F1: Stewards shocked after Hamilton's penalty costs him nothing; later decision costs others plenty

Hamilton has Kamui Kobayashi to thank for his ability to outflank the stewards in the European Grand Prix in Valencia.

Following a major accident involving Webber and Kovalainen, the safety car came out. As it left the pit lane, Hamilton came alongside. The safety car crossed the white line into the track - something F1 drivers are penalised for doing. Then it returned to the pit lane. Hamilton, having just powered down the main straight, passed it just as it crossed a line across the end of the pit lane called The Safety Car Line. For that, Hamilton was given a drive through penalty.

But by the time the stewards decided to give him that penalty, the race had been restarted and Vettel and Hamilton had re-engaged in a two-car run for the lead. Hamilton had already decided that the best thing was to harry Vettel from a distance, conserve fuel and tyres and then drive the Red Bull into either a fuel shortage or tired tyres as the end of the race neared. But behind him a drama - of sorts - was unfolding.

In his Williams, Kobayashi and his Sauber team made a radical decision: their hard tyres could be made to last all race and Valencia is a tough place to pass if the car is more or less on the pace. And so he held onto third place having been one of only two cars not to pit during the safety car. Button, blocked by Kobayashi to the tune of around a second a lap, led a train which, for almost half the race saw, it appeared, only one overtaking move.

Button sat just off Kobayashi's rear wing, out of the turbulence so as to keep his engine and brakes cool and avoid tyre wear, waiting for what would amount to a rolling race re-start when Kobayashi eventually pitted.

Then came news of Hamilton's drive through penalty. It's a short pit lane at Valencia and with no slowing down, tyre change or general faffing about, a drive through costs about 15 seconds. Hamilton was 12 ahead of Kobayashi and, because of the nose-to-tail traffic behind him, fifteen seconds lost for Hamilton would have seen him coming back into the middle of the bottled up pack in about 8th.

A calm message to Hamilton told him "we have a drive through penalty. We have three laps." With instructions to build a margin, Hamilton turned the wick up to full and drove like a man possessed - not by demons, but by genius. Vettel, knowing that Hamilton was about to be dropped, paid no attention as Hamilton used those three laps to build a cushion over Kobayashi - coming out of the pit lane more than a second ahead of the Japanese driver to retain his second place.

Heinz-Harald Frentzen was pictured looking shocked. Charlie Whiting and others in the control room looked dazed and confused. Like it or not, a decision that had been marginal in the first place, then delayed until several laps into the restarted race, had been calculated to cost Hamilton second place, at least on the road at that stage of the race. It didn't.

But the stewards were not finished. A radio call from Alonso was broadcast. It was indistinct but he was complaining about something to do with the pace of the field relative to the safety car.

The stewards announced that they were investigating nine cars, including Button. Vettel and Hamilton were not on the list. As the race finished With Vettel from Hamilton and Button, Vettel said to Button "It's out of our hands now." The podium celebrations went ahead, the press conference went ahead with all three drivers unaware of what the final result would be and mostly thanking their teams and saying how pleased they were that Webber was unhurt in his shunt. Button described why he thought drivers were under investigation: they were all barrelling into the last corner when the safety car announcement was made. In his case, to slow down so as to demonstrate his lack of pace during a safety car period, would have meant standing on the brakes in the middle of a high speed corner: "you don't want to do that," he said.

And so, as the teams packed up and fans headed home, the stewards sat down to decide the result of the race.

Jenson Button, Rubens Barrichello, Nico Hulkenberg, Robert Kubica, Vitaly Petrov, Adrian Sutil, Vitantonio Liuzzi, Sebastien Buemi and Pedro de la Rosa were all penalised by the addition to five seconds onto their race time. Of the leading pack, then, only Spaniard Alonso and Kobayashi were not pushed back.

That means that De la Rosa, who had driven a good race to finish 10th and the final point was dropped to 11th in favour of Rosberg. Buemi who had fought off Alonso in a titanic battle for the last few laps as his rear tyres went off - but so did Alonso's front end resulting in the cars taking very different lines through corners - was dropped behind the Ferrari. Everyone else stayed in position so Button has been confirmed in third place.

Glock also received an unrelated penalty: 20 seconds for ignoring blue flags.