All fuss over nothing. This hardly ever happens so who cares. If common sense prevails then that is all that matters. Maybe that is what happened here or maybe not (BBC told the whole world at the time, are you telling me that nobody else spotted this?) but it didn't change the outcome.

Given that it hardly ever happens, there's no need for an inquiry like they are doing.

If it had made a difference, you can be sure that a team would immediately protest it and penalty would probably ensure. I don't see a broken system at all. The system works. Massa gained no advantage and therefore nobody protested.

All a bunch of hot air over nothing.

So with all the personnel there, all the equipment, all the cameras that the FOM have it took the footage of someone in the stands to bring this to their attention. Once again F1 shows why it is the pinnacle of motorsport.

If the system was not broken then the offence would have been picked up at the time and there wouldn't be any fuss now. An enquiry is the correct thing to do rather than burying your head in the sand.

You are missing my point. Being insignificant clearly contributed to its not being picked up. There is no need for greater scrutiny.

This is the perfect example of what is wrong with F1 today with everything being overanalysed and preventing the racing from happening.

This inquiry is less about Massa and more about avoiding the same thing in the future.

JMHO

I disagree. I think being that far out of the box is very significant and the fact that it wasn't picked up is worthy of greater scrutiny.

Mark Webber (6th on the grid) at Bahrain this season.

Note the white mark under his car. That's where his starting bay ends. It actually looks like Rosberg in 5th has overshot his too.



Video of the start.

Mark Webber Bahrain start 2010.

No other teams saw, noticed or bothered to complain about it?

Very surprised they all missed it, or relied on the FIA to sort it out...

Unbelievable actually. My initial thought was as Brundle that this was another Ferrari play to switch the drivers, maybe everyone else did too and decided to ignore it..

I'm watching the BBC replay now, and I couldn't help but notice that Brundle and someone else were commenting on Massa being "overshot his start box by 2m".

This was before the grid had even completed the warm-up lap.

Why this wasn't caught by those enforcing the rules is inexcusable.

(Nothing against Massa, just enforcement of rules...)

Im a Fezza fan. But I agree. Yet another example that anno 2010, F1 stewarding is breaching rule 151C.

If Massa won the race, it wouldn't have been because he was a metre over his grid slot. There's far too many variables between the beginning and end of the race to affect it. For example, what if everyone but Massa went off at the Bus Stop chicane? Would he have claimed those positions because he started a metre further than he should have? What if he had been following Kubica when Kubica mis-stepped during his stop? Would he have passed the Renault because he started a metre further than he should have?

Of course not. The only thing it might have given him would be a very slight advantage into the first corner. But by the end of the first lap, whatever advatange he had would have been completely negated.

I hope that is sarcasm.

Massa made a mistake aligning his car, I doubt he did it deliberately, but 2 metres advantage from the start is getting to the first apex before a competitor and is a punishable offence, but too late now.

Done and dusted, what baffles me is this business about "As a result of viewing some amateur footage...". Brundle called it as soon as the cars lined up on the grid, not after watching a replay, he called it in real time, so for the officials to miss it is inexcusable, and suggests that all this stuff about amateur footage is just a smokescreen for their inability to consistantly apply their own rules - And yes, I concur, had Hamilton done it Ferrari and Renault and others would have been all over officialdom wanting Hamilton penalised, and the pages of this forum would have beeen log-jammed with accusations of Hamilton/McLaren cheating - and I use the word log pejoratively...

If anything, I wonder if this will cause all teams to watch the replay of the race just to look for things before things go official that night?

I agree entirely, and that is all that needs to be done.

There have been a few comments about drivers not being able to see the grid markings from the cockpit, but don't the grid slots also have an additional yellow marking, set about a foot behind the line and extending out further to the side. I'd always assumed this was to give the drivers something to line their tyres up with, assuming they actually are visible from the cockpit.

Get rid of the formation lap completely I say, the tyres are colder means more chance for mistakes n lockups and more action packed race starts. Heck even wheel spin may occur. No TC is in use huh? Bah I wana see smoke off the line!

absurd that the race control missed that. Very embarrassing for FIA.

It's not very complicated. The marshal who was observing that row of the grid failed to do his/her job properly by not reporting it.

As a result of not seeing a yellow flag from that marshal, the green flag marshal at the back of the grid indicated that all was well, and race control initiated the start. It all comes down to one human error. Running a motor race is a large undertaking with a lot of people all doing their particular, individual jobs. I do not see what the FIA can do other than to say that the unpaid, volunteer marshal needs to do his/her job better.

Maybe they should put their hand in their pocket and pay the marshals on which the entire enterprise relies. It is not as if F1 is hard up.

Apparently the officials didn't find out about it till after the official results were published !

I am on the other side of the world and I knew about it before the race started

Has Jonathon Legand made everyone turn down the sound on their TV ?

Wouldn't matter. I believe there is a time\number of laps limit in which a protest can be made.

Well, in case you're right, how about watch the race while it's being broadcast then?

Brundle caught it. Anyone watching the tv from any other team could have heard him.

30 minutes from publication of the official results.

Stand corrected, I thought there was a limit from when the offence was committed.

That Brundle could see it is not some miracle on his part because his commentator booth is perfectly in line with the cars on the grid. Whiting is much further ahead which is the reason the marshals are supposed to report this to him.

Brundle watches the race on a monitor to ensure that he commentates on what we are seeing, and I don't think that the booth is in line with the 3rd and 4th rows of the grid. Whiting had plenty of time to check the front rows as there was about 10 seconds betweem Webber stopping and the last man taking his position.

I wish that the BBC would arrange that at all times there was someone "seeing what we are seeing". Several times the commentary box crew have missed what we at home have been shown.
Its excellent when commentators (like Crofty) DO spot things not shown on the tv feed, but I get the impression that Trundle and Legs do mainly look at the screens (but often its the timing screens).


I think all the broadcasters' commentary boxes are above the pits at Spa - ideal for seeing the grid rather than the race! If ever there was a time that any commentator would look out at the window, it'd be as the grid formed up right in front of them.

Whiting would have been in front of the front of the grid, on the start gantry. Not an ideal view of the positioning of individual cars, but fine for seeing flag marshals right down the grid.
No idea where the Stewards might be, but remember their special concern had been the EXIT from La Source.
And the Stewards would be very unlikely to be listening to ANY broadcast commentary - or so I'd hope.


The 'systems problem' would seem to be that there was only one channel for reporting the problem - and when that failed (the volunteer (?) marshal screwed up), there being no redundancy, no fall-back system, no second line reporting - no report got passed to Whiting and the Stewards.
Which is presumably what the FIA will be looking into - redesigning the reporting so that a single failure doesn't stop the system working.

The stewards probably thought Massa needed a slight head start, as it's been known for his foot to slip off the throttle once this season already.

Apparently Brundle does lean out of the window and look at what is going on at the start without looking at the monitor

No true. While his two meter advantage didn’t get him past Button who was straight ahead of him, he did get ahead of the poorly starting Weber by pretty much two meters at La Source.

I wonder if the marshal, if he noticed at all, thought to himself “there are sensors, so he’ll be caught and I don’t need to report it”. I also wonder if there’s a large tolerance on the position sensors. Massa just might have been lucky to be just within that tolerance. If that's the case, all drivers will be 1.5 meters ahead of the lines next race.

Nothing can be done now and hopefully the FIA will learn from this.