Just when you thought this crazy season was over, it just got stranger.
Reports from Interlagos suggest that stewards at the Brazilian Grand Prix are investigating all three cars that finished between Fernando Alonso in third and Lewis Hamilton in seventh.
The cars driven by fourth-placed Nico Rosberg of Williams and BMW’s Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld are all reported to have failed post-race inspection because of the temperature of their fuel. Representatives of the teams are reported to have been summoned to the stewards’ office.
Should stewards penalise them by docking them places or disqualifying them altogether it would potentially move Hamilton up the standings – and hand him the title at the expense of Kimi Raikkonen.
Brits on Pole was as keen as anyone to see Hamilton win – but wanted it to happen on the track. For him to be handed the title in this way would make the sport even more of a joke than it has appeared to be at the lowest points of this season.
We are not race engineers or designers, so we don’t know what might affect the temperature of a car’s fuel. But we can’t help noticing that the three concerned in this episode were doing a lot of actual racing towards the end of this event. Could that be connected?
We think that if they are penalised, it should be by docking their points but retaining their finishing positions. This would leave Hamilton in seventh and Raikkonen the champion.
It would have been great to have seen Lewis win, but he lost. If he gets handed the title by some post-race technical shenanigans then everyone loses.