Lewis Hamilton's Penalty: We All Learn from Our Mistakes

Let’s see if this gets me in the gutter!

Lewis Hamilton was stripped of victory in the Belgian Grand Prix, after allegedly gaining an advantage whilst attempting a courageous passing maneuver on Kimi Raikonnen.

He went in too deep, short cut the bus stop chicane, but came out of the corner tucked up right behind Kimi before overtaking at the next turn.

Do I think the 25-second penalty was fair? Possibly!

You see, rules are put in place for a reason. If a driver goes into a corner and cuts through it, they are supposed to give back any advantage gained. Widespread debates and controversy have surrounded this rule after Lewis’ penalty, but does it have any validity?

Let’s look at this logically.

Lewis Hamilton was close to Kimi and attempted a late brake to outwit the flying Fin. But he went in too deep and was forced to cut the corner, gaining an advantage.

The question then is this: Did he give back the correct amount of advantage to Kimi or did he use this mistake to create an opportunity in the next turn? Maybe it was his inexperience showing, but I believe that he did actually gain an unfair advantage in that he did gain momentum into the first turn of the following lap.

The reason?

If he made a mistake, he should have backed off into turn one, before regaining his composure to attempt a further overtake later on in the lap.

After all, Spa is the longest track on the circuit, and Lewis was obviously a lot faster than his Finnish rival. To me, it seems the stewards penalised him purely because he did not back off after his mistake and attempted an overtaking maneuver straight after into turn one.

How do I back up my (possibly) absurd claim?!

Well, I carefully analyzed the footage and decided that the distance between Lewis and Kimi was greater before the incident. Lewis came from a car length back in the original attempted overtake, and then was tucked up right behind the Ferrari's back wing in the follow-up attempt.

Therefore he did not fully surrender the advantage back to Kimi,  setting himself up for a disappointing end to his racing weekend.

However, I agree that the 25-second penalty afterwards was extremely unfair.

Kimi was careless enough to lose control of his car just a couple of laps later, thus destroying his chances of reinstating himself as a title contender, and also making the whole incident a tad irrelevant!

Whatever the thoughts, Lewis hopefully will look on this as a mistake to be learned from, and in the future maybe we will see a more patient driver as opposed to a spontaneous risk taker, not that there is always anything wrong with the latter!