Felipe Massa has been excluded from the results of his home Grand Prix for a tyre infringement, and has thus lost his eighth place.
The decision benefits Romain Grosjean, Max Verstappen and Pastor Maldonado move up to eighth, ninth and 10th places respectively. However, Williams has submitted an appeal.
Massa fell foul of the recently introduced procedure which sees tyre temperatures and pressures checked on the grid, which is intended as a safety measure to stop teams running excessively loe pressures.
The Brazilian’s right rear was checked and found to be at 137C, a huge 27C above the prescribed maximum of 110C. The pressure was 20.6psi, which was 0.1psi above the limit set for Interlagos.
However, the team believes that its own measurements prove that the tyre was legal.
In essence the FIA and Pirelli are concerned that teams can use high blanket temperatures on the grid to make the pressures legal – and when the temperatures drop, the pressures fall and provide a performance benefit.
Adam Cooper's F1 Blog 
What a pathetic bunch of owner-operators!
As if the poor mug sitting behind the wheel has any say over his tyre warmer application.
This is just so pi$$ weak.
As they say – it’s a team sport. The poor mug behind the wheel is not in control of *most* of the things there. Remember, from the engineering standpoint (and F1 *is* an engineering exercise first and foremost) the driver is just a necessary evil mandated by the rules. Players like the strategists, the wheel changers, etc., can actually have a bigger negative impact than the driver. If the driver spins out, he can often gather it up and make the best of things. If the tire changer fails to tighten the wheel nut…
I get your point. True.
If the exclusion had said something like ‘Williams Excluded’ or ‘Massa’s Car Excluded’ for example, I wouldn’t have even blinked.
I assume ‘0.1psi above’, refers to the minimum pressure not the maximum, and therefore the tyre would have dropped below the minimum if it was 27c cooler?
I thought it was agreed that teams would be given chance to correct any illegal pressures that were found during the pre-race checks? But if they were within the legal range but only because of the excessive heating I suppose there is going to be a disagreement over how much to change the pressure.
No-one likes race results being changed in the stewards room hours after the event. Especially over a minor technical infringement. Could this be avoided if the Pirelli technicians attached to the teams were responsible for setting and adjusting all pressures, and tyre blankets were a standard bit of kit among all teams that can’t be set above the legal level.
Naughty Felipe boy. He wanted 2 pimp his ride, no?
That is why blankets should be banned and have the driver warm his tires as quick as his ability allowes him
I don’t understand it. The team has ways to monitor tyre pressures real time, right? So why don’t Pirelli/FIA monitor pressures real time to make sure they are withhin the limits all the time during whole weekned? Wouldn’t it be easier?