Thursday, 02 April 2009 10:05 [source from itv-f1.com]

Lewis Hamilton has been disqualified from the Australian Grand Prix and Jarno Trulli’s third place reinstated, following a fresh stewards’ inquiry in Malaysia on Thursday.

An FIA statement said that Hamilton and McLaren had provided 'deliberately misleading' evidence to the stewards in Australia.

Trulli had originally been given a 25s penalty, dropping him from third to 12th place, for illegally re-passing Hamilton during the safety car period, having dropped behind the McLaren when he ran off the road.

But Trulli always insisted that he had no option but to overtake Hamilton because the world champion had slowed dramatically and appeared to be in trouble or letting him past.

The stewards reconvened for a new discussion on the matter at Sepang this afternoon after new evidence, believed to centre on radio transmissions between Hamilton and his team, came to light.

is the another april fool joke or the the real thing?

It's a real thing bro....

try this http://www.planet-f1.com/

should all F1 news to be posted under the F1 thread opened by Elvin? or we're gonna open 1 thread for every F1 event?

I dunno whether true or if it's an April Fools joke... I only know that I have never seen Vicky whistle before... whistle 6 times some more!

i think its a whole load of B*llocks... how can you throw out the result 4 days after the race... another darn i*iotic move by the FIA again and also partly d*mb A*se stewards...

with the rate thy keep workin like this, they're just goin to drive fans away with all this drama goin on...

Lewis Hamilton has been disqualified from the Australian Grand Prix and Jarno Trulli’s third place reinstated, following a fresh stewards’ inquiry in Malaysia on Thursday.

An FIA statement said that Hamilton and McLaren had provided "deliberately misleading" evidence to the stewards in Australia.

Trulli had originally been given a 25s penalty, dropping him from third to 12th place, for illegally re-passing Hamilton during the safety car period, having dropped behind the McLaren when he ran off the road.

But Trulli always insisted that he had no option but to overtake Hamilton because the world champion had slowed dramatically and appeared to be in trouble or letting him past.

The stewards reconvened at Sepang to consider the matter further after new evidence, believed to centre on radio transmissions between Hamilton and his team, came to light.

"The stewards having considered the new elements presented to them from the 2009 Australian Formula One Grand Prix, consider that driver number one 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," said a stewards' statement.

"Under Article 158 of the International Sporting Code, the driver 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."

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/02042009/23/...her-action.html

Lewis Hamilton could be facing suspension or even exclusion from the 2009 Formula 1 World Championship after it was revealed that he and his McLaren-Mercedes team had ‘deliberately misled’ the FIA over his pass on Toyota’s Jarno Trulli in the closing stages of the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne four days ago.

Following a second stewards’ meeting in Sepang ahead of this weekend’s Malaysian Grand Prix, the defending F1 World Champion was disqualified from third place in the season curtain-raiser Down Under [see separate story – click here], and since then a spokesman for the FIA has stated: “Given the seriousness of this matter, we cannot rule out further action at this stage.”

It is suggested that the only two courses of such ‘further action’ available to the governing body’s World Motor Sport Council (WMSC), should the issue make it that far, would be suspension from a future race or races or – even worse – disqualification him from the world championship altogether.

Hamilton and McLaren’s crime at Albert Park was one of acting ‘in a manner prejudicial to the conduct of the event by providing evidence deliberately misleading to the stewards’ following an investigation into the pass on Trulli, with a subsequent enquiry in Sepang finding the Woking-based outfit and its star driver guilty of breaching article 151c of the International Sporting Code, which covers ‘any fraudulent conduct or any act prejudicial to the interests of any competition or to the interests of motor sport generally’ – and carries with it penalties ranging from a reprimand to exclusion from the entire world championship.

The FIA has published a transcript of the pits-to-car radio conversation between Hamilton and McLaren in Australia [see separate story – click here], upon the basis of which it made its decision to disqualify the 24-year-old from the season-opening race.

Should the matter indeed be referred to the WMSC, it would not be the McLaren’s first brush with controversy in recent campaigns, having been fined a sporting record $100 million and disqualified from the constructors’ world championship in 2007 over the espionage row that rocked the top flight to its core.

In an interview with German broadcaster RTL, triple former F1 World Champion Niki Lauda – now an outspoken commentator on the sport – has blasted the fact that it took the FIA four days to come to a definitive ruling on the subject as ‘the biggest joke of all time’.

because ferrari did not win...