Alonso stripped of Pole

[wmcot]

5 places seems to be the standard for this race... Fisi got them too

I understand that Hungary uses a base-5 number system - hence the punishments.

[wmcot]

Now go drink some RD koolaid, you will feel much better

Dude, you have some good points, but lose the "kool aid" bit - it's getting old.

[Fallingwater]

I still don't understand. McLaren might have been deprived of their points for lying to the stewards. But what about Alonso?
Even in the event that he intentionally blocked Hamilton (team orders or whatever), can anyone give me a link to this year's rule that states "Hamilton should always get one more lap than Alonso if he has the available time to do so" ?
In other words, why weren't the teams that performed a different amount of laps in Q3 punished?
I think the issue was not really the blocking manouvre. What really did bug the Hamiltons was that with 17 laps each in Q3, Alonso achieved P1.
Would he have been stripped of pole if he hadn't been able to achieve it? Makes you think.

[tinchote]

I still don't understand. McLaren might have been deprived of their points for lying to the stewards. But what about Alonso?
Even in the event that he intentionally blocked Hamilton (team orders or whatever), can anyone give me a link to this year's rule that states "Hamilton should always get one more lap than Alonso if he has the available time to do so" ?

There is no such rule. What the rules say, is

from FIA F1 Sporting Regulations

31.6 In the event of a driving infringement during any practice session the Stewards may drop the driver such number of grid positions as they consider appropriate. Unless it is completely clear that a driver committed a driving infringement any such incident will normally be investigated after the relevant session, any penalty imposed shall not be subject to appeal. Where appropriate, regard will also be given to the provisions of Article 18.1.

31.7 Any driver taking part in any practice session who, in the opinion of the stewards, stops unnecessarily on the circuit or unnecessarily impedes another driver shall be subject to the penalties referred to in Article 31.6.

FA impeded LH for 30 seconds, and couldn't give a good explanation why he did so. Hence the sanction.

[Fallingwater]

FA impeded LH for 30 seconds, and couldn't give a good explanation why he did so. Hence the sanction.

I see (was the lollipop up for 30 seconds?). I thought that rule talked specifically about stopping on track when the other driver is in a flying lap. Like MS in Monaco. But, the rules must re-interpreted (again) to go against FA.
As hard as it is to explain why FA stopped for so long, other events (such as Alonso crossing the start line in a risky 0.6s (was it?) before the time was up, suggests that moving again wasn't exactly his own deliberate decision. At least I don't think he's THAT good.
I ask the question again. Imagine Alonso couldn't make a better time on that last lap, and Hamilton kept P1. Would the rules apply in that case? Would the incident have been investigated? The answer is probably NO. Alonso's problem was not blocking another driver for a determined amount of seconds without an explanation. His real problem was getting pole position while doing so. I wish I was wrong, but it sure looks that way.

[Mickey T]

At McLaren, the drivers take it in turns to have their crack at the last qualifier on the lightest fuel load.

that's because, during the fuel-burn phase of Q3, on of their cars will need to do one less lap than the other one so they can get pitted through the session.

clearly, this gives a small weight advantage to the driver on the lighter fuel load, and it's this driver that is, then, the one who gets the last shot at pole position because he stops last, on the light load, and also knows what to aim at on split times.

this system has favoured hamilton before, not only at silverstone, as has widely been mentioned.

this time, though, it was alonso's turn. lewis ignored six radio calls to let alonso past so he could regain the position (lewis also jumped out of the garage to wait at the front of the queue, which of the two mclarens was alonso's perogative).

What Alonso did may have been a bit cunning and could be considered unfair to the punters who paid to see a hard qualifying fight, but it certainly was NOT unfair to hamilton. he was removing lewis's tactical benefit from ignoring the team orders earlier in the session - team orders which insisted lewis was never supposed to get the final, lightweight run in qualifying that day anyway.

you have to be a bit blinded by the rookie mania to believe alonso did anything demonstrably wrong. his team mate was behaving badly, against team orders and to alonso's detriment (after alonso had respected similar arrangements, again, to alonso's detriment, at other tracks). he used a bit of cunning to ensure his team mate never got a reward for unethical behaviour.

so, whatever way you look at it, it bears no relationship whatsoever to schumacher at monaco

for the life of me, i don't understand why the FIA felt it needed to be involved in an internal team management crisis, which only exacerbated the situation when the sport didn't need it.

whatever, i don't envy the management job ron has in keeping his drivers from each other's throats for the remainder of their contracts...

[tinchote]

At McLaren, the drivers take it in turns to have their crack at the last qualifier on the lightest fuel load.

that's because, during the fuel-burn phase of Q3, on of their cars will need to do one less lap than the other one so they can get pitted through the session.

Very "reasonable" explanation. However, I check the stats and I see that at Montreal, Barcelona, Bahrain, Malaysia, and Australia both FA and LH did the same amount of laps in Q3. Taking into account that France and Germany don't count (one of them didn't finish Q3), the only qualys where one of them did a lap more were Monaco, USA and Britain. So, even counting Hungary, the "one of the drivers does one more lap" thing appeared in only 4 races out of 11. Each time I find it harder to believe these guys.

I see (was the lollipop up for 30 seconds?). I thought that rule talked specifically about stopping on track when the other driver is in a flying lap. Like MS in Monaco. But, the rules must re-interpreted (again) to go against FA.
As hard as it is to explain why FA stopped for so long, other events (such as Alonso crossing the start line in a risky 0.6s (was it?) before the time was up, suggests that moving again wasn't exactly his own deliberate decision. At least I don't think he's THAT good.
I ask the question again. Imagine Alonso couldn't make a better time on that last lap, and Hamilton kept P1. Would the rules apply in that case? Would the incident have been investigated? The answer is probably NO. Alonso's problem was not blocking another driver for a determined amount of seconds without an explanation. His real problem was getting pole position while doing so. I wish I was wrong, but it sure looks that way.

Ok, FA impeded LH for 10 seconds. Satisfied, now?

You are too paranoid man, there is no campaign against Alonso. He had an unsporting behaviour and he was penalized for that. Simple.

[donKey jote]

At McLaren, the drivers take it in turns to have their crack at the last qualifier on the lightest fuel load.

that's because, during the fuel-burn phase of Q3, on of their cars will need to do one less lap than the other one so they can get pitted through the session.

clearly, this gives a small weight advantage to the driver on the lighter fuel load, and it's this driver that is, then, the one who gets the last shot at pole position because he stops last, on the light load, and also knows what to aim at on split times.

this system has favoured hamilton before, not only at silverstone, as has widely been mentioned.

this time, though, it was alonso's turn. lewis ignored six radio calls to let alonso past so he could regain the position (lewis also jumped out of the garage to wait at the front of the queue, which of the two mclarens was alonso's perogative).

What Alonso did may have been a bit cunning and could be considered unfair to the punters who paid to see a hard qualifying fight, but it certainly was NOT unfair to hamilton. he was removing lewis's tactical benefit from ignoring the team orders earlier in the session - team orders which insisted lewis was never supposed to get the final, lightweight run in qualifying that day anyway.

you have to be a bit blinded by the rookie mania to believe alonso did anything demonstrably wrong. his team mate was behaving badly, against team orders and to alonso's detriment (after alonso had respected similar arrangements, again, to alonso's detriment, at other tracks). he used a bit of cunning to ensure his team mate never got a reward for unethical behaviour.

so, whatever way you look at it, it bears no relationship whatsoever to schumacher at monaco

for the life of me, i don't understand why the FIA felt it needed to be involved in an internal team management crisis, which only exacerbated the situation when the sport didn't need it.

whatever, i don't envy the management job ron has in keeping his drivers from each other's throats for the remainder of their contracts...

According to the Spanish newspapers, Anthony called them !

[N. Jones]

I haven't read all three pages of this but I was wondering....

Has anyone realized that it was Hamilton who first disobeyed team orders by not allowing Alonso to pass him in the early stages of Q3? This started a chain reaction that has caused all of this discussion in the first place!

[Fallingwater]

Ok, FA impeded LH for 10 seconds. Satisfied, now?

You are too paranoid man, there is no campaign against Alonso. He had an unsporting behaviour and he was penalized for that. Simple.

10 and 30 seconds does make a difference.
And you admit they did the same amount of laps in Hungary. So once again, Where is the lap Hamilton couldn't do?In 17 laps, Alonso made the fastest time, which is the heart of the matter.
It's funny how the stewards took hours to decide, yet most people here haven't changed their opinion since the events were shown on TV.

Even if it had been the first time the team decided to give a driver that extra lap, Hamilton would still be the cause of all the problems.

There IS a campaign against FA, which was very evident last year, not forgetting Bernie's comments about Alonso not having the profile of champion they want for the sport, and the great financial opportunity they have with Hamilton.

"Unsporting behaviour" is a rather subjective thing. Disobeying team orders can also be unsporting. Having one more lap than your teammate in Q3 could also be considered unsporting. You can go on like that forever.
In any case, Alonso wasn't moved to the back of the grid (which I repeat, that's where he should have been in case of "unsporting behaviour). He was just pushed back enough to not be able to challenge LH.

The fact is, this whole drama is based on the assumption that LH had to have one more lap than Alonso no matter what, and the assumption that he was going to get P1 100% sure. I'm not paranoid, just trying to figure out what happened. Explanations such as "FA just cheated and got punished" are really a poor way to explain the whole thing, since we know there's much more to it.