McLaren in a mess after Lewis Hamilton is docked points

[Zeus_Hunt]

Lewis Hamilton has been stripped of his third place finish in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix after the world champion and his team were judged to have provided ‘misleading’ evidence during a post-race stewards’ hearing.

Like a kid with his hand inside the cookie jar, Lewis Hamilton has been caught, all ends up. No two ways about it.

The baffling thing is, why?

To compound the situation, McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh stated Hamilton "did not lie", only to be embarrassed just hours later by the FIA's release of damning evidence. All their efforts over the last 18 months in attempting to restore their damaged reputation following the spy saga has come undone in the space of four days. Throughout that whole sorry mess that ended with his team being fined £50million, McLaren chairman Ron Dennis preached that honesty and integrity were the watchwords of his company.

How hollow those words again seem but, bizarrely in this instance, over something relatively trivial, and that should never have exploded in the way it did yesterday in Sepang. The facts are simple: following an accident involving BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica and Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel late on in Sunday's Australian Grand Prix, the safety car was deployed.

Toyota's Jarno Trulli, running third at the time, ran wide off the track, allowing Hamilton to legitimately pass. Only the 24-year-old becomes a little confused and, over a period of 70 seconds of a radio transmission between himself and the pit wall, he first enquires as to whether he has done the right thing in overtaking. Pertinently, he is twice told to allow Trulli through before the team later inform him to hold position, believing he has not yet given back the place, only for him to let them know he already has. At this stage, Hamilton and the team have done nothing wrong, other than to trip over themselves in terms of relevant information.

Soon after the race, the stewards launch an investigation on the basis Trulli illegally passed Hamilton behind the safety car.

With no audio, they base their decision on video footage and, as such, hand Trulli a 25-second penalty, demoting him from third to 12th, with Hamilton elevated into a podium position.

After starting 18th on the grid in a car described by Hamilton as one of the worst he has driven, there is cause for celebration at McLaren. Trulli, meanwhile, is left aghast, maintaining his innocence as the veteran Italian claims he only passed Hamilton as the 24-year-old had deliberately slowed.

Now for the confusion. Shortly before meeting with the stewards at Albert Park, Hamilton categorically states in an interview he was informed by the team to allow Trulli by.

Now Hamilton is a highly intelligent guy and not normally one to stumble over his own comments but, for whatever reason, when asked by the stewards whether the team had told him to let Trulli pass, his answer was no, the same reply given by team manager Dave Ryan. McLaren had very little to gain, only one place and one point.

In fairness, the world title over the last two years has been won by a single point so every one counts, but why try and brazen out this particular scenario?

Once the FIA managed to get hold of the radio transmission, as well as the audio of the media interview, they were always going to come down hard and his exclusion from the Australian GP was no surprise in light of the evidence against him.

The FIA, have described what he and McLaren did as "deliberately misleading", which in anybody's language means a lie.

Whitmarsh then added fuel to the fire with his comments as he attempted to defend Hamilton and his team.

The problem for McLaren's new boss is that the FIA, in an attempt at transparency after the closed-shop confusion behind stewards' decisions of the past, have decided from this season to make public their findings.

To say their submission was damning is an understatement as they released the audio of the team radio conversation and of Hamilton in the interview. McLaren and Hamilton have gone from champs to chumps in a few short months, and needlessly so.

Now there is the prospect of the FIA handing the matter over to the World Motor Sport Council for further examination. The WMSC have the power to suspend Hamilton from future races, or even disqualify him from the championship. Of course, that will never happen because Hamilton is a box-office draw, even if the car is wretched at the moment. His exclusion, and shame-faced embarrassment, are enough of a punishment at this present time.

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[Lite]

Liars. That is all.

[Atasas]

McRary, Mcrary, McRary... bunch of liars, cheats, avantiurists (Molseley case) and thieves! what a never ending embarrassment to F1....

Once and for all they (at very least) should get banned for whole season!