not enough as to indicate Trulli to pass him).

I think Hamilton should keep his 4th place, since this is all just a misunderstanding... the officials are the one to blame since they didn't investigate this properly in the first place.
 
Rurouni said:
It can be that basically Hamilton didn't feel like slowing down to much probably because he was busy talking with the team, but the truth is that he was slowing down too much... So that when they asked him, he told that he didn't slow down... (at least not enough as to indicate Trulli to pass him).
Click to expand...

According to Martin they were in a disagreement at the time the pass occured:

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/74153

As we see it, what happened here is that during the closing stages of the Australian Grand Prix, under difficult conditions, there was a safety car incident whereby Jarno Trulli fell off the circuit and Lewis [Hamilton] could legitimately pass Trulli. I don't think that is in question.

Of course, the team could not see it. Lewis informed the team that he had passed Trulli - and there was understandably concern within the team that he had passed Trulli under a safety car. At that time, we did not know that Trulli was right off the circuit and Lewis was asked to give back the place to Trulli. That was a team view, having not seen it, and we thought it was the safest thing to do.

Once that instruction was given to Lewis, he did not agree. He said: 'Look, the guy was off the circuit, I don't need to do this.' A discussion was occurring and before that discussion was finished, Trulli had re-passed. If we look at the speed traces at that time, and compare it to other periods behind the safety car, then Lewis did not do anything abnormal. And I think it is also quite clear that Trulli should not have re-passed.

As soon as that happened, we then spoke to Race Control, to explain that and ask if we could retake that place. At the time, understandably Race Control was busy and they were not able to give us an answer. We asked several times, but clearly they were very busy. So we had to then deal with it. We felt it would be resolved by the stewards after the race.

At the stewards' meeting, we mistakenly believed that the stewards were aware, Charlie [Whiting] was there, and the FIA was there, of that radio conversation. The stewards now believe that we were not explicit enough about that radio conversation, and felt therefore that that was prejudicial to the decision that they reached. Obviously we regret that, and that was a mistake by the team, but we have got to accept the decision that has now been made.
Click to expand...
 
http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/pressreleases/f1releases/2009/Pages/f1_stewards_decision.aspx
Press Release
Stewards Decision - Australian GP
02/04/2009

PENALTY IMPOSED ON DRIVER NO 1 LEWIS HAMILTON AND COMPETITOR VODAFONE MCLAREN MERCEDES



SUMMARY OF KEY CONSIDERATIONS


At the first hearing following the Australian Grand Prix the Stewards did not have the benefit of the radio exchanges between driver No 1 Lewis Hamilton and his Team Vodafone McLaren Mercedes nor did they have access to the comments to the Media given by Lewis Hamilton immediately after the end of the race.



From the video recordings available to the Stewards during the hearing it appeared that Jarno Trulli’s car left the track and car No 1 moved into third place. It then appeared that Trulli overtook Hamilton to regain third place, which at the time was prohibited as it was during the Safety Car period.



During the hearing, held approximately one hour after the end of the race, the Stewards and the Race Director questioned Lewis Hamilton and his Team Manager David Ryan specifically about whether there had been an instruction given to Hamilton to allow Trulli to overtake. Both the driver and the Team Manager stated that no such instruction had been given. The Race Director specifically asked Hamilton whether he had consciously allowed Trulli to overtake. Hamilton insisted that he had not done so.



The new elements presented to the Stewards several days after the 2009 Australian Grand Prix which led to the reconvened Stewards Meeting clearly show that:



a. Immediately after the race and before Lewis Hamilton attended the Stewards Meeting he gave an interview to the Media where he clearly stated that the Team had told him to let Trulli pass.


b. Furthermore, the radio exchanges between the driver and the Team contain two explicit orders from the Team to let the Toyota pass.



The Stewards, having learned about the radio exchanges and the Media interview, felt strongly that they had been misled by the driver and his Team Manager which led to Jarno Trulli being unfairly penalised and Lewis Hamilton gaining third place.
Click to expand...
So after all Hamilton lied.
 
Yes, the stewards should admit they screwed up and withdraw everything. Let the original result stand, like it should.
 
fia cockup isnt new.
but this time mclaren managed to screw it up really well.
whitmarsh looks like Iraqi information minster now.
 
FIA press release said:
At the first hearing following the Australian Grand Prix the Stewards did not have the benefit of the radio exchanges between driver No 1 Lewis Hamilton and his Team Vodafone McLaren Mercedes nor did they have access to the comments to the Media given by Lewis Hamilton immediately after the end of the race.

From the video recordings available to the Stewards during the hearing it appeared that Jarno Trulli’s car left the track and car No 1 moved into third place. It then appeared that Trulli overtook Hamilton to regain third place, which at the time was prohibited as it was during the Safety Car period.

During the hearing, held approximately one hour after the end of the race, the Stewards and the Race Director questioned Lewis Hamilton and his Team Manager David Ryan specifically about whether there had been an instruction given to Hamilton to allow Trulli to overtake. Both the driver and the Team Manager stated that no such instruction had been given. The Race Director specifically asked Hamilton whether he had consciously allowed Trulli to overtake. Hamilton insisted that he had not done so.

The new elements presented to the Stewards several days after the 2009 Australian Grand Prix which led to the reconvened Stewards Meeting clearly show that:


a. Immediately after the race and before Lewis Hamilton attended the Stewards Meeting he gave an interview to the Media where he clearly stated that the Team had told him to let Trulli pass.

b. Furthermore, the radio exchanges between the driver and the Team contain two explicit orders from the Team to let the Toyota pass.

The Stewards, having learned about the radio exchanges and the Media interview, felt strongly that they had been misled by the driver and his Team Manager which led to Jarno Trulli being unfairly penalised and Lewis Hamilton gaining third place.


edit - from here: http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/pressreleases/f1releases/2009/Pages/f1_stewards_decision.aspx
Click to expand...

Anyone one else find something in this deeply disturbing? I bolded the disturbing bit to highlight it:

The FIA had video evidence of the entire relevant scene. If Hamilton had reduced his speed accoardingly and as later claimed by Trulli, then I'm sure this must of been seen on the video evidence as well. Trulli spoke of not having a choice but to overtake, indicating that Hamilton must have slowed down quite a bit or even used his brakes.

Perhaps though, he didn't necessarely slow down a lot [Hamilton] but lost a bit of speed due to being engaged in an argument with his team if he should or should not let Trulli pass. Trulli took this as an opportunity or indication and passed Hamilton as a result.

What ever happened though, Hamilton was sure he was rightly in position 3 and obviously, the FIA upon investigating the video footage saw nothing that would indicate that Trulli *had* to overtake Hamilton because he was slowing down (which should have led to further investigation if it had been so, but did not).

If Hamilton received orders by his team or not is in this case and is therefore entirely irrelevant, as long as he didn't go through with them and *force* Trulli to overtake him.

So, if Hamilton did slow down - why wasn't this seen on the video footage upon the first investigation?
If he didn't slow down, why is it relevant if the team ordered him to let him pass?
If this is so, why isn't Trulli punished?
 
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