The 25-second penalty that robbed McLaren-Mercedes star
Lewis Hamilton of victory in the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps at the weekend has been slammed as ‘perverted' and ‘the worst judgement in the history of F1' – by a former Ferrari world champion.
Hamilton expertly won the race held around the challenging Ardennes circuit – widely acknowledged as the greatest test of a driver's true level of skill the world over – after getting the better of Ferrari rival
Kimi Raikkonen in a thrilling late-race scrap on a track rendered ever-more treacherous by the onset of rain whilst both men were still out on slick tyres.
Though it was the Briton who ultimately prevailed – taking the lead shortly before Raikkonen spun into the wall barely two laps from the chequered flag – he was subsequently handed a retrospective 25-second ‘drive-through' penalty. That came after FIA stewards deemed Hamilton had gained an advantage by cutting the Bus-Stop chicane as the duo battled wheel-to-wheel through the last corner, consequently dropping him down to third place in the final reckoning and gifting victory to chief title rival
Felipe Massa.
The punishment has come in for heavy attack from all quarters, with Hamilton vigorously protesting his innocence and British newspaper the
Daily Mail exclaiming ‘Just when you thought F1 couldn't get any more ridiculous' and suggesting the 23-year-old is the ‘victim of a conspiracy against
McLaren', with the governing body presiding over a ‘polluted sport'.
‘Instead of celebrating one of the greatest duels of recent times, revelling in true genius by Raikkonen and Hamilton and lauding a remarkable win, that same old stench emanated from
Formula 1,' the report read.
“This is the worst judgment in the history of
F1,” blasted triple F1 World Champion Niki Lauda, a man who clinched two of his three drivers' crowns with
Ferrari, and the other with McLaren almost a decade later. “[It is] the most perverted judgment I have ever seen.
“It's absolutely unacceptable when three functionaries (the stewards) influence the championship like this.”
The announcement was just the latest in a long line of blows to the sport, whose credibility has already been seriously tarnished in the last twelve months by the infamous spy row of last summer – which gravely damaged relations between McLaren and the
FIA, with the former being meted out a sporting record $100 million fine and disqualification from the constructors' world championship – and the
Max Mosley sex scandal earlier this year.
