Front to back for out of fuel Hamilton

F1 News
Date: 13/May/2012

Lewis Hamilton thought he had claimed his third pole position of the 2012 F1 season during a topsy-turvy qualifying in Catalunya, but was later excluded and will now start at the back of the grid.

The McLaren driver’s misery means a first ever grand prix pole for Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado and the first for sleeping F1 giant Williams since Nico Hulkenberg in Brazil 2010.

Hamilton had been ordered to park his car rather than try to return to the pits after claiming pole by over half-a-second, his McLaren team clearly feraing they had insufficient fuel on board to complete the necessary post-race checks.

The team put it down to an operational error, and hoped that by stopping the car on track they would at least be able to provide the necessary sample. However the FIA declared the incident was a clear breach of the rules.

An FIA statement read: “The Stewards received a report from the Race Director which stated that during post-qualifying scrutineering a sample of fuel was required from car 4, however, the car failed to return to the pits under its own power as required under Article 6.6.2 of the FIA Formula One Technical Regulations.

“The Stewards heard from the team representative Mr Sam Michael who stated that the car stopped on the circuit for reasons of force majeure.  A team member had put an insufficient quantity of fuel into the  car thereby resulting in the car having to be stopped on the circuit in order to be able to provide the  required amount for sampling purposes.

“As the amount of fuel put into the car is under the complete control of the Competitor the Stewards  cannot accept this as a case of force majeure.

“The Stewards determine that this is a breach of Article 6.6.2 of the FIA Formula One Technical Regulations and the Competitor is accordingly excluded from the results of the Qualifying Session.  The Competitor is however allowed to start the race from the back of the grid.”