Red mist, part deux

Phil: I'm afraid I've always had very little sympathy for sportsmen who lose and then blame the referees, stewards or other officials for not interpreting the rules in their favour. I'd say the same applies to anyone who seriously thinks England might have beaten Germany but for 'that' goal.

Now, in this case, I'm going to let Alonso off for in-cockpit whingeing about Hamilton, because we all know drivers know the FIA listen in to their cockpit radio and use it as a 'back channel' for communicating directly with the stewards. I'm also going to ignore whatever he may have said post-race as I haven't seen any interviews with him.

However, the fact remains that if Hamilton had not overtaken the safety car, Alonso would still have been eighth. It wouldn't have made any difference to Alonso's race had Hamilton not overtaken the safety car, and it would only have promoted him one place had the FIA applied the strongest possible penalty and disqualified him (and I admit I was a little surprised that only a drive-through penalty had been applied). The fact that other drivers ahead of Alonso who did infringe the safety car regulations were penalised as a result, with the result that Alonso actually gained one place after the race, seems to have been completely overlooked.

As my co-blogger has admitted, for a driver who still considers Singapore 2008 to be a morally legitimate race win to make such a drama about something that in the final event wouldn't actually have affected his race position at all, is a little rich.

Ferrari have the third best car at the moment. Perhaps they need to do more about that rather than expecting the FIA (and you know what those initials mean) to ride to their rescue.