I actually felt a little sorry for Romain when he was slapped with a one-race
ban for this weekend. It was a bad error but was made to look worse by what
happened afterwards.
I think the stewards must have taken into account all the other opening-lap
incidents he has been involved in this year — I believe there are seven in
total — and decided enough was enough. If that’s the case then fair enough.
Romain is a good driver, a popular driver, and hopefully he will come back a
better one.
It was a shame that such a fine race, which saw world class drives from
McLaren’s Jenson
Button and Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel, was overshadowed not only by
the opening lap accident but by the controversy regarding Lewis Hamilton’s
indiscreet tweet.
Personally, I don’t have a problem with any of the acronym-based swearing
tweets he removed the previous day. If people don’t want to follow him they
don’t have to.
But the leaking of sensitive information, team data, was at best embarrassing.
Teams go to great lengths to protect that sort of information.
I remember when I started out there used to be bin hokers who would go through
the rubbish bins of rival teams on a Monday after a race, searching for just
such telemetry. Nowadays everyone has shredders in their motorhomes and
high-tech security on their computers.
McLaren are playing down the sensitivity of the information but at the very
least it has shown their rivals exactly where their lap time was won and
lost with their new wing as opposed to their old one.
Teams use all sorts of sophisticated tools, GPS and sound analysis – it is
possible to tell, for instance, when an engine is at full throttle – to try
to get an accurate picture of exactly where they are gaining and losing time
relative to their rivals. This will help them to validate that information.
It’s another lesson learned for Lewis,
I’m afraid.