I know I should not do this but I've been thinking. With a bit of a stretch, this has been a week of awards, some honorable, some not so. For a start, there were those ten grid spot penalties handed down to Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg for their red light bloopers in the Canadian GP. Fair enough, says Nico, foul, cries Lewis.
Lewis Hamilton
Which raises the matter of fairness in penalizing mistakes as opposed to deliberate infractions of the rules. Regardless of whether you think the penalties harsh or lenient, the fact remains that the FIA has penalized a mistake in this case. I just cannot believe that Lewis intended to take himself out of the race and remove his strongest competitor at the same time.
There are plenty of precedents for the awarding of penalties for mistakes, of course; probably most of the blocking incidents in qualifying are unintentional. But the Hamilton/Raikkonen accident does raise the question of how the stewards decide the penalty to be awarded in the case of a mistake. Presumably, it should be less than for a deliberate contravention of the rules and that opens the old argument about standardizing penalties for specific offenses.
There does seem to be a good case for setting down a scale of penalties to be awarded. One big problem is that situations do vary and sometimes entirely new ones come along, as in the case of Hamilton's error. So there will always be an element of human judgement involved and, equally, arguments over the fairness of a penalty will ensue.
Elsewhere, the week's awards were somewhat happier. Ron Dennis was awarded the Prince Philip Medal for innovation and excellence in engineering, which he accepted for the whole McLaren organization. No-one seems to have noticed the irony of the award going to a man at the head of a company so recently pilloried and fined extravagantly for bringing the sport into disrepute. It seems to me that not everyone was in agreement with the FIA's opinion on the matter and the award looks very much like a slap in the face for Max Mosley.
Congratulations are also in order for John Surtees, a childhood hero of mine. Famously the only world champion on both two wheels and four, Surtees has been awarded an OBE in the Queen's Birthdays Honours list. It is not often that motor sport is remembered when the gongs are handed out and so it is good to see John rewarded at last. He does not have as high a profile as Sir Jackie and Sir Frank but he has been just as valuable an asset to the sport even so.
Oh, and I received an award of sorts this week too. To my surprise, I had an email from the Webteam of ING Renault F1 informing me that, as one of 20 "influential F1 blogs", F1 Insight has been selected to be involved with their new "Broadcast Programme". If it lives up to half of their expectations, it could be a very good idea and, naturally, I am somewhat flattered to be included.
I am such a cynic, however, and find myself wondering about that magical number of 20 blogs. If truth be known, I bet Keith and Ollie had one too. Plus Neil and Patrick, of course. And the Wolf and Doctor Vee, Christine, Alianora, Negative Camber and plenty of others. Heck, I could reel off more than twenty names just by opening my favorites list...