Quote from tristancliffe :

I don't know it. He cut the chicane and maintained an advantage that led to an overtake. But it's in the past now, so who cares.

Button gained an advantage and did something about it eventually - presumably once the team was able to review it. Lots of drivers have given places back, either at the teams request or of their own volition.

I think the refference to the Hamilton and Raikonnen issue is because of the inconcistency of stewarding at the FIA. Personally I feel Hamilton was being penalised at any given opportunity at that time and with harsh penalties and the FIA even admitted afterwards that was the case and that they had been issuing penalties deliberately as part of the concorde agreement with Ferrari, so it's kind of moot point now to debate it now.

I'm actually glad that common sense and reason has to some small degree crept in and Button was given the opportunity to right the situation, even though - technically - he did not return the place before the following corner and should have had a more severe penalty.

I dislike the way penalties are shaping the championship whilst the decisions and punishments are so erratic, and hopefully the decision made regards Button (where the stewards communicated to BAR and gave them the chance to correct the situation) will be the precedent for the future.

The FIA/Ferrari agreement was nothing to do with penalising their competitors in incidents like that. If you think that was 'admitted' then I don't know what press releases you've been reading.

Quote from tristancliffe :

The FIA/Ferrari agreement was nothing to do with penalising their competitors in incidents like that. If you think that was 'admitted' then I don't know what press releases you've been reading.

The ones from Bernie when Ferrari pissed him off and he spilled the beans, not that it was under any doubt anyway as the head steward at the time had business links with Ferrari anyway...

At no point did those admit anything of the sort. You're confusing things like technical vetos with having stewards ruling in their favour.

I only ever heard about the bribery that went on, as far as I know that only invloved money?

Its still a completely unacceptable thing for what is supposed to be a neutral governing body, to be honest I think everybody invloved in the bribery of Ferrari should have been dissmissed from the FIA. The Stepneygate affair became a massive scandal, and I'm quite amzed that the whole FIA/Ferrari thing didn't too.

Quote from 5haz :

I only ever heard about the bribery that went on, as far as I know that only invloved money?

Uhm, and what do you think Ferrari got in return? Money for Bernie, penalties to threatening teams at first chance.

But anyway - thats the past. Nothing will change you like it or not.

Wasn't it the FIA bribing Ferrari with money, not Ferrari bribing the FIA?

Although theres nothing that confirms that the FIA actually handed out penalties with bias (although sometimes it was pretty glaringly obvious), given that the FIA are a bunch of corrupt nasties, I wouldn't be suprised. Mosely's rather vicious denounciation of Jackie Stewart and Martin Brundle when they started cottoning on to this is also a bit suspicious.

Regarding Jenson, Vettel squeezed him at the start (legetimately of course) which forced him to dropped down to 8th (or 9th if you count webber as well). Jenson had to lift off to avoid Vettel's car, or he would have lost his front wing. I think Jenson is now thinking about the big picture, the championship. One DNF with a win from his main rival would cut down his lead massively. I think he feels like he can't take any risk.

Moreover, I don't think we should mark him off just yet because of this one race. The car hasn't been great in the past few races. But he was just unlucky in Valencia. If you look at his laptimes at the end of the race when he was chasing Alonso, he was consistantly pumping in solid laptimes, with like five 1:39.0 in a row (and another 1:38.8) which was pretty impressive.

Ghastly luck for Vettel on the weekend. Two engine failures! Since when did modern F1 cars suffer two engine failures in one event?

Anyway, sweet win by Barrichello. Don't underestimate the old folk!

Quote from samjh :

Ghastly luck for Vettel on the weekend. Two engine failures! Since when did modern F1 cars suffer two engine failures in one event?

Renault...nuff said.

Quote from ATC Quicksilver :

Renault...nuff said.

They probably took the engine that just blew up, applied some duck tape and sent it back to Red Bull.

always looks bad when one driver has a noticably larger amount of engine failures than his team mate even if it's probably not his fault, at the moment vettel is in serious risk of suffering the 10 place penalty for using more than 8 in a season. also renault engines are usually very reliable in F1 so as has been previously mentioned it's possibly the result of the instilation.

having said all that, the first failure was probably one of those things and the second may well be the result of doing an engine swap on a car who's designer is notorious for designing cars that are very difficult to work on due to their packaging.

Quote from tristancliffe :

At no point did those admit anything of the sort. You're confusing things like technical vetos with having stewards ruling in their favour.

As far as I know, no on-track bias has been admitted.. and I have been looking out for it. This is the real world, though - albeit the real F1 world - where reason can be expected to prevail and where criminals are guilty whether or not they plead innocence. The absence of admission is a mere facet of the tale, not the make-or-break of the tale.

Ferrari admitted to being bribed by the FIA, to the other teams, under Todt. The FIA has confirmed that its relationship with Ferrari's F1 team was "special" and "secret".

You may believe, if you wish, that Ferrari/Fiat S.p.A.'s interest in the backroom Concorde deal with the FIA was entirely limited to financial bonuses in the event of a win. Personally, I find that to be naive and directly in conflict with a plethora of on-track and off-track evidence to the contrary. But I've chosen to do my best to respect other peoples' religious beliefs, no matter how tenuous or ludicrous they seem to me, so I'll say no more on it

It could be due to a single batch of dodgy parts, we saw this last year when Ferrari suddenly had a few engine faliures in a row, with Massa's engine blowing up in Hugary and Kimi's in Valencia. It was traced to a dodgy batch of con-rods if I remember correctly.

Poor Luca. David Hobbs was hurling stones at him all race during commentary.

Quote from tristancliffe :

.....when Vettel squeezed him (legitimately I might add).

What exactly IS "legitimate squeezing"?

Quote from gezmoor :

What exactly IS "legitimate squeezing"?

Depends who's doing it!

Quite right, depends on who you're squeezing, squeeze the wrong person and you'll be on the recieving end of a slap.

Quote from carey :

You're allowed to move once (under the rules of racing etiquette which doesn't seem to apply to the usual front-runners).

Technically it's twice, your allowed to move once to defend and then you're allowed to move back to the racing line.

Quote from keiran :

Technically it's twice, your allowed to move once to defend and then you're allowed to move back to the racing line.

Actually, it is once.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sxg39qPaA8

The onboard cameras where excellent

I slept through half the race.. man.. what a bore.. ~.~

WOO GO SUTIL 10th his making his comeback.

Quote from AstroBoy :

WOO GO SUTIL 10th his making his comeback.

and he will crashes out once he gets to 8th.