Bourdais 'blocking' penalty

[myurr]

What the hell? I mean what... eh? Flabbergasted springs to mind.

What exactly was he supposed to do?

[zac510]

I think it's stupid and over-zealous.

He had good intentions, letting others through previous.. Where do you draw the line?

[Motley]

I think that the FIA set a precedent in France when they penalised Kovalainen, they're now having to live up to it...

[JamesS]

Race control are surely Nazi's.

We've seen it before with other drivers and questionable decisions made by race control which ruins their race day.

[axle]

I would love to know how they think Seb should have dealt with that? Ruin his own quali cause Nick didn't gap it right? Nick would have got a tow down the straight which would have pretty much voided any loss in the corner.

I think it's disgraceful, why should Seb be punished for trying to get start his own lap as he'd already compromised it by letting 1 car through!

I'm dismayed.

[Steven]

I agree that it is absolutely ridiculous to hand out a penalty here. Traffic is just part of the qualifying system and it always has been, except for the single-lap qualifying system that was extremely boring.

In this particular event, it's not race control that should penalise, but rather the FIA who should ask themselves how the hell did they end up in this situation, that a car which is 20m ahead can ruin front downforce of a following car.

Ah well, at least now I remember why I disliked mad Max, even before the scandal

[rjsa]

I think that the FIA set a precedent in France when they penalised Kovalainen, they're now having to live up to it...

It started with the pathetic FM/FA thing in Monza, I think.

[myurr]

For me this is just further evidence that the FIA needs to be overhauled or replaced with a truly independent and fair authority focussed on promoting the sporting aspect of F1. A permanent panel of stewards (arbitrarily choosing the number 3 sounds good) would be a good start, so that we can start getting some consistent and fair adjudication.

[timbo]

I feel shame for Bourdais, however I think that he clearly blocked Heidfeld (even without intention and I think that Heidfeld and his racing engineer made dumb decision to wait for so long on such short and narrow track), so he had to be punished. That simple - rules are rules.

[myurr]

I feel shame for Bourdais, however I think that he clearly blocked Heidfeld (even without intention and I think that Heidfeld and his racing engineer made dumb decision to wait for so long on such short and narrow track), so he had to be punished. That simple - rules are rules.

Switch the drivers though, putting say Kimi or Lewis in Bourdais place and Bourdais in Heidfelds place. Do you think that the rules would have been interpreted in the same way?

Separate question / point though is that the rules as they stand are ridiculous. Heldfeld and his engineer messed up through their positioning on the track, yet it is Bourdais that is supposed to have sacrificed his own chances. The rule was put in place to stop drivers deliberately blocking others laps - there is no question that Bourdais did that, so the rule and its current interpretation are clearly flawed.

[Conceptual]

I wish that the teams would start boycotting races when crap like this happens.

Look at the damage that the 2005 USGP did to the reputation of F1 on a world scale.

It is up to the teams to stop just taking these arbitrary fistings, and let the fans and media pressure the FIA to sort out these rediculous interpretations of the rules.

Chris

[WhiteBlue]

I am not at all impressed with the way BMW tackle qualifying for the last two months. They know they have a problem and they make no efford to practise with low fuel on Friday and Saturday. Then they leave it to the last minutes to make a run and protest if they get caught out as in Nick's case yesterday. It is clearly dumb strategy. I have no idea how fast Bourdais was but he must have been fairly slow or the protest would have not been successfull. I agree with the need for a permanent steward again. It was pretty good in 2006 and 2007 and it is a shame they lost the guy. Some decisions then were not good either but they were at least consistent. You will never make everybody happy in F1.