The 2008 Belgian GP remains one of the most controversial races in F1’s modern era. Lewis Hamilton received a late penalty which trickled him down from winner of the race to P3. As a sign of protest, he walked away from the track with the winner’s cap.
Hamilton started the race from pole, but 40 laps later, he spun around. Kimi Raikkonen pounced on the opportunity and overtook the then-McLaren driver. In his bid to gain the position back from Raikkonen, Hamilton went wide off the track, cutting the chicane.
While Raikkonen remained ahead coming out of the chicane, Hamilton soon overtook him. The stewards, however, ruled the Briton did not give the Iceman enough advantage after cutting the chicane and handed him a 25-second penalty which demoted him to P3.
Hamilton defended his move by blaming Raikkonen for running him wide. CNN quoted him as saying, “I had no road left. There was a question I had to ask: if I stay where I am, I’m going to go over the Astroturf bit behind the last kerb and go over it and hit him. Or I go left. That was the option I had to do. I did it.”
He admitted that the team told him to concede the position which he did. But, he soon got back in the Ferrari driver’s slipstream to overtake him. The eventual title winner saw nothing wrong in his actions. Defending champion Raikkonen, however, refused to comment on the incident.
The only thing that the Finn said, “The arrival of the rain definitely did not help. In these conditions, if you are in front you have to be more cautious as you don’t know how much grip you’ll find in each braking area. That’s how Hamilton managed to close on me, and then you all saw what happened.”
The controversy-ridden 2008 championship win for Lewis Hamilton
The Belgian GP saga was one among many controversies that engulfed the 2008 season. Lewis Hamilton was driving in just his second season and competing among drivers with far more years of experience. Hamilton had, however, made it clear right from his rookie season that he was no pushover.
The title fight went right down to the wire with the champion being decided on the final lap of the final race. During a rain-hit Brazilian GP, Timo Glock began to lose grip and began to lose position. Among those to benefit was Hamilton who gained just enough to finish above race winner and title contender Felipe Massa in the standings.
The 2008 title fight remains a hot topic to this day as Felipe Massa launched a lawsuit last year. The Brazilian has made the Singapore GP ‘Crashgate’ to be the ground to overturn the championship result in his favor. Massa slipped from pole position to 13th in the same race owing to the series of events that unfolded following the infamous crash involving Nelson Piquet Jr.
