Massa says Hamilton was too optimistic

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By Jonathan Noble    Monday, September 8th 2008, 16:23 GMT

Lewis Hamilton tries to overtake Kimi Raikkonen during the Belgian GP

Felipe Massa reckons rival Lewis Hamilton should have waited to have retaken the lead from Kimi Raikkonen in the Belgian Grand Prix, after claiming the Briton was 'too optimistic' in making his controversial move at La Source.

Hamilton was handed a 25-second penalty for gaining an advantage after cutting the chicane two laps from home. Although he handed the lead back to Raikkonen on the start-finish straight, he retook it seconds later with a move down the inside at the hairpin.

And Massa, who inherited the victory from Hamilton on Sunday evening, says he has no doubts his British rival was in the wrong judging by what is said to drivers by the FIA.

"Immediately after the podium ceremony, we knew the incident was under investigation and my first reaction was to find out what had actually happened, as I didn't see it when I was on the track," Massa wrote in his official blog on Monday.

"What Lewis did is the sort of thing that can happen, but I think he was maybe a bit too optimistic in thinking he could just hand back the position, albeit only partially to Kimi and then immediately try and pass him again.

"Incidents like this have often been discussed in the official driver briefings when it has been made absolutely clear that anyone cutting a chicane has to fully restore the position and also any other eventual advantage gained.

"If Lewis had taken the chicane correctly, he would never have been able to pass Kimi on the very short straight that follows it. That was my immediate opinion after seeing the replay. Maybe if Lewis had waited and tried to pass on the next straight, that would have been a different matter."

Massa said he was only thinking about the championship position throughout the race in Belgium - whereas teammate Raikkonen openly admitted it was win or bust for him.

"It is now looking very interesting in terms of the championship, as I am just two points behind," said Massa. "I drove my race in Spa to finish, thinking about the championship situation and I did the right thing, because I gained one place after Kimi's crash and then after the race, came another move up the finish order..

"I am happy with that because the championship is really open now. But there are still five races to go and so we need to do a good job. The last couple of laps in Spa were extremely slippery and so I slowed down even more than normal because I saw there was a comfortable gap to the guy behind and I just wanted to make sure I finished the race.

"If I had been in a fight for another position, I would have pushed harder. But I was thinking more of the championship situation and I did not want to finish without any points, through taking risks.

"While I am pleased to have won, I have to feel sorry for Kimi too. I know what it is like to be leading a race and then losing it with a few laps to go. He was in a different situation to me when the rain came, as he was fighting for the win. It is very frustrating for him, especially after he drove a great race."

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Raikkonen was ready to pit on last lap

By Jonathan Noble and Pablo Elizalde    Thursday, September 11th 2008, 16:28 GMT

Kimi Raikkonen crashes out of the Belgian GP

World champion Kimi Raikkonen says he was ready to pit for wet weather tyres before crashing out of the Belgian Grand Prix last Sunday.

The Ferrari driver led for most of the race before a downpour with three laps left helped Lewis Hamilton caught up with him and pass him.

The track was so wet that some drivers decided to pit on the last lap in order to put on wet weather rubber. BMW Sauber's Nick Heidfeld pitted with two laps left, a decision that got him onto the podium.

Raikkonen, who was running second when he crashed, said he was ready to pit and reckons he could have won the race if he had not crashed.

"I would have come in, but I never made the last 100 metres," Raikkonen told reporters at Monza. "I was coming in to change the tyres and probably it could have worked out very well but I never got there."

The Finn, who was embroiled in a thrilling battle with Lewis Hamilton, said he did not want to get involved in the controversy surrounding the penalty given to the Briton after the race.

"I think there has been a lot of talk... but I don't really want to get involved in the whole thing," Raikkonen said.

"I was a part of the thing here, but everyone knows the rules, there is always action taken if you do something wrong and this time that was the decision they made in the end.

"Sometimes it is hard to say if it is right or wrong but I don't want to get involved in the whole thing. Definitely everybody has two different views of the whole thing, some like it, some don't. That is life."

He added: "There are some rules, the FIA knows about it, but I am not the guy who makes the decisions. That is for the guys who made the decision. I didn't get any advantage but that was my fault in the end. I wanted to win, it didn't help me, but that is racing and that is rules."

Raikkonen seemed to be much slower than Hamilton when the track was wet during the Spa race, and the pair made contact a couple of times during their fight.

Their difference in speed nearly caused a crash between them, something that led Hamilton to say on Thursday that Raikkonen was driving too slowly.

"That is how he drives," he said. "If you don't have the balls to brake late then that is your problem! At the end of the day, in those situations it is the driver who can feel the grip more and put the car more on the edge. And I know I am great in those conditions.

"I felt the grip more than him, I knew where to place my car and I did place it in different positions to him and I found the grip."

Raikkonen, however, was unfazed by Hamilton's comments.

"I don't mind that. Like I said he has his own opinion on anything, but that is not what happened at the first corner. It is more about what happens when you cut a chicane and get an advantage or not.

"If you put the concrete wall there you could never come there in the first place, it is more about that than what happened at the first corner."

The world champion also made it clear he intends to keep fighting for the title, and suggested he won't play a supporting role to teammate Felipe Massa until he has no mathematical chance.

"I know what the team expects from us and like I said as long as I have any chance and are in the points I will keep trying, and if it happens and I don't have any chance then it is a different story.

"I don't see it is up to me - we race as hard as we can both of us and we see what happens at the end of the season."

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Alonso: Hamilton penalty was deserved

By Edd Straw    Thursday, September 11th 2008, 13:21 GMT

Fernando Alonso Double world champion

Fernando Alonso believes Lewis Hamilton deserved the penalty that cost the McLaren driver victory in the Belgian Grand Prix.

Alonso said he fully supported the FIA stewards' decision to hit Hamilton with a 25-second penalty, which handed victory to Felipe Massa, because he felt there was no doubt he gained an advantage.

"Yes, I totally agree," he said of the stewards' decision. "Lewis had an advantage by doing that. If he did the chicane properly, he would never have crossed the line one metre behind Kimi. You lose five or ten metres and then you cannot overtake in Turn 1.

"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.

"These escape roads are just for safety. You need to imagine that before there would have been a wall, and if there is a wall you cannot use that part of the track."

The Spaniard added that his former teammate should have hung back and taken the chance to overtake Raikkonen later in the race.

"There were two or three laps to the end, many more corners to overtake at with the condition of the circuit. It was clear for me that it was not the right moment to overtake. The stewards take their decisions and they have been very strict this year. They are very hard but consistent."

Alonso added that he was not surprised McLaren opted to protest the decision.

"No," he said when asked by autosport.com whether he was surprised about the their appeal. "They did this last year and they always used to do this kind of thing."

Alonso also believes that Hamilton's penalty could have helped him to claim his first win of the season had he opted to pit for wet tyres a lap earlier.

"I think winning the race was possible because Massa won the race at the end and finished nine seconds ahead of Nick Heidfeld. I was quite a bit ahead of Heidfeld - more than nine seconds - so maybe I could have overtaken Massa at that point and then maybe with Lewis's penalty I would have won the race."

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Trulli: Hamilton gained an advantage

By Jonathan Noble and Michele Lostia    Tuesday, September 9th 2008, 11:58 GMT

Trulli says he has no doubts that Lewis Hamilton did gain an advantage by cutting the chicane at the Belgian Grand Prix.

As the controversy rages over whether the race stewards were right to hand down a 25-second penalty for Hamilton's driving, Trulli thinks that the McLaren driver did benefit from missing out the final corner.

"In my opinion Hamilton got an advantage by cutting the chicane," Trulli told Gazzetta dello Sport. "Had he stayed on the road, he wouldn't have had the speed to overtake the Ferrari.

"In the same way at Monza someone could cut the first chicane, catch a rival's draft, and overtake him under braking at Roggia.

"When you attack on the outside, you do it at your own risk, because who's on the inside has the right to do the corner. If there isn't enough room, then you lift.

"Had there been a wall there, instead of the surfaced escape route, would Lewis have attacked anyway? Had there been gravel, he wouldn't have had the chance to attack when rejoining the track because of dirty tyres."

McLaren are due to decide today whether or not to press ahead with their plans to appeal Hamilton's penalty, which dropped him from first to third in the race results.

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Coulthard downplays Spa row effect

By Jonathan Noble    Thursday, September 11th 2008, 16:50 GMT

David Coulthard has rubbished suggestions that Formula One risks being damaged by the Belgian Grand Prix controversy - and instead says it will move on quickly from the events of last week.

While the debate over Lewis Hamilton's 25-second penalty at Spa raged on in the paddock at Monza on Thursday, Coulthard said that he would seek clarification about the rules regarding chicane cutting in Friday's driving briefing before expecting the focus to revert to racing.

When asked whether he felt F1 risked losing fans over the matter, Coulthard said: "You can start micro-analysing all this, saying it is bad for the kids and so on. If you want to look at all these things, then the answer to your question can always be yes.

"But, you can do two things in life ? you can dwell on the past or you can try and get clarification on things and move forward. That is the way I live my life.

"In the drivers' briefing tomorrow we will try and get clarification about the conditions we are racing under and we will move forward. And when some fans go, some fans come. That is the natural evolution of life."

Regarding the incident itself, Coulthard said that although Hamilton did give the lead back to Raikkonen, there was obviously a belief by the stewards that the McLaren driver gained a further advantage.

And he said that, whatever the varied opinions are of the matter, it was important the sport respected decisions made by the stewards.

"The rules as we understand them as drivers if that if you gain advantage then you should give that position back. So that means if you overtake under yellow you should give that position back; if you miss a corner and gain a position you should give it back.

"In the simplest way as we see it, he fulfilled that criteria. The area that obviously the stewards have applied a penalty for is, did he gain an advantage by missing the corner? Did that allow him to be in the slipstream of Raikkonen where he would not have been had he actually taken the corner normally?

"It is a very difficult one for us to know, at the end of the day in any sport and in any walk of life, you are controlled by certain rules and regulations and you will not always appreciate them, or agree with them, but as long as they are applied consistently then that is the world in which we live.

"Whether you like it, whether I like it, whether Lewis likes it, whether thousands of fans like it, they are the stewards, they are the police of our sport, and they have to be consistent in their behaviour."

He added: "At the end of the day this is a sport. There are a set of rules and regulations, and the race track is defined by the white lines. In Monaco you don't cut corners, you hit barriers.

"You can argue it was not Monaco, but the driver would have respected the corner if there was a barrier there. Lewis knew there was no barrier so he cut the corner.

"He did not need to go across there particularly, he did because he tried to go side-by-side with Raikkonen and Kimi squashed him in that position. From a driving point of view you have to look at the white lines as barriers."