Yet another
Formula 1 luminary has questioned the
FIA's neutrality in meting out punishments, in the wake of the three penalties received by McLaren-Mercedes drivers
Lewis Hamilton and
Heikki Kovalainen in the past fortnight.
Following Hamilton's French Grand Prix grid penalty – imposed for his calamitous Montreal indiscretion, when he ran into the back of chief championship rival Kimi Raikkonen in the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve's pit-lane after failing to spot the red light – the Briton was further penalised in the Magny-Cours race itself, receiving a contentious drive-through penalty for having been deemed by the stewards to have gained an advantage when he shot off the track immediately after passing
Sebastian Vettel in the
Scuderia Toro Rosso on the opening lap.
Team-mate Kovalainen, for his part, was demoted five places on the starting grid in France for having allegedly blocked
Red Bull Racing's
Mark Webber during the second phase of qualifying, though tellingly Swiss newspaper
Blick quotes the Aussie as having questioned after the incident: “Did someone block me?”
That corroborates Mercedes-Benz Motorsport Vice-President Norbert Haug's assertion that Webber had subsequently approached him to insist that he had not been disadvantaged in any way, whilst triple
F1 World Champion Niki Lauda has now added his voice to those casting doubt over the FIA's bias.
“I would never have given out a penalty for that,” the Austrian said of Hamilton's drive-through, in an interview with German newspaper
Bild, whose headline wondered: ‘Why is Mercedes always punished?'
Lauda's remarks echo those of fellow former multiple title-winner Sir
Jackie Stewart, who had asked why black-and-orange flags had not been waved at
Kimi Raikkonen's
Ferrari at Magny-Cours, his F2008's right exhaust pipe flailing dangerously off the side of the car [see separate story –
click here]
