Sunday, August 1, 2010

10 place grid-drop for Schmacher at next race

The Hungarian Grand Prix is generally regarded as one of the less exciting tracks on the calender, but perhaps events in today's race might go some way to changing that perception.
We saw several interesting incidents in the pit-lane, Nico Rosberg's right rear tyre airborne and hitting a mechanic, Sutil and Kubica crashing in the pit-lane due to an misjudged signal from a Renault lollipop man, and Vettel holding up the track (by longer than 10 car-lenghts) just before the safety-car returned to the pits, resulting in a Drive-Through penalty for him.
And the most daring overtake manoevre of all came in the penultimate lap of the race; Barrichello against his former team-mate Michael Schumacher. Schumy would later comment that he thought Barrichello would overtake from his left which was why there wasn't enough room in the right side for the William's car, and almost resulted in Barrichello kissing the wall.
The case was duly referred to the Stewards, who have ruled that he 'illegitimately impeded' Rubens, and have penalised Schumacher with a 10 place grid-drop at the next race.
I wonder how that will go down with Ross Brawn, Team Principal of Mercedes GP and if this spells the beginning of the end of the most anticipated come-back in F1.