Hamilton "a dickhead" & Webber Reprimanded
- Published on Mar 29th, 2010 by Adam MilleneuveWe may only be two races into the 2010 season, but it's all been a bit too quiet on the political battles, controversial interpretations of the rules and dodgy stewards decisions front. Sure there have been rumblings of upset over the catchy named F-Duct on the McLaren and the idea that Red Bull have some fancy ride height adjustment malarkey, but not even a sniff of a court room battle... yet.
a dickhead, really? © McLaren Media
On the steward decisions front, F1 proudly confirmed that ex-drivers will be on the panel of stewards at some of the races this year to help hand out penalties or say when a racing incident is just a racing incident. All seems fine so far - the stewards needn't have bothered turning up at Bahrain to watch a 200mph traffic jam in the desert and only had to make one call on the Australian Grand Prix.
So, Mark Webber, after rather stupidly losing control and taking out Hamilton with only 2 laps left has been 'reprimanded' by the stewards - no penalty, just a metaphorical slapping of the wrist. Sounds about right doesn't it?
As for Lewis, well of course we all know about his Friday night shenanigans on the streets of Melbourne with his super-powerful Mercedes car and his Herbie-style driving, but now it has come to light that the 2008 world champion has been branded 'a dickhead' by the Minister of Roads for Victoria in Australia.
The "Don't be a dickhead" road safety campain is a classic Aussie style campaign, but despite it's light-hearted approach to such campaign titles, the police were pretty hard on Hamilton and Mark Webber has defended him saying that it's a 'nanny state' over there now.
Either way, after Hamilton's "Lie-Gate" and the BrawnGP "Diffuser-Gate" in 2009 and 2008 Ferrari/McLaren "spy-gate" this latest spat of reprimands and name-calling is a welcome breath of fresh air and Badger's pleased with the 2010 season so far on this front, long may it continue...
On a side note - rather than fining drivers $5000 for doing something silly such as speeding in the pit lane, how about publicly shaming them by using petty names such as "fool" or "idiot" on their car for the rest of the race - it would have more of an effect than a pocket-sized fine.
Thanks to Parkinsr for the tip off on this story
Comments and Discussion
Hamilton was labelled a dickhead by Tim Pallas, the Minister for Roads, not "the Minister of Victoria" (there is no such title or office). A quick Google search would have told you that. How about a little research for an accurate article? The "Don't be a dickhead" campaign is anything but light-hearted; it's a serious attempt to stop young drivers killing themselves by doing stupid things on the road and Hamilton's antics certainly don't help the cause.
Noted and corrected, cheers Jeremy. And don't worry, we realise the importance of such a campaign, it's the light-hearted title that we're commenting on, not it's message. Here in the UK it would be called "Drive Safely Now" - i.e. about as snappy as toothless crocodile.
haha looks like Adam got put in his place maybe you should have paid attention to the "go back to school" campaign
eh!?