Lewis Hamilton says he won’t give up despite being forced to start the Spanish GP from the back of the grid.
Hamilton was quoted in a team statement issued late this evening.
“This is such a disappointment,” said Hamilton. “Today’s qualifying session was one of the best I’ve ever driven – the whole car was just rolling so smoothly – it felt fantastic. The team had done a fantastic job to bring the updates here this weekend – so I want to say a huge thank-you to all the men and women at the MTC for working day and night to get all the new components here this weekend.
“But, on my slowing-down lap, my engineers told me to stop on the track, and I didn’t know why. Later, to hear that I’d been excluded from qualifying, was of course extremely disappointing.
“But, now, looking ahead to tomorrow, I think it’s clear that it’s going to be an incredibly tough race for us. Even so, as always, I’ll never give up and I’ll give it everything I’ve got. It would mean so much to me to get a good result here in Spain – it’s such a pleasure to come here and the support I get is amazing.
“As I always say, and as I always do, whatever grid position I start a Grand Prix from, I’ll always race my heart out.”
Meanwhile Martin Whitmarsh said: “[Lewis] was unable to finish his slow-down lap – and, since we accept that the stewards didn’t agree with our interpretation of force majeure, we didn’t contest their decision to penalise him.
“Our aim is therefore now to maximise the points we can score tomorrow, and you may rest assured that both Jenson and Lewis will approach the 2012 Spanish Grand Prix with their customary combative ambition.”
Adam Cooper F1 
Has anyone else stopped on their in-lap this year during qualifying, in relation to fuel?
I dont think so but I think the force majeure rule was introduced after lewis did the same thing a couple years back.
Yes, they’re suffering the consequences of their own previous infractions
How come vettel won last time out at Bahrain
And never got back to pits due to lack of fuel! What’s the difference
I don’t see a problem with the penalty, but back of the grid versus losing his best time does seem harsh. Is there a multitude of penalties the stewards can choose?
I’m assuming this does not apply to the race, because a numb of drivers have stopped out on track at the end this year.
As I understand it the penalty for this infraction is an automatic disqualification, which means back of the pack. This is necessary after qualifying because the teams are requried to submit their cars for fuel sampling. This proceedure is done to prevent them using some sort of fuel additive to increase performance, and then by running out fuel, consuming the evidence of the cheat. This is not what Mclaren did, they simply sent Lewis out with insufficient fuel. I doubt the stewards had any leeway in their assessing of a penalty, but if they had, I doubt they would have given any given that Mclaren played dumb and lied to them about the car, and then tried to BS them with the force majeure rule.
Go Lewis!. We’ll be watching for sure.
Loved the Tweet attributed to Sam Michael.
He was a no-bloody-hoper @ Williams. Now he’s infected Macca!
The big question is whether Hamilton now has a choice of tyres to start. Anyone know?
I think he had to use the same Q3 set