(from autosport) Note, Nick agreed that likely Hamilton and Heikki did not intenionally block: Nick Heidfeld has welcomed the Malaysian Grand Prix race stewards' ruling to penalise the McLaren drivers following qualifying. Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen were docked five places on the grid after the stewards found they had slowed down Heidfeld and Fernando Alonso when going too slowly on the racing line in the dying moments of qualifying. BMW's Heidfeld felt the incident cost him third place, but the German only qualified in seventh. He will now start from fifth and he admitted it was a consolation for the time lost. "Yeah, of course. I gain two position - it is better than seventh," he said. "I felt that I was hampered on my fast lap and obviously the stewards felt the same way. I was impeded and I lost laptime, so did Fernando." The German insisted the rules need to be looked at in order to avoid drivers going too slowly once they have crossed the finish line. "Definitely," he told autosport.com when asked if the rules needed to be changed. "I am sure they didn't do it on purpose but unfortunately that doesn't matter. "I think one option would be to do something similar that we have do on the laps to the grid, where we have seen dangerous things in the past. There is a minimum time there and maybe something similar can be done." BMW boss Mario Theissen also welcomed the stewards' decision, as he reckons the McLaren drivers caused a a dangerous situation. "For me, the decision is important because of another fact the difference in speed between Nick and two slow cars was more than 200 km/h which was a very dangerous situation."
I would be surprised if Heidfeld finishes outside the top-2. IF he finishes. I think he will surprise some folks this year. (The jinx is on, now..)
Can I get a name to go with that um.... avatar? As far as the penalty goes, I think the FIA needs to punish themselves as well for not foreseeing this problem.
