Quote Originally Posted by Nitrodaze View Post
At least understand the situation before you comment. The penalty was given after both practise starts had occurred, so there would be no additional time loss involved. The infraction happened on the way to the grid, hence before the race had started. Such situation are normally dealt with after the race, but on this very rare occasion, it was penalized in the race. Which everyone found to be very odd in itself. More odd is that they penalized him twice with two 5 seconds stop and go penalties during the race which effectively killed the action in the sharp end of the race and initially slammed him with 2 points on is super licence.

The important thing to note is that, we the audience, have been cheated out of some interesting action brewing from the start. They killed the enjoyment of the race. It turned out to be a very boring race in the end.

That was the harshest possible punishment the stewards are allowed to levy on any discretionary breach of the rules. The situation clearly indicate that they were heavy handed, they could not wait until after the race, as they should. But were very anxious to impose a punishment as soon as possible to mess with Hamilton's race.
But if the stewards had indeed waited until after the race, and then handed out a time penalty, then Mercedes would - and rightly so - be the first to complain that they didn't have a chance to react during the race by building a larger gap.

And I think we have seen in-race penalties for pre-race infractions before, like mechanics failing to clear the grid in time or drivers leaving a closed pit lane.