Formula 1

I missed the race but just heard the news about Grosjean's ban, I watched the footage and I think it's a ridiculously harsh penalty for a slight misjudgment, especially when you consider the poor driving standards Maldonado gets away with. A 10 place grid penalty would have sufficed in my opinion.

Harsh? From what I saw he gave Hamilton no real chance of avoiding him; other than grasstracking or slow down and yield his place (neither in hamilton's limited dictionary)......??

Grosjean just lucky he didn't take Alonso's head off...!! Alonso's short enough already..!!

Wonder what the grid drop or penalty would be for 'decapitiation of another driver'..?? Gotta be a couple of races I'd guess..??

Apparently it's the 7th time in this years 12 races Grosjean has had an 'incident' on the first lap.
He came right across the track, so hardly a 'slight' misjudgement, and any incident at the start is likely to cause a major crash as the cars are all bunched up so close together, I think that is reflected in the stewards statement that this incident 'had the potential to cause injury to others'.

A grid penalty doesn't seem like a sensible punishment for a major grid incident, it may actually encourage him to be even more reckless next time to try to make those lost places up!

You've got to consider that the last race ban was in 1994, which I believe was due to Michael Schumacher ignoring black flags. This definitely wasn't the worst incident in 18 years of F1, it doesn't make sense to start banning drivers for collisions when ten place grid penalties have been the standard punishment for years. In my eyes this was just a slight misjudgment from a rookie driver, Romain panicked when the Sauber in front moved across and decided to move as far to the inside as he could to avoid, without realising that Hamilton was there.

Any collision has the potential to cause injury to others, so that isn't really a valid reason for this ban. It is ridiculous that Grosjean has been banned for this when Maldonado has caused two deliberate collisions during his short F1 career that definitely had the potential to injure others.

(03-09-2012 15:52 )-PJ- Wrote:  In my eyes this was just a slight misjudgment from a rookie driver,

Not in the eyes of the stewards though, who said it was an extremely serious mistake. Neither the driver or the team argued the point or made any submission in mitigation, so presumably they accepted that the stewards were justified in their view.

By the way, in the 1994 season, after Schumacher's utter stupidity at Silverstone in ignoring black flags which he got after ignoring a drive thru for passing Damon Hill on the warm up lap, there were 1 or 2 other bans....

Eddie Irvine, for a reason that currently escapes me (1 race ban became 3 after Jordan appealed )

And Mika Hakkinen, for causing a crash at the start of a race.

Maldonado is another issue entirely. He's a thug with a lot of backing but his day in the dock is coming very soon...

So sorry to hear about the death of Sid Watkins, he did so much for motorsport safety and saved the lives of many drivers. R.I.P.

agree very sad news. interesting rumours currently going round the f1 world.

michael schumacher is retiring after this season. lewis hamilton is taking his seat at mercedes and to replace hamilton at mclaren is sergio perez from sauber

unlucky afternoon for lewis!

Michael Schumacher has been handed a ten-place grid penalty for the Japanese GP after crashing into the back of Toro Rosso's Jean-Eric Vergne in the Singapore GP.