Lifetime ban of the race (so far)

[ioan]

Difficult, no: impossible to defend Hamilton today. Yet another example of a driver failing to fully complete a pass before turning in, expecting Kobyashi to somehow disappear. Whitmarsh telling the BBC that Lewis "was ahead" cuts no ice, he clearly wasn't clear of the Sauber otherwise there wouldn't have been contact.

Senna must get a Donkey award to for his Stevie Wonder impression on lap one; and Webber - despite finishing in a fine 2nd place - should be roundly slapped with a wet fish for mucking up his start.

Whitmarsh needs to stop lying to us and especially to Hamilton. As long as they don't tell him he's a d!ckhead and needs to change his approach he will not do it on his own, he's just not mature enough.
They are doing him (and themselves) a disservice on the long term by covering up his crap.

PS: Poor fish what does it have to do with Webber's light foot?

[Bagwan]

Brace yourselves !
You might not expect me to defend Hamilton too often , but here's a case when he shouldn't get the stick .

I see it as the stewards did , as a racing incident .
He simply didn't see him because Kamui wasn't all the way along side him .
It's somewhat like the Monaco incident with Maldonado , where Lewis couldn't know that Pastor had seen him , thus he shouldn't have committed to the move .
Kamui wasn't able to get all the way up to where his presence was known to the driver ahead , and so , the intimidation intended , wasn't received .
Lewis clearly didn't know he was there , as we saw him looking at the apex , having assumed the corner was his , having made the pass .

If Kobayashi had been able to get a few more feet farther in , Lewis would have seen him and reacted differently .



This appears to me to again be a symptom of the lack of vision the drivers are offered , due to the high bolsters on the cockpit sides .

[Daniel]

Difficult, no: impossible to defend Hamilton today. Yet another example of a driver failing to fully complete a pass before turning in, expecting Kobyashi to somehow disappear. Whitmarsh telling the BBC that Lewis "was ahead" cuts no ice, he clearly wasn't clear of the Sauber otherwise there wouldn't have been contact.

Senna must get a Donkey award to for his Stevie Wonder impression on lap one; and Webber - despite finishing in a fine 2nd place - should be roundly slapped with a wet fish for mucking up his start.

Whitmarsh needs to grow some balls and do his job rather than taking the side of his drivers regardless of fault. What Hamilton did today might be OK in a low speed corner, but that is certainly not a place you want to be having contact.

[Dave B]

Whitmarsh needs to stop lying to us and especially to Hamilton. As long as they don't tell him he's a d!ckhead and needs to change his approach he will not do it on his own, he's just not mature enough.
They are doing him (and themselves) a disservice on the long term by covering up his crap.

It's only natural that he would defend his driver and employee in front of the TV cameras, but I do wonder what conversations take place behind closed doors. I'd hope that the team management are honest with Hamilton, but I do sometimes wonder if they treat him with kid gloves for fear of upsetting him.

[Triumph]

I think Lewis was unconscious there for a moment.

And before anyone says it, I mean after he hit the wall!

He definitely seemed a bit concussed during that interview afterwards.

[Daniel]

Brace yourselves !
You might not expect me to defend Hamilton too often , but here's a case when he shouldn't get the stick .

I see it as the stewards did , as a racing incident .
He simply didn't see him because Kamui wasn't all the way along side him .
It's somewhat like the Monaco incident with Maldonado , where Lewis couldn't know that Pastor had seen him , thus he shouldn't have commintted to the move .
Kamui wasn't able to get all the way up to where his presence was known to the driver ahead , and so , the intimidation intended , wasn't received .
Lewis clearly didn't know he was there , as we saw him looking at the apex , having assumed the corner was his , having made the pass .

If Kobayashi had been able to get a few more feet farther in , Lewis would have seen him and reacted differently .



This appears to me to again be a symptom of the lack of vision the drivers are offered , due to the high bolsters on the cockpit sides .

[sarcasm]This is the typical crap we get from Hamilton fans[/sarcasm]

It was a racing incident, but given the history and the fact that it's almost always Lewis doing these sort of things. I mean hell, we saw Webber overtake Alonso going through Eau Rouge and they managed to be close but not have contact. Why can't Lewis just be that bit more aware of his surroundings? If that were Lewis overtaking Alonso through Eau Rouge I think we'd have seen a really serious accident.

[ioan]

Brace yourselves !
You might not expect me to defend Hamilton too often , but here's a case when he shouldn't get the stick .

I see it as the stewards did , as a racing incident .
He simply didn't see him because Kamui wasn't all the way along side him .
It's somewhat like the Monaco incident with Maldonado , where Lewis couldn't know that Pastor had seen him , thus he shouldn't have committed to the move .
Kamui wasn't able to get all the way up to where his presence was known to the driver ahead , and so , the intimidation intended , wasn't received .
Lewis clearly didn't know he was there , as we saw him looking at the apex , having assumed the corner was his , having made the pass .

If Kobayashi had been able to get a few more feet farther in , Lewis would have seen him and reacted differently .

This appears to me to again be a symptom of the lack of vision the drivers are offered , due to the high bolsters on the cockpit sides .

Holds no water, a driver should always be aware of the action around him especially when he did just get 1 meter ahead of another driver he should expect a retaliation under braking.
Plus the one who moved into the other's car was Hamilton, so the blame goes squarely to him.

[Dave B]

He simply didn't see him because Kamui wasn't all the way along side him .

So?

If HAM couldn't see KOB then where else did he expect him to be other than in his blind spot?

Process of elimination: Lewis could see that Koby wasn't in front (obviously). He could see from his peripheral vision that he wasn't directly alongside. He could see that Koby was absent from his mirrors and therefore not behind.

Where else is there?

Certainly not deliberate by Hamilton - clearly, because it was always going to risk damage to his car - but a boneheaded rookie error that he should have had the balls to own up to.

[steveaki13]

Difficult, no: impossible to defend Hamilton today. Yet another example of a driver failing to fully complete a pass before turning in, expecting Kobyashi to somehow disappear. Whitmarsh telling the BBC that Lewis "was ahead" cuts no ice, he clearly wasn't clear of the Sauber otherwise there wouldn't have been contact.

.

Agree

Right up until the last moment of contact, kamui was level not behind.

Martin was confused. Talking of Lewis being on the racing line so Kobayashi should have backed out of it. But clearly Kamui was on the racing line, so complete ignorance for the real facts.

I was shouting get off your team glasses and look at the pictures your talking nonsense.

[Dave B]

Crikey - I've just agreed with ioan!