Umbrage, Pus and a Homologated Lightweight Chassis

Silly story out of F1 today.

Even Lewis Hamilton says it is silly.

Here it is on the BBC F1 page.  The Mercedes team were fined €25,000 after qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix because they filled out a scrutineering form saying Hamilton would comply with the regulations not to wear jewellery - and then he wore his nose-stud.  Apparently, he is "the only driver to wear significant amounts of piercings."

It doesn't say whereabouts these piercings are - or how the scrutineers check whether they are in place or not.

Anyway, he is taking the Alex Higgins Bow Tie defence and got a letter from his doctor claiming exemption for medical reasons.

F1 claim that body piercings are against the rules as they are in danger of getting a bit hot in a fire.

I would have thought them being ripped out during a crash would have been more of an issue - but I don't follow F1 these days so I may be missing something.

Meanwhile, Lewis is also in the unusual position of not running away with the championship this year.  This is mostly due to the success of the Red Bull Team - who suddenly find themselves under investigation for breaking budget rules.

One person who has been speaking out on the subject is Mercedes team boss Heinz Wolff who never falls fouls of the bow tie rule:

Sorry, that should be Toto Wolff - and he has fallen foul of the bow tie rule:

Anyway, Red Bull boss (and Mr. Ginger Spice) Christian Horner has taken umbrage and is talking about legal action.  But his team need to concentrate on rules about having enough fuel to test when you do a qualifying lap - because they didn't - so their top driver, Max Verstappen,  ended up eighth on the starting grid.

Max reckoned that Singapore is a difficult circuit to overtake on so he wouldn't be able to win from there. 

He was right - his team-mate won.

He did finish 7th though, two places ahead of Lewis.

Maybe Lewis was being weighted down by his jewellery.