It certainly happened before, just not on such a scale. The procedure is very clearly written down in the F1 sporting regulations, look them up.

What a joke.

Barri got into Q3 only by ignoring the yellow flag. He receives a 5 places penalty, which in reality is only one place, and at the same time he starts ahead of Sutil, who qualified in front of him. Retarded.

Barrichello starting ahead of Sutil. I feel sick.

That's obviosly not right.

Barichello efectively getting 1 place penalty is wrong. All offenders should be punished equally disregarding the timing of their rule violation.

Sutil starting the race 2 places behind Barichello, although he was ahead of him in Q3, is absurd. That shows the utter stupidity of stewards decision.

FIA

Well, in all the confusion there is one clear message here from FIA to drivers, which should at least spare them some hesitation if (or rather when) this situation occurs again:

In qualifying, if there is a yellow flag and there are marshalls on the track helping a possibly injured driver, do not let this screw your lap. Especially if you are the first to arrive at the scene of the accident. DO NOT lift like that pathetically naive Kubica and his ridiculously rule-abiding, typically German team or you will not advance to the next session to improve your position. Push like a true champion, marshalls are disposable, while good results are hard to come by.

Now we have clarity, let's see if this is applied consistently. And good luck to track personnel.

When? Certainly not in Malaysia in 06 or 08 for example. I can think of plenty of times that this has not been the case... However, I can not think of a single time that this has happened before. I am happy to be proven wrong, but I am yet to see any examples.

This was just stupid beyond belief. I really cant describe how much in awe Im. At the same time the solution was so easy, put them all in their positions + 5 and shift other drivers without penalty forward on freed spots. (for my liking it should have been + 10 actually).

IM BAFFLED AS NEVER IN F1, and that says something.

Totally screwed. They all did the same offence how on earth one driver can get 1 place penalty and other one 5 because there was 10 seconds or so between them? And even more importantly, how could the stewards let the situation in which ignoring the yellow flags was the right thing to do as getting to Q3 and getting the penalty was more effective than dropping out in Q2? Utterly ridiculous.

And that 'rules and rules' line is pure BS, stewards are clearly very selective about which of those rules should be imposed.

Back once more to yesterdays practice.
At least in my mind it is completely crazy that the drivers who ignored the yellow were allowed to keep their times for that lap. Of course those times should have been scratched and that would have left five drivers without time in Q2 . Now Button, Barrichello and Sutil robbed Rosberg, Alonso and Kubica of their rightful places in Q3.

The correct grid would thus have been (with 7th to 10th positions sorted according to Q2 and 11th to 15th positions sorted according to Q1).:

1 Vettel
2 Trulli
3 Hamilton
4 Heidfeld
5 Räikkönen
6 Kovalainen
7 Buemi
8 Rosberg
9 Alonso
10 Kubica
11 Button
12 Barrichello
13 Sutil
14 Glock
15 Alguersuari
16 Fisichella
17 Nakajima
18 Grosjean
19 Liuzzi
20 Webber

And with 5 positions penalty, given to all at SAME time.

1 Vettel
2 Trulli
3 Hamilton
4 Heidfeld
5 Räikkönen
6 Rosberg
7 Kubica
8 Glock
9 Alguersuari
10 Fisichella
11 Kovalainen
12 Buemi
13 Nakajima
14 Alonso
15 Grosjean
16 Button
17 Barrichello
18 Sutil
19 Liuzzi
20 Webber

Thats how it is done if you want to be fair.

What a ridiculous starting grid. Hope the FIA will change the rules immediately. 5 places are 5 places. Not based on timing or whatever.

Regarding the terrible job stewards did on that particular case, it reveals a major flaw of the system: if a driver cuts a chicane race control will delete him lap time on the spot and everyone carries on. But ignoring yellows, even if it's blatant and obvious for anyone with even the stripped down internet live timing, requires FIA machinery to work and might be actually a way to go in certain caises.

And again, I can't believe that verdict, a slightest offence against safety usually means a significant penalty, pavement runs off are installed everywhere, fast turns are changed to chicanes and what stewards do? Effectively reward drivers who ignored waved yellows to set a time. A+ stuff.

Though it would result in even more grid penalty confusion, I think F1 definitely needs a rule that will give a grid penalty to any driver that causes a red flag in qualifying. To me it doesn't make sense that a driver would get a 5-place penalty for not lifting enough for a yellow flag, but the driver who created the situation, most often simply by making a mistake, doesn't pay a price.

While it's true that in Q1 or Q2 that driver wouldn't be able to advance, if it happens in Q3 and they crash on their second hot lap, they might gain a significant advantage as others must abort.

Remember if driver A ignores the yellow flag in Q2. But succeeded to set the fastest time. Then Q3. He qualifies 5th, and then crash.. Whoops, and all the other 9 drivers set their fastest time under yellow.. Driver A gets a 5 grid penalty. Drop down to 10th. But heeey, all the 9 drivers in front me have ignored it too in Q3. So heey, Driver A on pole!!!


This cannot be true.

If I were a steward, I would say penalties are applied at a grid, not at a moment of commitement...

Penalties should be applied one by one, starting from back of the grid, with one note: penalized drivers who fell behind grid capacity start in the same order as they actually achieved during qualifying.

To show why current system is wrong imagine:
three drivers, A, B and C are on the grid in that order.
Then A and B receive a one position penalty.
If A receives it first then we have B A C grid. Then B receives his penalty so we get A B C.
Remember: A and B both received one position back and in the same time they kept their original position!

I think that in this case grid should be C A B.

But I think the real source of problem is the way red flag acts during qualifying.

I would change the rules the following way:
If a Q is red flagged, then a time is added to remainder of this session. I think it should be two averege lap times more or less (TBA precisely).
This will allow all drivers one more try.

Also I think that during Q2 and Q3 drivers should keep their times from Q1 and Q2. (It will be possible in 2010)

Grzegorz Chyla

It isn't up to the stewards how to apply the penalties... they were applied in the order the regulations say they should be... blame the system not the stewards in this case.

As for adding time if a qual session is red flagged... it will never happen as it could cause coverage to overrun, which is something Bernie would not allow. Anyway it's the same situation for all drivers, no point moaning that the red flag stopped them from setting a lap time... they should have gone out and put a lap in earlier.

I agree.
The current red flag rules are in effect punishing all of the drivers on a hot lap because someone else made a mistake.

But I guess the rules are this way because the TV stations don't want the qualifying to overrun.
Qualifying this weekend went on for nearly as long as the actual race, which i'm sure they weren't happy about.

Having read numerous reports, this was in the order the events happened:

1) Kovalainen gearbox change*
2) Buemi penalty
3) Alonso penalty
4) Barrichello penalty
5) Button penalty
6) Sutil penalty
7) Glock's demotion to back

* although not made public till after the session, I think this decision was made before the session looking at Autosport's Qualifying report.

#2 through to #6 in the above list are in chronological order in which they happened, for instance Buemi's is first as he was the one that caused the crash. In Glock's case - the safety cell thing wasn't known until after the session, so this is the last thing.



So the main changes between my grid and the FIA grid are:
- Rosberg one place lower
- Kubica two places lower
- Barrichello two places higher
- Sutil one place higher
- Buemi one place lower
- Alguersuari one place higher
- Alonso two places lower
- Fisichella and Nakajima one place higher

For me, it's a calculated risk you take by not setting a banker earlier in the session. You can use an extra set of tyres and have a time in the bank or you can leave it to the last minute and save a set of tyres and have the risk of something like this happening. I like it like that. You can win it all or lose it all. I just fear that some of the ideas being floated here are just taken all the unpredictability out of sport. Sometimes you will get the good luck, sometimes you get bad luck.

It wasn't really a case of waiting. Several drivers had already had laps ruined by the previous red flags.

What would have happened if the time had run out due to the red flags and no one had set a time?

4 drivers decided to go for only one timed lap in the remaining 8 minutes. The other 9 had either made a run or gave themselves at least two bites of the cherry. The two Brawn's, Sutil and Heidfeld sat in the pits for 5 minutes. That's a choice. Call it's strategy or whatever, but they chose to wait in the pits.

That is what I have been saying.....sad, it is all about TV, and falsely created drama to bring in the entertainment factor and TV revenue.....

You seem to have forgotton that there were 2 other red flags during the session. It wasn't as case of them sitting in the pits waiting, they had gone out to set a time and each time they had had to abort before setting a time.

So lying to the media is equivalent of getting an advantage. All that matters is what Alonso told the stewards, and that's it.