The big talking point after the French GP has been McLaren's series of penalties and whether these are part of a bias against the team by the FIA. It should be pointed out that the suspicions emanate from outside the team, Martin Whitmarsh having made it clear that they are not complaining. Only Lewis Hamilton has said anything that could be construed as critical of some of the decisions and his comments have been largely the result of frustration, I think, inadvisable as they may have been.
Heikki Kovalainen
Much of the talk has been about Hamilton's pass on Vettel early in the race and his subsequent cutting of the chicane. The resulting drive through penalty has been hotly debated, sufficiently so for us to take it that the matter was not clear cut and could have gone either way. I have my opinion on it (and that is that Hamilton had gained the place before the chicane and so did not benefit from his slight error) but the important fact is that the stewards decided that it merited a drive-through penalty.
That decision was sufficient to ruin Hamilton's race and guarantee that he would take no points for his afternoon's work, handicapped as he already was by his ten grid spot penalty from Canada. For conspiracy theorists, it is tempting to think that the stewards were bound to decide as they did since it was a McLaren they were discussing.
Put that with the fact that Raikkonen was not called into the pits to have the dangling exhaust removed and it begins to look as though there is one rule for one team and another for the rest. This, after all, was a safety issue and not merely a question of unfair advantage taken in a race incident. Add to that Kovalainen's five grid spot penalty from qualifying, another very debatable point that went against McLaren, and it begins to look as if there is indeed a case to be answered by the FIA.
What I find strangest of all, however, is that Trulli's blatant shove on Kovalainen went unremarked and unprotested. Trulli maintains that the cars did not touch but it certainly looked that way to me. There can be no denying that Kovalainen was forced off the track, however, with his left tires well onto the painted green strip, and had his braking for the chicane compromised as a result. That was a very clear example of dangerous driving by the Italian and, in my opinion, merited a penalty of some sort.
But there was no complaint from the McLaren camp, apparently, and I am forced to wonder why. Could it be that the team have become so used to unfair treatment that they felt they had no chance of being heard on the matter? Trulli obviously felt it was an incident worth commenting upon, if only to allay thoughts that he had behaved unsportingly, but Kovalainen has said not a word. Is that not at least a little odd?
Whatever the reason for McLaren's silence, it seems to me that they have adopted a closed-mouth policy ever since the WMSC hearings on the cool fuel controversy. They were criticized so harshly for daring to protest rule-breaking in that matter that it is entirely understandable that they should have decided to take whatever comes without complaint.
This will only exaggerate whatever bias towards Ferrari there is within the FIA, with the main opposition effectively silenced. It will be interesting to note whether BMW begin to collect penalties as their competitiveness increases - one more reason to hope for their success this year, indeed.
But the real question is why the FIA allow the suspicion of bias to remain. They could easily allay such fears by awarding penalties to Ferrari when the opportunity arises (and the dangling exhaust pipe was such a chance) but they do not. I can only assume that they do not care whether their actions are interpreted as fair or not and they will do as they please in the face of all disapproval.
Come to think of it, that would be only staying in line with the apparent stance of their president...