Thought this would be of interest....

Australia
Timo Glock - Demoted five places on grid for blocking Mark Webber in qualifying.
Rubens Barrichello - Ten-second stop-and-go penalty for pitting when pitlane closed; Disqualified for ignoring red-light at end of the pitlane.

Malaysia
Kazuki Nakajima - Demoted ten places on grid for causing an avoidable accident under the Safety Car in Australia.
Lewis Hamilton - Demoted five places on grid for blocking Nick Heidfeld and Fernando Alonso in qualifying.
Heikki Kovalainen - Demoted five places on grid for blocking Nick Heidfeld and Fernando Alonso in qualifying.

Spain
Nick Heidfeld - Ten-second stop-and-go penalty for pitting when pitlane closed.

Turkey
Giancarlo Fisichella - Demoted three places on grid for ignoring red-light at end of the pitlane during Friday practice.

France
Lewis Hamilton - Demoted ten places on grid for causing an avoidable accident in the pitlane in Canada; drive-through penalty for cutting a chicane.
Nico Rosberg - Demoted ten places on grid for causing an avoidable accident in the pitlane in Canada.
Heikki Kovalainen - Demoted five places on grid for blocking Mark Webber in qualifying.

Germany
Giancarlo Fisichella - Twenty-five seconds added on to race time for unlapping himself behind Safety Car despite pitting.

Hungary
Sébastien Bourdais - Demoted five places on grid for blocking Nick Heidfeld in qualifying.

Belgium
Lewis Hamilton - Twenty-five seconds added on to race time for cutting a chicane.
Timo Glock - Twenty-five second penalty for overtaking under yellow flags.

Singapore
Nick Heidfeld - Demoted three places on grid for blocking Rubens Barrichello in qualifying.
Nico Rosberg - Ten-second stop-and-go penalty for pitting when pitlane closed.
Robert Kubica - Ten-second stop-and-go penalty for pitting when pitlane closed.
Felipe Massa - Drive-through penalty; unsafe release from pitstop.

Japan
Lewis Hamilton - Drive-through penalty for out-breaking self at turn 1.
Felipe Massa - Drive-through penalty for causing an avoidable accident.
Sébastien Bourdais - Twenty-five seconds added on to race time for causing an avoidable accident.

Let's tally it up (apologies if I've missed any out!) :

Lewis Hamilton - 5
Timo Glock - 2
Rubens Barrichello - 2
Heikki Kovalainen - 2
Nick Heidfeld - 2
Giancarlo Fisichella - 2
Nico Rosberg - 2
Sébastien Bourdais - 2
Felipe Massa - 2
Kazuki Nakajima - 1
Robert Kubica - 1

Interesting to note than only 11 out of 22 possible drivers (including Super Aguri) have only been given penalties.

Now to the juicy part (note: this part I'm not talking about whether I agree or disagree, but whether it's actually consistent....

INCONSISTENT - Blocking others in qualifying - everyone got five place drop, apart from Heidfeld in Singapore - he only got three place drop.

CONSISTENCY - Pitting when pitlane closed - OK; I hate it - at least they are consistent though.

????? - Cutting a chicane - I have nothing else to go by from this year apart from Hamilton, so time to look back.... Ralf Schumacher (Japan 2001) - got a stop-and-go - INCONSISTENT. To be fair though, I think the drive-through rule was introduced in 2002 for things exactly like that.

I don't remember so clearly any more, but did Ralf REALLY get a penalty for THIS??? I mean he did exactly the same thing as Michael Schumacher did in 2006 Hungary, as Vettel did in 2008 Canada. And so on and so on. Cutting the chicane, when defending position, which has been done on endless occasions, but never has been penalized. And he got passed by the end of the straight anyway and still got a penalty?

I can understand, why Ralf after Hamilton's Spa incident said that of course FIA is biased towards Ferrari and always have been.

You missed off FM's fine for dangerous release in Valencia.

Kimi got a penalty in Monacco Because he didnt have the tyres on in time..

Alonso too for cutting gthe pit entrance.

I think you're doing LH a dis-service by only counting 4 of his 5 penalties

(You counted France as just one when they were totally separate events)

Clatter and Mikamika - read the OP's post. Neither of those were driver inflicted.

Doug

Yep, Ralf got a penalty.

Might be worth looking at some of the more recent ones in detail.


Belgium
Lewis Hamilton - Twenty-five seconds added on to race time for cutting a chicane. -notably Massa did exactly the same thing at Fuji. The only difference was Hamilton gave up his place at Spa, Massa did not. Oh, and Massa also punted his rival into ineffectiveness whereas Hamilton put him back into the lead. And what Hamilton did at Spa had been explicitly cleared by stewards previously as being OK. When Hamilton appealed the FIA invented evidence to try to defeat it.

Singapore
Nico Rosberg - Ten-second stop-and-go penalty for pitting when pitlane closed. -penalty delayed long enough so Rosberg could finish ahead of Hamilton.
Felipe Massa - Drive-through penalty; unsafe release from pitstop. -a penalty not imposed when Massa did the same at Valencia.

Japan
Lewis Hamilton - Drive-through penalty for out-breaking self at turn 1. -again a brand-new penalty, never previously applied, not applied to the half-dozen drivers who did the same at Spa a month previously. Interestingly Kovalainen not penalized for missing his braking by a larger margin and taking Raikkonen out. No, this penalty could only apply to Hamilton.

Felipe Massa - Drive-through penalty for causing an avoidable accident. -see Spa comments; much more serious result, given the exact same penalty.

Sébastien Bourdais - Twenty-five seconds added on to race time for causing an avoidable accident. -the same thing Raikkonen did at Monaco, only Raikkonen managed to end someone else's race as well as his own. No penalty. This is ignoring the widely-held belief that Bourdais was not actually at fault.

Funny, ever since the British media exposed Max' private life the British championship leader has had his racing life made impossible by stochastic, novel and hitherto-unused penalty applications.

Read the OP, it includes the Singapore drive thru.

Isn't the 25s time penalty supposed to be equivalent to a stop/go?

Just thought of another one that's not on the list - Rubens got a penalty at Singapore for late pit entry (during the farcical Heidfeld incident).

I think so, the FIA not having figured out that pit lanes aren't all the same length.

Just checked the ICA hearing for Spa and it seems the document specified it was a drive-through not a stop/go. I would have thought that having made contact a stop/go was more appropriate, but otherwise they are consistent.

I did notice another little gem in the documents that I missed the first time:

Eh?

Japan
Lewis Hamilton - Drive-through penalty for out-breaking self at turn 1.

think the penalty was for pushing everyone else off .. had he been by himself, i doubt there would have been a penalty.

Please watch again. Lewis was overambitious and stupid, yes. Drivers had to take avoiding action, yes. But he did not hit another driver and he did not push another driver off. Heikki did that.

Out of 5 Lewis' penalities I find incorrect only the last one. Part of the guilty is also on the team's side in his drive-through for cutting the chicane in France - they should react differently and precautionary tell Lewis to give the position back.

This is true but he should also have some presence of mind himself. Having a team behind him shouldn't absolve him of all responsibility for his actions on track.

Didn't Kimi receive a penalty in Monaco because he was not fitted with tyres 3 minutes before the start?

and i dont think the official reason for lewis penalty in japan was out-breaking self at turn 1 either

Given he was fighting back from a grid demotion, given that he was past Vettel before the corner, given the fact that the TV footage was inconclusive I'm not sure either party was overtly to blame. Remember the stewards had to invent ANOTHER excuse and ferry off to find security camera footage to penalize him.

Yes, but not the correct one.

My thoughts on Japan ´08

Lewis vs Kimi: maybe a drive through for Lewsi, but I would give him a warning
Lewis vs Massa: stop & go or something worse for Felipe
Massa vs Bourdais: racing accident, no penalties

Had Massa not forced into Bourdais, he could have caught Vettel at the end.

Recently, we've had the situation of Massa being seemingly the last ever person to get away with one offence - unsafe release in Valencia; everyone including himself have received a drive-through since. And 2 instances of Hamilton being the first person ever to be punished for a "new" offence - Belgium and Japan. And if anyone begs to differ, I'd love to hear their explanation.

I never said he made contact, I said he pushed them off = Drivers had to take avoiding action.

"Polesitter Hamilton was penalised for forcing Kimi Raikkonen wide into Turn One at the start. The Ferrari got a better getaway and was in front when Hamilton jinked right, almost hitting team mate Heikki Kovalainen in the process, and then locked up under braking. He understeered wide, flat-spotting his front tyres and leaving Raikkonen nowhere to go, dropping the Finn to seventh place"

No driver in F1 History has been penalised for forcing another driver off the track ??? I find that hard to believe.

No, the penalty was for forcing another driver off track. Which, as he did not force Kimi off track ( Kova) was a wrong decision.

Is Hamiltons penalty count a record?

for a driver who "knows every move in the book,"
he sure makes a lot of stupid mistakes...

You are ill man.

No. Hamilton did not gave his place at Spa and this is why they penalized him. Japan is not for outbraking but for driving dangerously. It is not an invented penalty. The invented one is Hungary 2007 against Alonso because you can wait in your pit box as much as you want and in the penalty there were no number of the rule broken.

You are used to last year ridiculous acting of Tony Scott Andrews and you think it will be like this. No. Lewis was much less penalized of what he deserved. But if you want to cry about this "injustice" you can. There is a thread called "Lewis will never learn" but his fans neither.

This is applied to different tracks and different series. What's actually your point?

Are you serious?

Did you actually watch the race? LH quite clearly let KR back past thus giving his place back, that wasnt the reason they gave for the penalty.

Yes I saw the race. Not live as I was driving and could only hear on the radio. Give "the place back" is not just let another car by for a moment and overtake it again using the unfair advantage gained before.

Agreed on all 3 points

Oh, and just for the heck of it I'll say another time that Lewis' penalty did not influence his points score yesterday.