Lewis Hamilton has got away with a $10,000 fine for his transgression at the end of qualifying (see previous story). He will thus keep his pole position.
It seems that the fact that the requirement to return to the garage in a minimum time is enshrined in an FIA memo, rather than the sporting regs, left a loophole for McLaren to exploit.
The bottom line was that Lewis was able to complete his flying lap at a lighter weight than he would normally have done, although in this case the difference was probably not enough to have secured pole.
McLaren’s Martin Whitmarsh kept a straight face when asked if he was ‘disappointed’ to get a fine: “There was a memo requiring cars to get back in a time. It’s not a regulation. But I think we’ve accepted it, we’ll pay it, and we’ll move on. I think we’re happy with the outcome…”
Whitmarsh also outlined what happened: “We have complied with the regulations. We didn’t set out to do this. It’s not Lewis’s fault, a mistake was made. We had a choice, we could have got back to the garage, but having done so we would have been short of fuel for the sample. The regulations require a sample, so we felt that was the dominant requirement rather than an FIA memo, which isn’t a regulation, which talked about a lap time required to come back.
“There’s nothing in the regulations that says that after qualifying you have to return to the garage. If you had broken down or a wheel had fallen off or something else, then those things happen.
“Not enough fuel was put in the car – there was a miscommunication.”
He also said he didn’t expect other teams to try the same in the future: “I think they would run the risk then of it being decided that it’s systematic, and you then run the risk of what is the opnion of the stewards on the day. So I don’t think it will happen en masse…”
Adam Cooper F1 
Clearly there was a good reason the memo was never incorporated into the updated sporting regulations – it’s an obsolete rule. Surely common sense would tell the stewards that?
It’s not that easy to believe Martin Whitmarsh. Only the engineers are able to calculate how much fuel there should be left in the car at any point in time, if I’m right. He tells us that they had a “miscommunication”. Apparently they were then able to discover that miscommunication pretty quickly, within a few minutes while Lewis was doing his run. And just by accident, the result of that miscommunication wasn’t two laps less fuel than needed, or one or two too many. No, it was just the right amount to boost Lewis’ time just enough to grab pole. McLaren’s first pole of the year at that. And also just by accident, this happened on Lewis’ last run in Q3, when the track is gaining with every minute of running. Also, it happened to happen on the one track of the whole season which was more “green” on Friday than every other track, and which also turned out to be even greener than expected, so also in this respect it happened at the track where this tiny miscommunication amounted to the biggest possible gain. And from now on, no one else will be able to use this trick innocently. Seems McLaren told the guys in their think-tank to come up with tricks or improvements which are hard to copy by the other teams, just as the F-Duct.
I don’t think they set out to cheat. I think Hamilton / the team saw he was 3 tenths down after the 2nd sector and they had a conversation about whether he could do another lap. They said yes, but it was tight. I don’t think they would have had that many seconds to decide it.
Having said that they obviously did get an advantage from it so it is a bit dodgy. It was certainly very entertaining though. I don’t begrudge Hamilton the pole. It’s nice to break the Red Bull lockout.
And! Within these few minutes between sending Lewis out, “discovering” their “error” and radioing their decision to Lewis, they were able to figure out that they had to weigh up something from the regulations against something which just got passed around as an FIA memo some time ago.
Come on, guys. REALLY.
without button in second, it will be very difficult to resist the pressure from those 2 red bull’s… without a safety car, they will win because of the tire choice combined with the pit stop strategy…
I’ll translate: It was worth $10,000 — doubly worth it because playing innocent while being first to try this stunt means we’re the only team who’ll ever get away with it. Even if it didn’t secure pole, it’s a slap for all of them — we’re showing off how clever we are.
Or was it a genuine error? We’ll probably never know… or maybe, like Mansell’s famous slowing-down-waving episode, the truth will be told one day (at the time, Williams pretended it was a gearbox failure).
I am no Hamilton nor Mc Laren fan but honestly I think that Lewis’ pole is more than deserved and the stewards’ decision is ok. The team foresaw the opportunity for an extra lap and the Driver capitalized it in the best possible way. Then they decided to stop the car in order to leave enough fuel for the required sample …
The “minimum time time to return to the garage” rule was set to avoid slow cars impeding drivers in their flying lap but in this case Lewis was the last driver to complete a flying lap so I think he didn’t affect anyone’s performace so in my opinion it was fair to punish him just with a fine.
That’s a very good point. He didn’t impede anyone.
Thank God some teams are still being ‘creative’ with the rule book. F1 has become dull and predictable with all these heavily defined rules that make every car look the same and every team act the same. C’mon guys, it’s a competition and the cleverest will win. Bernie is happily stuffing FOTA for his own amusement while Jean has the spirit of Max still peering over his shoulder. Lewis’ lap was worth every single dollar of those $10k., and the crowd loved his Rossi style return to the pits. Draconian anti fun rules are there to be interpreted – or broken. Like Lewis’ hooning in Melbourne, no one was hurt or diadvantaged by these actions. Can we please have just a little bit of fun…?
Can anyone believe that its a genuine mistake and not a planned tactic, when in the heat of the moment, he clearly knew that it was not a regulation but just a memo?
It’s also interesting to hear him say that he doesn’t expect other teams to try the same from now, I guess same with the ‘breaking the tow’ thing. What’s the common denominator here ?