Just as everyone had gotten into the idea that Lewis Hamilton was going to win the world drivers title at the first attempt in his rookie season. Something has arisen that may spoil Hamilton’s party, he is now under investigation for dangerous driving under safety car conditions and could lose the points for his win in Japan. The rules state that the race leader has to stay within five car lengths behind the safety car and Hamilton clearly didn’t do that when he pulled to the right and braked hard, Mark Webber pulled alongside Hamilton, then braked to not pass him then Sebastian Vettel who was watching Hamilton rear ended Webber taking both Red Bull owned cars out of the race. The possible punishments should Hamilton be found guilty (which he should do as he clearly fell more than five car lengths behind the safety car) would be losing the points earned from Japan or drop 10 place on his qualifying place, so would start at highest 11th. The later option would be fairer, but we don’t know what the stewards will do, they can be very inconsistent at best, we’ll find out either way on Friday. If Hamilton is stripped of his race points from Japan, that’ll put Alonso firmly back in the hunt for the title as the gap would be back to just two points!
The ‘spygate’ saga rumbles on still even after McLaren have been thrown out of the constructors championship. The former Ferrari employee, Nigel Stepney who handed the Ferrari technical information to McLaren’s now suspended chief designer Mike Coughlan now claims that Ferrari were in possession of McLaren technical information. Obviously Ferrari were quick to pour water on the new accusations claiming that Stepney’s claims were not creditable. Now if this new information is true the McLaren’s punishment is very harsh given that Ferrari *may* have gained an advantage because of the information that had been discussed with key Ferrari personnel. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, so Ferrari should be thrown out of the constructors championship as well. Of course none of this can be substantiated and it may just be a case of sour grapes on the part of Stepney who was visibly annoyed that he had been passed over for chief strategist when Ross Brawn left Ferrari at the end of last season! Either way, it’s an interesting twist to the whole saga; it looks like Ferrari have gotten away with it if these accusations are true!
Just as I had resigned myself to Alternation coming to an end, last night was stupidly busy, nearly 900 pounds was taken at the bar, although probably about 30 – 35% of that was in the first hour when a load of freshers came in on their way through to C103. I knew they were never going to stay all night, but even when they left it was still busy, plenty of people buying drinks, so much so I had to go to the downstairs bar to get a drink on several occasions. I really enjoyed last night, it was good to DJ to a decent sized crowd and having the fire exits open helped a lot as well as people could pop outside for a quick cigarette instead of having to go downstairs to the beer garden. But I get the feeling that won’t be allowed to happen next week, which will mean that upstairs will be empty half the night and bar takings will be down again. In reality if the night does survive, it’ll have to come to an end in April as I will be taking my laptop with me to the US. In reality I am just biding my time until I make the big move to be with Erin and Conner; that’s my goal in life right now!