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The Formula One circus continued today with the FIA stripping Lewis Hamilton of all the points he earned in Australia because he “acted in a manner prejudicial to the conduct of the event by providing evidence deliberately misleading to the Stewards.”  Toyota’s Jarno Trulli has had his third place finish reinstated.

Confusion has surrounded the result of Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix when Lewis Hamilton passed Jarno Trull under the safety car after Trulli ran off the track.  Trulli later passed Hamilton to reclaim third place but was later penalised 25 seconds for passing under the safety car and so dropped to 12th place.

The stewards original ruling suggested that while Hamilton’s pass was legal, Trulli’s was not but the Toyota driver has always claimed that Lewis Hamilton slowed to let him retake third position.  Toyota had planned to appeal the decision but later decided the appeal was unlikely to succeed.

A recording of the Toyota radio communications shows how confusing the situation was for trulli:

The statement from the stewards reads:

The Stewards having considered the new elements presented to them from the 2009 Australian Formula One Grand Prix, consider that driver No 1 Lewis Hamilton and the competitor Vodafone McLaren Mercedes acted in a manner prejudicial to the conduct of the event by providing evidence deliberately misleading to the Stewards at the hearing on Sunday 29th March 2009, a breach of Article 151c of the International Sporting Code. Under Article 158 of the International Sporting Code the driver No 1 Lewis Hamilton and the competitor Vodafone McLaren Mercedes are excluded from the race classification for the 2009 Australian Grand Prix and the classification is amended accordingly.

This is a bad start to the season and is only going to encourage the conspiracy theorists who think the FIA have it in for McLaren. Thank god Ferrari aren’t involved.

As I said before, what we need to see now are the “new elements presented” to the stewards. It has been nearly a week and we haven’t seen a post-race report from the stewards explaining their decisions. We have seen video of Hamilton passing Trulli and now we have Toyota’s radio transmissions but what we still haven’t seen is Trulli’s pass of Hamilton and, perhaps most importantly, McLaren’s radio transmissions.

I really hope we get to see all the evidence the stewards had when making their decisions. What is needed is openness and clarity regarding the rules and the stewards interpretation. Is it any wonder that McLaren were worried about Hamilton’s pass on Trulli after being so harshly dealt with at Spa last year?

It’s raining heavily in Malaysia right now. Malaysia is always hot and showers are common but heavy rain is forecast until Monday so it’s highly likely Sunday’s Grand Prix will be a wet one. Wet races can be exciting – except when it is so wet the race has to be abandoned – but if it rains on Sunday it promises to be particularly interesting.

Firstly, it would be the first race run in the wet with the new aerodynamic regulations. The new rules for 2009 that shrunk the rear wing and banned all the little appendages from the cars effectively cut the amount of downforce in half. The talented engineers managed to claw some of that back but the cars will still be running with significantly less downforce than last year. On a dry track this is just about offset by the return of slicks but you can’t run slicks when it is raining. This means the cars will have much less grip on a wet track than they would have had last year. Jarno Trulli already complained about the handling of his car when testing at a rain-soaked track in Portugal in January:

In the conditions it was very difficult to get temperature in the tyres. It was really hard for everyone out there and it was nearly impossible to drive.

But grip won’t be the only problem the drivers could face. Like in Melbourne last weekend, the Malaysian Grand Prix will start at 5pm local time. This is good for European television viewers but not so helpful for the drivers. Williams driver Nico Rosberg reckons it is dangerous to run races so late in the day without lighting and suggests bringing the race start forward an hour:

I think twilight racing is not the way to go. In Melbourne it was obvious that it just increases the danger so much. The visibility is so difficult, you can’t even see the edges of the track in some corners. I was driving into the sun and that’s not what racing is about. So I really hope they reconsider that. Even moving it forward by one hour or something will help us massively. It was just the last part of the race that was the really problematic time.

A monsoon would only make the skies darker with a very real chance of the race having to be stopped.

But supposing it isn’t too wet or too dark to race, who might do well? There seem to be a few wet weather specialists on the grid now. Jenson Button won his first race at a wet Hungaroring in 2006, his team mate Rubens Barrichello cut through the field in Silverstone last year thanks to Ross Brawn’s perfect tyre choice to finish third in the same race that Lewis Hamilton drove to a stunning victory, and Sebastian Vettel’s maiden win was at Monza in the rain.

They have all performed well in the wet but I think if Hamilton stays out of trouble with the stewards we could see another epic performance. After his win at Silverstone in 2008, Sir Jackie Stewart said of Hamilton:

In this race many people went off the track – Felipe Massa spun on five occasions, just by putting the power on far too early and far too hard. But Lewis drove almost flawlessly to win by 68 seconds – an enormous margin – and demonstrated that he’s unquestionably the best wet weather driver of this current generation.

Ferrari have unexpectedly announced that they are terminating Felipe Massa and Kimi Räikkönen’s contracts at the end of the 2009 season to make way for Lewis Hamilton and Felipe’s dad.

Neither of the two Ferrari cars finished the race at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on Sunday and despite both drivers having signed contracts until the end of 2010 it seems Ferrari have had enough of them both.

In a statement issued by Luca di Montezemolo the  Ferrari chairman said:

Australia was a terrible start to the 2009 season and neither of our drivers finished.  That’s just not good enough for Ferrari.  I mean, seriously, what are we paying these guys for?  Felipe’s a nice guy and all but I think it’s time we gave his dad a shot.

It is understood the two drivers will finish their season at the Scuderia this year although Massa’s dad is keen to step in as soon as possible:

I’ve spent the last twenty years preparing Felipe to win the Championship and when he finally gets the chance he blows it.  Well that’s it.  I’m going to show the kid how it’s done.

There had been rumours that Felipe’s dad would be making the move from race dad to race driver when Felipe said at the Australian Grand Prix:

He (Hamilton) is just another one, I don’t care. (MotoGP champion) Valentino Rossi as well and maybe my father will drive for Ferrari next year.

Despite previously saying he wanted to finish his career at McLaren, Lewis Hamilton was happy to make the move to Ferrari after the MP4-24 failed to live up to his expectations saying:

Yeah, I know the F60 doesn’t look too good at the moment but they drove a lorry load of cash up to my house.  I think that shows they are serious.