It is an interesting topic, the Grosjean penalty.
I may have to reconsider, given that there is word that Grosjean has been involved in at least 7 incidents at the start of races in this years season. While I've watched all races this year, I can't say that Grosjean has made that kind of impression on me and I'm not sure if he was to blame in all 7 incidents either. He's agressive, yes, but IMO not overly agressive. He's impressed me a lot and even before this season started, I thought Grosjean will be impressive and I was particularly interested to see how he will compare as Kimis team-mate.
I feel different about Maldonado. Last year when he took a deliberate swipe at Hamilton at Spa after La Source in Qualifying, which I thought was dangerous and should have been severly penalized (it was not). Since then, and especially this year, he has caused a few incidents which have compromised others races (thinking of Perez here).
In my book - Maldonado had a ban coming way before Grosjean.
What irks me the wrong way about the stewarding in F1 is that it feels to me that it's dependant on public reaction, rather on what is allowed and what isn't. To me, it feels Grosjean is being banned because his crash (which was an error in judgment) could have resulted in a fatality. In truth, I think they've been worse incidents (with more intent) that could have been worse, but as it happened turned out way less dangerous.
Grosjean had a good start, pulled up next to Lewis (due to Kobayashi holding up the left side of the grid) and as per his own comments, thought he had put a sufficient gap between him [and Lewis] and moved to the right. Watching the replay, it looks to me that Grosjean had a better start than Lewis and both of them drove parallel to each other when Grosjean moved over to the right, slightly ahead of Lewis, not seeing him, and attempting to move into the gap on the right. You can't see everything in a F1 car, let alone at the start of the race. You often have people, even experienced drivers, moving across trying to find the best possible angle. I would say many of these maneuvers are down to a bit of 'luck' and it's been kind of extraordinary that we've had so few incidents at the start of races in the past few seasons. When multiple things go wrong at a start of the race though, like Kobayashi with overheated brakes and a bad start, Maldonado jumping the start, sometimes a chain reaction resulting in a crash like the one Grosjean caused are inevitable. These are racing drivers and we expect them to a certain degree to
race, fight for positions, while remaining respectful and think their maneuvers through.
Formula 1 is a dangerous sport - it always has been. Not penalizing Grosjean might have sent the wrong message (and I'm not arguing that they should have done that vs. what they did), I agree, but for arguments sake, I think I'd rather have 'harsh punishments' for actions with intent (like the deliberate swipe Maldonado did on Lewis last year) or where rules are broken black on white, then dependant on how 'spectacular' the result of a crash may be. We've had many starts with worse maneuvers but less consequences result in zero reprimands or punishments.
It's a tricky situation and it's amazing that through that huge crash, Alonso was miraculously unharmed. Maybe the question is - can you make an inherently dangerous sport safer by punishing when big crashes happen? If the cause of the crash is due to an action with dangerous intent, then yes - but if it's just a result of multiple things going wrong at the same time leading to a chain of events? hmm...
