F1: Sinful Singapore stewards cost Button shot at title

Lewis Hamilton hit the back of Massa and got a drive through penalty. Michael Schumacher hit the back of Di Resta and after a chat with FIA boss (and his own former boss at Ferrari) Jean Todt, the German had no penalty applied: a five place drop in the next GP would have been appropriate for Schumacher's accident was actually far more avoidable and far more dangerous than Hamilton's.

Schumacher's crash caused the only safety car session of the 2011 Singapore Grand Prix. Around a street circuit, especially one with few long straights, the question of release from behind the safety car is of paramount importance.

For most of the safety car period, most cars were nowhere near the required ten cars distance of each other. Vettel needed reminding of the rules - a surprise as he had been caught out by them previously. As the safety car prepared to pull off, the cars bunched up for the drive down past the Bay Grandstand and the turn into the start-finish complex. Vettel was at least 300 metres behind the safety car. No action was taken.

Behind Vettel, in his Red Bull, were two cars that were a lap down: Jarno Trulli for Team Lotus which announced during the weekend that they had secured the Red Bull drive train / Renaul engine combination for the next three seasons. Trulli should have moved over immediately the McLaren appeared behind him. He did not: Vettel built up a substantial lead before Button could clear the road. Kobayashi, also in between, got a penalty for failing to heed the blue flags; no blue flags were shown to Trulli for the first full lap after the restart.

Then, as the race came to a conclusion, with Button closing in on Vettel at well over a second per lap, traffic again caused delays. Both Vettel and Button suffered as cars simply stayed on the racing line instead of heading for the shrubbery as they are required to do (not that there is any shrubbery on the Marina Bay circuit but there is still space to move over).

Hamilton had a bad start, did a lap with half-a-front wing before pitting and then had a drive through after all of which he was 17th. He finished fifth. He was far enough away that the drive-through did not cost him the win or second but the combination of drive-through and battling through traffic (which he was racing so blue flags were irrelevant) meant he lost sufficient time that any chance of third was lost. But his accident was understandable: he arrived behind Massa both of them with the benefit of new tyres. But Hamilton's driving style and the set-up of his McLaren heat the tyres faster than those on the Ferrari. Hamilton's extra grip brought him deeper into the braking zone. Massa braked earlier because of cold tyres. The collision should have been classified as a racing incident especially as it was not even a hard impact: the only damage was a puncture for Massa and a broken front wing for Hamilton.

Schumacher, on the other hand, hit the back of Di Resta hard, causing his Mercedes to fly up high into the air and land with a hard thump against a barrier. It is true that the penalty should apply to the incident not to the seriousness of the aftermath and on that basis the fact that Schumacher's crash was the more spectacular should not give him a greater penalty than Hamilton. But the fact that he totally misjudged Di Resta's course and speed relative to his own is in principle no different to Hamilton's transgression - and given the relative pace of Schumacher and Di Resta, Schumacher should have known better. To fail to give him a penalty is a disgrace. Ironically, he was not driving aggressively or cheating as he did in Monza: it was simple bad judgement.

The stewards were weak and made bad decisions.

And while a win by Button would probably merely postponed Vettel being crowned 2011 World Champion, he should not have been cheated out of the chance of that win by the stewards and / or bad driving by other drivers.