Quote:
Originally Posted by legion
Funny. Raikonnen cuts a corner and gains a position on the first lap and he doesn't get a penalty.
Remind me again what happened last year when someone did that to Raikonnen, and gave the position back?
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Cutting the corner means you shortened the path. You can't cut the corner at La Source, there is a very unforgiving concrete wall in the way. He went way wide, and traveled quite a bit farther than his competitors.
He also didn't gain a position. He went off in 4th, and rejoined in 4th.
The question is, did he need to go off track to avoid a collision? Lets take a look.
He turned in to La Source in 4th:
Looking at where the the BMW (Heidfeld, I think) was pointing, it was pretty clear there wouldn't be room on the track for Kimi. At this point, Kimi is headed for the runoff area.
Here Heidfeld and Kubica are at track out, and as expected, no room for Kimi.
Here is Kimi coming back on track, still behind Kubica and Heidfeld.
So it does look like he needed to do something to avoid a contact with the BMWs, his options were to go off straight, or jam on the brakes. He couldn't just run wide, as the strip of astroturf looking stuff doesn't have much grip, and it is likely he would have lost it, and possibly collected another car. Had he hit the brakes, he probably would have caused an accordion traffic jam wreck behind him, and probably got hit by Vettel coming up fast behind him.
I don't think what he did there was unreasonable, under the circumstances. Did he get an advantage from going wide? Yeah, he probably did, considering the alternatives were spinning or getting torpedoed after braking hard.
Hamilton did cut the Chicane last year (took a shorter path), and absolutely got a competitive advantage from it. Even after giving the position back, there is no way he would have been close enough to make the pass again had he not cut the chicane.
The Singapore thing is just strange. There is speculation that Piquet threw Renault under the bus, which I guess is possible, but it would be pretty stupid. Several new teams will be looking for drivers next year, and I can't see how that would help him get a ride.