Lewis Hamilton got little sympathy from his fellow drivers here in the Monza paddock following the Belgian Grand Prix, where officials gave him a 25-second penalty that dropped him from first to third place.
To recap: Hamilton cut the final chicane at Spa and passed Kimi Raikkonen. As required, Hamilton duly let Raikkonen back in front. But then the McLaren driver immediately attacked the Ferrari driver and retook the lead going into turn one, the La Source Hairpin.
So, did Hamilton get an advantage by cutting across the chicane even though he briefly ceded the lead to Kimi?
Yes, was the resolute answer from the other drivers, although some believed the penalty was too harsh for the violation.
True, Lewis then let Kimi ahead on the pit straight. But the drivers said that Hamilton would never have been close enough to Raikkonen to pass him into turn one if he had followed him through the chicane.
“Lewis clearly was in a good position to attack at La Source because of missing the chicane at the previous corner,” Mark Webber said when I asked him about the incident. “Speeds over the start/finish line are totally irrelevant. Kimi was at full throttle. Having missed the previous corner, Lewis could tune his attack. It made it a lot easier for him to attempt an overtaking move.”
Fernando Alonso agreed.
“Lewis had an advantage by doing that,” he said. “If he did the chicane properly, he would never have crossed the line one meter behind Kimi. You lose five or 10 meters and then you cannot overtake in turn one.
“We always said we would give back the position, but at the same time as giving back the position you cannot take advantage of what you did one corner before. If you give back the position, take the slipstream and overtake the guy into the next corner, you still have an advantage because of what you did.”
Webber also said that Hamilton had attacked and re-passed too soon.
“It is like here at Monza,” he said. “If I miss the first chicane and let the guy back through, jump back on his tail and do him at the second chicane, then I would never have done that if I hadn’t jumped the first chicane. That is something I should be penalized for, and it is exactly what Lewis did.”
Niki Lauda’s outburst following the Belgian Grand Prix summed up the feelings of many of the fans and media who were outraged that Hamilton had been booted back to third place.
Lauda told the German media that it was “the worst judgment in the history of F-1” and added that it was “absolutely unacceptable” that the stewards “can influence the World Championship in this fashion.”
Irate fans called the FIA the “Ferrari International Assistance” and the media, especially in Britain, were voracious in their condemnation of the FIA and the race stewards.
A few days later in the Monza paddock, however, there was a noticeable swing of opinion on the affair, and quite a number of people were now accepting the fact that Hamilton did indeed gain an advantage by his maneuver.
Ironically, FIA’s race director Charlie Whiting twice (unofficially) assured McLaren over the radio during the race that Hamilton had acted correctly only for the FIA race stewards to later rule completely the opposite.