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Talking Point: Look Back In Anger?

NEWS STORY
29/06/2010

Personally speaking, if there is one overriding memory of the European Grand Prix, it is Mark Webber's horrendous crash. Watching it as it happened I shouted out in horror. Subsequently, no matter how many times I watched the replays, I felt a shiver throughout my body.

We may have given him a hard time over the years, and are delighted that he decided not to stand for another term - we are even satisfied with the job his replacement is doing - however, full credit must be given to Max Mosley for his sterling work in terms of safety.

Yes, the sport has been emasculated over the years, but when one watches accidents such as Webber's, and Kubica's in Canada in 2007, one comes to appreciate that it is simply not acceptable to see our heroes maimed (or worse) in the name of sport.

Funny enough, shortly after Saturday's qualifying session, ESPN Classic showed a review of the 1976 season, the year in which Niki Lauda missed out on the title by just one point. Returning to the grid at Monza just eight weeks his horrendous crash at the Nurburgring, the Austrian had at one stage been given the last rites.

Watching the 1976 season one couldn't help but get a little dewy eyed, remembering the legendary drivers, circuits and legendary cars of that era. However, while I remain a fierce critic of 'circuits' such as Valencia, Abu Dhabi and Bahrain, I am also delighted to see the progress made in terms of safety, delighted to see Mark walk away from such a sickening crash, having lived through the era when we lost a driver almost every fortnight.

Yet, it is not Webber's crash that dominated proceedings down the Marlborough last night or even on the various message boards and fora. Instead, the main talking point is what happened afterwards, namely the deployment of the safety car.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of Lewis Hamilton's handling of the deployment of the safety car, the fact is that he subsequently received a penalty and duly served it. After the race nine drivers were punished with five second penalties for breaching the safety car rules, a decision that barely changed the finishing order.

Not for the first time this season the safety car has become the focal point of fan and driver criticism, many now asking why F1 cannot adopt the same rule used in numerous other series, whereby the safety car picks up the leader and allows the other cars past until the proper racing order is re-established.

Instead, on Sunday we had a mess, with one wag on the Pitpass forum declaring that it was the work of the FIA's Random Penalty Generator.

Then there's Fernando Alonso and Ferrari, whose reaction to Sunday's race has overshadowed not only the miracle of Webber's survival but the outstanding performances from a number of drivers, most notably Kamui Kobayashi.

When Alonso asked what position Hamilton had been in before and after he served his penalty, you could hear the trembling in his engineer's voice as he advised him "second" on both counts. The Spaniard subsequently told his team that they must focus solely on getting an answer from the FIA as to how this could be.

The following day, Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo and vice president Piero Ferrari both expressed their outrage in no uncertain terms, clearly throwing down the gauntlet to the FIA. The Italian team even resorted to using quotes from members of its own fans forum - hardly the most objective and neutral of sources - where posters described McLaren as "thieves" and "part of the English mafia" and the FIA as the "Federation of Clowns".

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