Plenty of blogs, sites, and publications have commented on the apparent Ferrari favoritism behind the FIA’s decision to assess a 25-second virtual drive-through penalty. If you haven’t read up on the incident, see these 3 articles:

• GrandPrix.com’s Belgian Grand Prix Commentary
• Autoblog’s Commentary on the Beligan GP incident
• TimesOnline.com - McLaren Gives Notice of Appeal

There isn’t much more to say about the penalty. Hamilton did allow Raikkonen to regain the lead. He tucked in fully behind him coming onto the subsequent straight, then cleanly passed Raikkonen by outbraking him into the next corner.

What remains to be seen—and what is almost as interesting—is how the FIA will justify the penalty during the appeal. The published Sporting and Technical Regulations for F1 are surprisingly vague regarding “incidents”. Normally I would just direct you to a link, but here I wanted to quote at length.

16) INCIDENTS
16.1 “Incident” means any occurrence or series of occurrences involving one or more drivers, or any action by
any driver, which is reported to the stewards by the race director (or noted by the stewards and referred to
the race director for investigation) which :

• necessitated the suspension of a race under Article 41 ;
• constituted a breach of these Sporting Regulations or the Code ;
• caused a false start by one or more cars ;
• caused a collision ;
• forced a driver off the track ;
• illegitimately prevented a legitimate overtaking manoeuvre by a driver ;
• illegitimately impeded another driver during overtaking.

Unless it was completely clear that a driver was in breach of any of the above, any incidents involving more than one car will normally be investigated after the race.

16.2

• It shall be at the discretion of the stewards to decide, upon a report or a request by the race director,
  if a driver or drivers involved in an incident shall be penalised.
• If an incident is under investigation by the stewards a message informing all teams which driver or drivers are involved will be displayed on the timing monitors.

Provided that such a message is displayed no later than five minutes after the race has finished the driver or drivers concerned may not leave the circuit without the consent of the stewards.

16.3 The stewards may impose any one of three penalties on any driver involved in an Incident :

• A drive-through penalty. The driver must enter the pit lane and re-join the race without stopping ;
• A ten second time penalty. The driver must enter the pit lane, stop at his pit for at least ten seconds and then re-join the race.
• a drop of ten grid positions at the driver’s next Event.

However, should either of the penalties under a) and b) above be imposed during the last five laps, or after the end of a race, Article 16.4b) below will not apply and 25 seconds will be added to the elapsed race time of the driver concerned.

The short version is that race stewards can have significant flexibility in assessing penalties—both in deciding what behavior constitutes an “incident” and in determining the harshness of the penalty.

Hamilton’s cutting of the chicane occurred within the final 5 laps, meaning that article16.4b was void and the stewards were required to assess either a 25-second penalty or no penalty. As we all know, officials gave Hamilton the 25-second penalty.

My guess is that, having no specific language in the Sporting Regulations regarding what constitutes a competitive advantage, the FIA will justify the penalty in this way:

It’s impossible to quantify the competitive advantage Hamilton gained or may have gained during his off-track maneuver. While he did permit Raikkonen to pass, and while Raikkonen did cross start-finish ahead of Hamilton, the total effect of the incident may have forced Raikkonen to drive more slowly. In other words, even though Raikkonen crossed start-finish .6 seconds ahead of Hamilton, he may have been even farther ahead had Hamilton not driven off-course. Such a lead may have prevented Hamilton’s pass at the corner at the end of the straight.

This circuitous argument is a fairly safe one for the FIA to make, as it uses rather subjective logic to interpret a rather vague rule.

I hope the FIA will reverse its race-day decision and remove the penalty. But, should it be upheld, it will be on these grounds.

Finally, if anyone has further information on the specific regulations concerning overtaking and competitive advantage please email us or post a comment.