In what will come as a shocker to McLaren fans, Lewis Hamilton has been penalised for passing Kimi Raikkonen by passing a chicane by cutting it. It essentially places Lewis Hamilton at third place. The McLaren fans were shocked by the decision as it came after the race and celebrations.

Lewis Hamilton was penalised 25 seconds, a drive through penalty actually. The time was added to his time later on.

Kimi Raikkonen had led most of the race, but Lewis Hamilton in a controversial move cut across a chicane to overtake him. The move cost Lewis Hamilton dearly, Kimi Raikkonen while trying to pass Lewis Hamilton spun and went out of the race. But Felipe Massa was the ultimate gainer when Lewis Hamilton was penalised.

Now Lewis Hamilton leads Felipe Massa by only 2 points. Kimi Raikkonen on the other hand lost out on his great run at the Spa track in what would have been his 4th win although for different teams.

In the constructor’s championship , Ferrari lead McLaren by 12 points, McLaren is on 119, while Ferrari is on 131.

Nick Heidfeld who was being criticised a lot, was promoted to second place with Hamilton’s disqualification.

New Classification after Lewis Hamilton’s drive through penalty at the 2008 Belgian Grand Prix :

Pos Driver Team

1. Felipe Massa Ferrari

2. Nick Heidfeld BMW Sauber

3. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes

4. Fernando Alonso Renault

5. Sebastien Vettel Toro Rosso-Ferrari

6. Robert Kubica BMW Sauber

7. Antonio Bourdais Toro Rosso-Ferrari

8. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault

9. Timo Glock Toyota

10. Heikki Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes

11. David Coulthard Red Bull-Renault

12. Nico Rosberg Williams-Toyota

13. Adrian Sutil Force India-Ferrari

14. Kazuki Nakajima Williams-Toyota

15. Jenson Button Honda 16. Jarno Trulli Toyota

17. Giancarlo Fisichella Force India-Ferrari

18. Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari

Fastest lap of the 2008 Belgian Grand Prix: Kimi Raikkonen, 1:47.930

Image copyright : Ferrari Media

Montoya’s fight in NASCAR

Here is a video where Juan Pablo Montoya calls F1 legend Michael Schumacher ‘blind or stupid’. Schumi doesnt react to him.

Montoya calls Michael Schumacher blind or stupid

But a comment very well summarises what Montoya was about, remember we didnt say it, we are just reproducing it

Blah Blah Blah …. Montoya is better than Schumacher ……. what a load of c**p ……… Montoya isin’t even a has been ….. he’s a never was in the first place.

And just when we thought this guy couldnt have more stuff against him, we dugg around Youtube and found more (Warning : Expletives, 15+ only)

Montoya acts like a jerk

The idiot kept looking towards the Ferrari motorhome, oblivious of the fact that other living beings also occupy Earth, and then look at his attitude !

Ferrari’s Felipe Massa silenced a lot of voices today at Bahrain by running an almost perfect race to clinch the 2008 Bahrain Grand Prix. Teammate Kimi Raikkonen was second. Lewis Hamilton finished outside the points and lost the championship lead due to it. The Pole on pole Robert Kubica was third for the BMW team.

Nick Heidfeld claimed a calm fourth place behind teammate Robert Kubica. Young Heikki Kovalainen got McLaren F1 fifth place.

An interesting point in the race was when Lewis Hamilton ran into the back of Fernando Alonso, it made him pit and eventually this resulted in him being out of points. Some people say Fernando brake tested Lewis Hamilton, but i really dont think it was anything like that. I have seen the videos again and again and they look highly inconclusive. Later on Lewis Hamilton was apologetic to the McLaren F1 team :

“I am really disappointed and feel like I had let the team down”

“You need to pick up the pieces and then deliver points. I didn’t do that. The collision with Renault’s Fernando Alonso cost the race.” Lewis Hamilton said

Meanwhile my best moment of the race was when Force India formula one’s Giancarlo Fisichella held back Lewis Hamilton for 3 laps, closing the door on Lewis countless times. The Force India car does show a lot of promise and hopefully they will be getting some points this season. Giancarlo eventually finished 12th. The final classification was :

Race result of the formula one Bahrain Grand Prix 2008

1 Felipe Massa (Bra) Ferrari one hour 31 minutes 6.970 seconds
2 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari +3.339 secs
3 Robert Kubica (Pol) BMW Sauber +4.998
4 Nick Heidfeld (Ger) BMW Sauber +8.409
5 Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) McLaren-Mercedes +26.789
6 Jarno Trulli (Ita) Toyota +41.314
7 Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull-Renault +45.473
8 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Williams-Toyota +55.889
9 Timo Glock (Ger) Toyota +1:09.500
10 Fernando Alonso (Spa) Renault +1:17.181
11 Rubens Barrichello (Bra) Honda +1:17.862
12 Giancarlo Fisichella (Ita) Force India-Ferrari one lap behind
13 Lewis Hamilton (GB) McLaren-Mercedes one lap
14 Kazuki Nakajima (Jpn) Williams-Toyota one lap
15 Sebastien Bourdais (Fra) Toro Rosso-Ferrari one lap
16 Anthony Davidson (GB) Super Aguri-Honda one lap
17 Takuma Sato (Jpn) Super Aguri-Honda one lap
18 David Coulthard (GB) Red Bull-Renault one lap
19 Adrian Sutil (Ger) Force India-Ferrari two laps
R Nelson Piquet Jr (Brz) Renault 40 laps completed
R Jenson Button (GB) Honda 19 laps
R Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Toro Rosso-Ferrari 0 laps

Force India showed some guts on the track today but still couldnt qualify for the second qualifying session. Fisichella again clocked faster than Adrian Sutil by .3 of a second.

It promises to be a great race tomorrow with three teams fighting it out, but what has surprised me the most is Kubica’s dominance over teammate Nick Heidfeld who was drawing all the praise last year for being Mr.Consistent.

The qualifying positions were

1. Robert Kubica (Poland) BMW Sauber 1 min 33.096
2. Felipe Massa (Brazil) Ferrari 1:33.123
3. Lewis Hamilton (Britain) McLaren 1:33.292
4. Kimi Raikkonen (Finland) Ferrari 1:33.418
5. Heikki Kovalainen (Finland) McLaren 1:33.488
6. Nick Heidfeld (Germany) BMW Sauber 1:33.737
7. Jarno Trulli (Italy) Toyota 1:33.994
8. Nico Rosberg (Germany) Williams – Toyota 1:34.015
9. Jenson Button (Britain) Honda 1:35.057
10. Fernando Alonso (Spain) Renault 1:35.115
11. Mark Webber (Australia) RedBull – Renault 1:32.371
12. Rubens Barrichello (Brazil) Honda 1:32.508
13. Timo Glock (Germany) Toyota 1:32.528
14. Nelsinho Piquet (Brazil) Renault 1:32.790
15. Sebastien Bourdais (France) Toro Rosso – Ferrari 1:32.915
16. Kazuki Nakajima (Japan) Williams – Toyota 1:32.943
17. David Coulthard (Britain) RedBull – Renault 1:33.433
18. Giancarlo Fisichella (Italy) Force India – Ferrari 1:33.501
19. Sebastian Vettel (Germany) Toro Rosso – Ferrari 1:33.562
20. Adrian Sutil (Germany) Force India – Ferrari 1:33.845
21. Anthony Davidson (Britain) Super Aguri – Honda 1:34.140
22. Takuma Sato (Japan) Super Aguri – Honda 1:35.725

At the post race press confrence Kimi Raikkonen was true to his nickname of the iceman. The flying Finn (sorry Mika Hakkinen ) calmly replied to questions about the ‘tough’ race and said that it wasn’t too bad in Malaysia. His teammate Felipe Massa meanwhile had to retire when he went onto the gravel earlier in the race on lap 32.During the last race it looked like Kimi was uncomfortable without the traction control, but it looks like Massa is more uncomfortable without the tractions control. Kimi ran an almost perfect race, he could have overtaken Felipe on the 1st lap itself but decided to hold back and let his pit strategy do the overtaking for him. He lapped exceptionally well during his in lap and that sheer pace made overtaking Massa look like a piece of cake.

Lewis Hamilton was sort of robbed of a possible podium finish when his pitstop didnt goto plan and his pitstop got extended due to a problem in one of his wheels. He eventually finished 5th His teammate however finished on the podium in third place. Robert Kubica of BMW meanwhile finished second putting in another strong performance for the BMW team. Force India’s Giancarlo Fisichella got a nice 12th place finish much better than what most people would have expected from the ex-Spyker F1 team.

Final Result of the formula one Malaysian Grand Prix 2008

Ferrari came back with a bang this weekend bagging a cool 1-2 to get back into the game. Felipe Massa got the pole position with Kimi Raikkonen coming in behind his teammate.

Meanwhile McLaren on the other hand had a super bad session with both of its drivers being penalised for impeding other cars. Heiki Kovalainen was penalised for impeding Fernando Alonso’s Renault and Lewis Hamilton was penalised for impeding Nick Heidfeld’s BMW. Heidfeld was pretty open in his criticism of Lewis Hamilton , after hearing McLaren’s argument that they did the best they could, he had this to say to them :

“If they did the best that they could do, they didn’t do very well.”

“I was approaching my last lap on the option tyre and it would have been my quickest lap if not for the McLarens driving in the middle of the racing line at 80kmph.”  Heidfeld said

Earlier the FIA had released a statement that the McLarens were running slowly on the racing lines while other cars were on their flying laps and thats why they had been penalised.

As far as Force India goes, the difference between Sutil’s and Fisichella’s class was apparent, Fisichella clocked approximately one second faster that his teammate, Vijay Mallya’s decision to hire Giancarlo Fisichella seems to be a good one now.

The starting grid after the various disqualifications was :

I watched the race highlights, not the race as i have an exam tomorrow. But anyway Lewis sort of deserved his first victory of the season. Kimi Raikkonen on the other hand deserved not to win or even finish the race. It seems the iceman is literally driving on ice and is having a hard time minus the traction control (there might be some other explanation, but i didn’t hear the on-race commentary, seeing the footage it all seemed like rookie mistakes to me) The race results are ::

It was a different story for Lewis Hamilton though, his car was faster than Felipe’s Ferrari by a good margin. Robert Kubica qualified second for the BMW team while Lewis’s teammate will start right behind Lewis on the grid in the race as he qualified in third place.

Toyota did well to get 6th and 9th place for Trulli and Glock respectively. It was a good session for them.

Force India was as expected towards the bottom, Fisichella managed to beat a Torro Rosso alongwith 2 Super Aguris, and got 17th place.

1. Lewis Hamilton Britain McLaren-Mercedes 1:26.714

2. Robert Kubica Poland BMW Sauber 1:26.869

3. Heikki Kovalainen Finland McLaren-Mercedes 1:27.079

4. Felipe Massa Brazil Ferrari 1:27.178

5. Nick Heidfeld Germany BMW Sauber 1:27.236

6. Jarno Trulli Italy Toyota 1:28.527

7. Nico Rosberg Germany Williams-Toyota 1:28.687

8. David Coulthard Britain Red Bull-Renault 1:29.041

9. Timo Glock Germany Toyota 1:29.593

10. Sebastian Vettel Germany Toro Rosso-Ferrari No Time

11. Rubens Barrichello Brazil Honda 1:26.173

12. Fernando Alonso Spain Renault 1:26.188

13. Jenson Button Britain Honda 1:26.259

14. Kazuki Nakajima Japan Williams-Toyota 1:26.413

15. Mark Webber Australia Red Bull-Renault No Time

16. Kimi Raikkonen Finland Ferrari No Time

17. Giancarlo Fisichella Italy Force India-Ferrari 1:27.207

18. Sebastien Bourdais France Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:27.446

19. Adrian Sutil Germany Force India-Ferrari 1:27.859

20. Takuma Sato Japan Super Aguri-Honda 1:28.208

21. Nelson Piquet Brazil Renault 1:28.330

22. Anthony Davidson Super Super Aguri-Honda 1:29.059

Its official, Ronn Dennis has told the media that he will not be contesting the ban and fine imposed on McLaren for stealing and using confidential Ferrari data.

“We believe the time has come to put this huge distraction behind us,” said McLaren team supremo Ron Dennis.

“McLaren wants to win races and world championships,” he added.

“We are fortunate to have, and continue to receive, unwavering support from our employees, sponsor partners and Formula 1 fans across the world.”

During the spygate scandal we received record amount of hatemail from McLaren fans calling us biased and Ron Dennis honest (76 email messages), while we agree we have a slight bias towards Ferrari, i am sure any misconceptions about the second fact have infact been cleared. This is sort of another McLaren bashing post, you may direct your hatemail via the comments or via the ‘Contact Us’ link.
In the words of one of our contributors, Ronn Dennis is a “lowly trickster”. And what support is he talking about. Yesterday i had went to one of the IITs (smartest brains of India study there) and even diehard McLaren fans were telling me how disappointed they were in McLaren as a team and Ronn Dennis as an individual. (I am sure many Britsh McLaren fans will disagree). the lying loser had actually said this in the WMSC hearing :

Ron DENNIS :Excuse me, Mr President. The documents never arrived at McLaren. You stated that they did, but they have never been at McLaren. I am quite sensitive to this.

Also if you read the WMSC hearings, you will see that Nigel Stepney regularly told on his team. The question raised by McLaren at Australia about Ferrari’s new designs were infact inspired by information shared by Nigel Stepney with McLaren. Their letter to the FIA was completely dishonest and had other intentions it proves.

The way in which McLaren dealt with it was the customary way. We did not point the finger at Ferrari, as we could have. Instead, a very gentle letter was written by Mr Lowe, pretending that this was something that McLaren was intending to do, requesting guidance as to whether this was permissible. We could have been far more confrontational about this, but were not.

All through the Stepneygate scandal he kept on professing McLaren’s *cough* “innocence” *cough* . Many will argue espionage has always been a part of the sport. But this is not really espionage, this is blatant stealing and dishonesty. Will F1 ever be the same ?

Also Juan Pablo Montoya (our blog’s unofficial mascot) has blasted Ron Dennis and called Lewis Hamilton his baby (no pun intended). He said that when he heard about Lewis Hamilton being Fernando Alonso’s partner in the McLaren cars, he felt sorry for him.

“We immediately felt sorry for Fernando because Lewis Hamilton is Ron’s baby,” he said.

“Ron paid for his whole career, so Ron wants him to win and not Fernando. Lewis is like his own child.”

He further goes on to call Ronn Dennis a control freak ::

“He wants to control everything, and Fernando is not used to someone controlling everything and did not like that.”

He also commented on the McLaren-Ferrari Spy saga and the ex-McLaren driver said that what McLaren did was crossing the line.

“It’s just how Formula One is. Teams are allowed to bend the rules too much.

“I always felt like people bent the rules and that some teams were allowed to bend the rules more than others. But this? This is crossing the line.”

And to think that McLaren would have been presumed innocent if Fernando Alonso wouldn’t have spilled the beans on Ronn Dennis and his men. Also Damon Hill and Jackie Stewart did their best to divert attention away from McLaren’s wrongdoings and tried to make it a FIA-Ferrari nexus issue. Hopefully they will remain shut for a while now.

Ferrari resurfaced at Turkey to score a great 1-2 with Felipe Massa taking the chequered flag and Kimi Raikkonen coming second at the formula one Turkish Grand Prix 2007. Lewis Hamilton finished a disappointing fifth and had his championship lead cut. A puncture forced Hamilton to pit when he was in third place behind the scarlet Ferraris. Nick Heidfeld was as always impressive in his 4th place win. This guy really deserves a better car and i am sure if he was in a Ferrari, he would be a strong contender for the championship.

The Ferraris outpaced the McLarens at the track and even before the puncture , it didn’t look like Hamilton could do much to challenge the resurgent Ferraris. McLaren would have to make improvements in the car to match the Ferrari Pace.

2007 Formula One Turkish Grand Prix Results

1 Felipe Massa (Brz) Ferrari 1hr 26mins 42.161secs
2 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari 1:26:44.436
3 Fernando Alonso (Spa) McLaren-Mercedes 1:27:08.342
4 Nick Heidfeld (Ger) BMW Sauber 1:27:21.835
5 Lewis Hamilton (GB) McLaren-Mercedes 1:27:27.216
6 Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) Renault 1:27:28.330
7 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Williams-Toyota 1:27:37.939
8 Robert Kubica (Pol) BMW Sauber 1:27:38.868
9 Giancarlo Fisichella (Ita) Renault 1:27:41.652
10 David Coulthard (GB) Red Bull-Renault 1:27:53.569
11 Alexander Wurz (Aut) Williams-Toyota 1:28:01.761
12 Ralf Schumacher (Ger) Toyota at one lap
13 Jenson Button (GB) Honda at one lap
14 Anthony Davidson (GB) Super Aguri-Honda at one lap
15 Vitantonio Liuzzi (Ita) Toro Rosso-Ferrari at one lap
16 Jarno Trulli (Ita) Toyota at one lap
17 Rubens Barrichello (Brz) Honda at one lap
18 Takuma Sato (Jpn) Super Aguri-Honda at one lap
19 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Toro Rosso-Ferrari at one lap
20 Sakon Yamamoto (Jpn) Spyker-Ferrari at two laps
R Adrian Sutil (Ger) Spyker-Ferrari 53 laps
R Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull-Renault 9 laps

R – Retired from the race

Race Reactions from the Ferrari F1 Camp ::

Felipe Massa: “This is becoming a special place for me! It is a really great win! I maintained my concentration for the whole race, trying to control the situation. Only towards the end of the second stint did I make a small mistake at Turn 7 which cost me the gap I had over Kimi, who closed right up to me. I made a very good start and the car behaved perfectly even though it has to be said it was a difficult race. Today’s result is a great encouragement when looking to the final part of the season. It is fantastic to head to Monza after a weekend like this. We must continue to work in this same way and give it our best shot.”

Kimi Raikkonen: “Of course I would like to have won but probably the race was decided in yesterday afternoon’s qualifying session. When your main rival is your team-mate, there are less unknown factors and even less room to come up with something. However, the important thing is to have put two Ferraris in front of everyone else and, in any case, we have made up ground on the championship leader. I got a good start then I had a bit of understeer which went away after a few laps. The second set of tyres did not work as well as the first. The quick lap at the end? I was a bit bored with spending the whole race behind another car and so I tried to see how quick I could have been. In Monza I will have to try and do a good qualifying to be in the best possible situation for the race.”

Photo : Ferrari Media