Unfair and square

Congratulations to Lewis Hamilton for winning Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix. Congrats to Felipe Massa (Brazil) for coming second and to third placed man, Nick Heidfeld (Germany). Commiserations to Kimi Raikkonen (Finland) for being the best driver until he parked his Ferrari in a wall, allowing Hamilton to pass him and claim the win, fair and square.

How come the stewards in Belgium came to the conclusion that Massa won, Heidfeld was runner-up and Hamilton was third? Why did they allow the victory to be awarded to the Englishman, and then withdraw that win from him, snatch back his trophy passing it to Massa, Hamilton’s closest rival? Confiscating a victory from a sportsman is fair enough if he is a drugs cheat or brings the game into disrepute. But Hamilton’s ‘crime’ was that he had the best attitude, the most talent and luck, he tried hardest. You’ll have to ask those stewards why all those true sportsman qualities should exclude him as the winner of the GP. The F1 World has let itself down and needs a massive shake up. Here’s some of the ways it can redeem itself.

1) Lewis Hamilton HAS to be reinstated as winner of the race in Belgium.

2) The stewards who demoted him must never be allowed to adjudicate at a motorsport event again.

3) To prove who’s best regardless of the car they’re in, weekend meetings should consist of not one but three races: a conventional and traditional race for the purists, one with the grid reversed and a free for all, with all drivers starting in a straight line in models such as Fiat 500s or Smart cars. Then we’ll see who’s quickest.

4) F1 organisers should sprinkle the track with water. The drivers wouldn’t be told where or when, but the good ones such as Hamilton will fight and beat the wet while the not so good such as Raikkonen will end up in the wall.

5) At the end of each season, the bottom team should be demoted from F1 if there is another outfit willing and able to replace it. If not, the bottom team can stay.

6) Honda should consider pulling out anyway because it’s consistently failing. The hundreds of millions of pounds it's wasting on F1 could be better spent improving the models it puts in the showrooms.

7) Honda driver Jenson Button should be considering his position in F1. Despite earning tens of millions of pounds driving 150 races, he’s only won one race. Button has a failure rate of more than 99 per cent. He's supposed to be England's number two driver but he isn't up to the job and needs to step aside.

8) If the FIA continues to dump absurd race penalties on Hamilton and insane fines on his McLaren team, ALL the money raised should go to charity.

9) McLaren and Hamilton should reignite attempts to set-up a rival F1 series which might also attract the likes of Audi and Peugeot who are huge in Le Mans-style sports car racing. There's surely a place in F1 for great names such as Alfa Romeo, Ford, Lotus, Mazda and Porsche.

10) Bring Michael Schumacher out of retirement. Him and Hamilton are probably the best two F1drivers and if we’re to know who’s really the greatest they need to go head to head for at least two seasons. Also, World Rally champion Sebastien Loeb and World Touring Car champ Andy Priaulx should be thrown into the mix because they too are among the most talented drivers with Raikkonen or Alonso rounding off the top five.