Some interesting points here on the penalties dished out in Malaysia on Joe Sawards blog.
"The good news was that I have been able to make some discreet inquiries about the penalties given at the Malaysian Grand Prix and I think that I now understand what happened. The first point was that the FIA is not being inconsistent, but rather trying to establish limits that will create consistency in the new world of DRS and KERS. This is important to avoid dangerous wheel-over-wheel accidents. The drivers and teams are very keen to know the limits and both teams strongly urged the FIA to create clear guidelines during the hearings after the race in Kuala Lumpur.
However there are a couple of other things that need to be borne in mind about the processes involved. There was no complaint from any team. The decision to look at the incidents came from Race Director Charlie Whiting. The fact that one decision was listed as “following a report from the Race Director” and the other was not seems to have been a clerical error. The question of Lewis Hamilton’s penalty for weaving was due to two factors: the first was that Lewis was warned about weaving a year ago when he got away with zig-zagging in front of Vitaly Petrov. That was deemed to be a question of trying to break a tow, but this year he was reckoned to be blocking. The difference was that in this day and age of KERS and DRS there is going to be more speed differential between the cars and so blocking may become more of an issue. The stewards seem to have concluded that it was necessary to punish Hamilton so that no-one in the future could complain that they had been punished when Hamilton was not… A line was being drawn in the sand."
For those that said Alonso bitched and whined well it seems neither Ferrari or Alonso complained about Hamilton weaving.
Another interesting theory he come up with as to why Alonso may have hit Hamilton. Of course just a theory but it could hold some truth...
"So, Alonso misjudged the situation, which seems rather odd given his level of skill. On this matter there is no explanation, although one might hypothesize that he was caught out when Hamilton’s car ran out of KERS. The FIA would know this, but the federation is not allowed to divulge details of data from one team to another and so would not be in a position to explain the accident, without rival teams learning something about the McLaren…
It is just a theory, but it might explain why Alonso was caught out."
