McLaren are issued with five place penalty

By Emma Aitken
March 22 2008

Both Heidfeld and Alonso felt the McLaren boys impeded their flying laps at qualifying and took their issue up with the Stewards. The stewards agreed with the complaints made and Heikki and Lewis travel backwards down the grid to eighth and ninth place for tomorrow's race.

Both Heikki Kovalainen and Lewis Hamilton have been given a five place penalty for seemingly impeding Nick Heidfeld and Fernando Alonso in qualifying. They will now start in eighth and ninth respectively. After completing their flying laps they both slowed significantly to cruise back to the pits in order to conserve their fuel. Unfortunately, while they were doing this Heidfeld and Alonso (it had to be!) were still on their flying laps and both felt the slow McLarens obstructed them.

The stewards summoned Hamilton and Kovalainen after Heidfeld and Alonso complained and they were asked to explain their actions. It would appear they didn’t have any good answers as both were given a five place penalty. “Car number three (Heidfeld) was impeded in its flying lap due to the fact that car 22 (Hamilton) was travelling at a very slow speed on the racing line” said a stewards’ statement. A second statement was issued in respect of Kovalainen.

McLaren do not plan to appeal the decision. Jarno Trulli will start third for Toyota with the two BMW’s now completing the top five. Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso both get elevated to sixth and seventh. It looks like it might be a wet race tomorrow though as the rain that was threatened throughout qualifying has been falling steadily since 3.30pm local time. Changeable weather could mean a changeable race so we will just have to wait and see how it all pans out.