Narain to start ahead of stripped Hamilton
Barcelona, 13 May 2012: With the stewards penalty for Hamilton, Narain Karthikeyan will start ahead of the former World Champion on 23rd in the grid at the Spanish Grand Prix at Circuit de Catalunya in the Sunday’s race which begins at 5.30 pm India time.
Lewis Hamilton of McLaren, who qualified on pole, for the third time this season was asked to stop after he finished the qualifying session to save one litre petrol which is mandatory to allow the scrutiny team to do their duty. Apparantly Hamilton had only 1.3 litres which would have been impossible to leave 1 litre if had ended up in the pits. However, with stewards calling the shots, Hamilton will now start at the back of the grid and Williams’ Pastor Maldonado, who is showing amazing capabilities this year, will lead the Spanish Grid today. Maldonado was unlucky a couple of times this season when he came close to points in vain.
On Saturday, Hamilton claimed McLaren’s 150th pole position in the dying seconds of Q3, displacing provisional front-of-grid driver Pastor Maldonado, but was almost immediately told by his team to pull over and stop his car. Both Hamilton and his team were subsequently called before the stewards to explain why he had not been able to return his car to the pits under its own power as prescribed in article 6.6.2 of the FIA’s Technical Regulations.
According to an FIA statement: “The stewards heard from the team representative Mr Sam Michael [Sporting Director], who stated that the car stopped on the circuit for reasons of force majeure. A team member had put an insufficient quantity of fuel into the car thereby resulting in the car having to be stopped on the circuit in order to be able to provide the required amount [of fuel] for sampling purposes.”
This argument was, however, rejected by the stewards, who stated that “the amount of fuel put into the car is under the complete control of the competitor”. They then ruled that the team had breached article 6.6.2 and excluded Hamilton from the qualifying result.
Hamilton will, however, be allowed to race, though he will start from the back of the grid. The penalty means that Pastor Maldonado will take pole position for tomorrow’s Spanish Grand Prix. It also marks Williams’ first pole position since the Brazilian GP of 2010, claimed by Nico Hulkenberg.
It is not sure if Hamilton gained undue advantage because of less fuel but the team’s error of judgement would certainly harm the chances of the former world champion, who is currently in the top three of drivers’ standings.
ends
