Grosjean banned for 1 race and fined 50k Euros

Grosjean Banned for One race and Fined 50k Euros

As we had hoped, FIA took notice of the egregious blunder by Romain Grosjean of Lotus during the Belgian Grand Prix (http://www.arjunaubacha.blogspot.in/2012/09/button-wins-from-pole-in-belgian-grand.html ) and handed him a one race ban and fined him 50,000 euros. Ideally he should have been banned for the remainder of the season, however, FIA decided to hand him only a one race ban. We hope that this will instill some sense in the minds of the young Romain Grosjean and he will introspect enough and come back as a better driver.

The FIA statement said "The stewards regard this incident as an extremely serious breach of the regulations which had the potential to cause injury to others. The stewards note the team conceded the action of the driver was an extremely serious mistake and an error of judgement. Neither the team nor the driver made any submission in mitigation of penalty."

Romain Grosjean was the chief culprit in triggering the accident and it led to removal of championship leader Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton. Sergio Perez's race was taken out. Kamui Kobayashi suffered a lot of damages and could race without points and finished in the 13th place in the F1 Belgian Grand Prix.

FIA has allowed Lotus to use another F1 driver in place of Romain Grosjean. It is to be seen if they allow their reserve driver Jerome D'Ambrosio to race or get someone else from outside. Though Jerome D'Ambrosio is the reserve driver, he never impressed during his stint with Marussia racing. Lotus is yet to announce who will replace Romain Grosjean.

Grosjean will miss the F1 Italian Grand Prix at Monza. Motor racing fans should thank FIA for their tough action in banning Grosjean for causing serious crash in the Belgian Grand Prix 2012.

Button wins from Pole in Belgian Grand Prix

Jenson Button Wins from Pole in Belgian Grand Prix

Jenson Button of Mclaren won the Belgian Grand Prix starting from pole using a one stop strategy. 

As I mentioned earlier this was to be a interesting Belgian Grand Prix race.

The start of the Belgian Grand Prix was pretty eventful with Romain Grosjean cutting across Lewis Hamilton while taking a corner. Predictably he got hit and then dangerously jumped over Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari and Kamui Kobayashi’s Sauber. He nearly hit Kobayashi’s hand. Romain Grosjean this year has shows good speed and an equally bad erratic crash prone driving.

FIA authorities should remember that they had earlier banned a Japanese driver and Grosjean should be added to that list for saving a few lives.

Michael Schumacher who was on 2^nd position and was about to be overtaken by Sebastian Vettel, stopped on the 20^th lap to change over to hard tyres. He had planned for a one stop strategy. He then joined in 8^th position. This was a disastrous strategy, as Schumacher was on No. 2 and stayed there for too long and lost a lot of time vis-à-vis his other competitors who closed in to him after doing one stop. Mercedes didn’t manage a good pit stop from Schumacher either. As a result, Vettel who stopped a lap later could rejoin at 6^th position as Red Bull team managed to change his tyres at only 3.7 seconds. This incident will be investigated after the race.

There were some interesting racing between Raikkonen and Schumacher at Spa in the Belgian Grand Prix. Raikkonen passed Schumacher on the outside of the chicane in the 32^nd lap and then Schumacher passed him again by using DRS in the DRS zone.

Narain Karthikeyan spun and hit the barriers in the 32^nd lap and one of the wheels was seen coming out but Narain was safe.

Kimi again passed Schumacher on the 34^th lap and then Nico Hulkenberg too passed Schumacher. It seems Schumacher was trying to conserve his tyres. Schumacher again passed Hulkenberg using the DRS keeping the spectators entertained. Mercedes decided it was enough and then brought Schumacher to pit in lap 36. Ross Brawn was supposed to be a superb strategist but this was a blunder deciding a one stop strategy when Schumacher was losing so much time in the first stop. Schumacher despite pitting for the second stop continued to lose time.

Button won peacefully with his one stop strategy. This is his first win in Spa. This was also Jenson Button's first pole in Belgian Grand Prix. Vettel could also make his one stop strategy work and finished second. A two stopping Raikkonen finished third. The big loser being Michael Schumacher who finished seventh. Hulkenberg finished 4^th, Massa 5^th and Webber 6^th. Vergne was 8^th, Ricciardo 9^th and Paul di Resta 10^th.

Belgian Grand Prix Final Standings: 

1.     Jenson Button

2.     Sebastian Vettel

3.     Kimi Raikkonen

4.     Nico Hulkenberg

5.     Felipe Massa

6.     Mark Webber

7.     Michael Schumacher

8.     Jean Eric Vergne

9.     Daniel Ricciardo

10. Paul di Resta

11. Nico Rosberg

12. Bruno Senna

13. Kamui Kobayashi

14. Vitaly Petrov

15. Timo Glock

16. Charles Pic

17. Heikki Kovalainen

18. Pedro de la Rosa

Drivers who Did Not Finish Belgian Grand Prix

Narain Karthikeyan

Pastor Maldonado

Sergio Perez

Fernando Alonso

Lewis Hamilton

Romain Grosjean

There will be post race investigations by the stewards of the Belgian Grand Prix 2012.