I'll write about the thrilling Monaco race and its anti-climactic finish when I have more time, but I have to say that I was horrified by Lewis Hamilton's comments after the race, which you can watch here on the BBC website.
He said that the fact that he had been called to the stewards five times in six races was "an absolute fricking joke." When asked why he thought he was so magnetic to the stewards, he said "maybe it's because I'm black." He said he was joking, but he had literally just spat his dummy out so hard it probably hit some poor person sunbathing on a beach somewhere in Northern Italy, so it didn't sound much like an attempt at humour - and if it was, it was in extremely poor taste.
The thing about Lewis is that whenever he gets involved in bother of some description, he becomes the king of "it wisnae me". It's always someone else's fault.
We mustn't forget that the reason he was hauled before the stewards at the end of the race was because of an incident with Williams driver Pastor Maldonado which put the Brazilian out of the race. Hamilton tried to push past him at St Devote and sent him spinning into the barriers. You would have thought that he would have learned from an earlier incident when he'd tried to get past Felipe Massa at the hairpin for which he received a drive through penalty. He subsequently pulled a move on Massa in the tunnel which crossed the line between audacious and dangerous.
So, after an afternoon when he'd been in my opinion reckless, all that's happened to him is that he's had 20 seconds added to his time, which won't affect the result.
I think that it's time that the stewards took tough action with persistent offenders. I feel that Hamilton's driving today was so out of order on several occasions that he should have been banned from the next race, or excluded from today's results at the very least.
Let's compare and contrast the attitude of Hamilton with that of Bathgate's Paul Di Resta. The Force India driver gives the impression of enjoying every aspect of his F1 experience, of feeling privileged to be there. He is unfailingly friendly and polite when interviewed, and when he makes a mistake, he holds his hands up, immediately, without any stroppiness. He pulled a bit of a move at the hairpin on Jaime Alguersuari, similar to Hamilton's attempt to force his way past Massa, and similarly attracted a drive through penalty from the stewards.
In his interview, he totally admitted his mistake. I suspect he'll learn from the experience and allow it to make him a better driver.
F1 is a dangerous sport. The fact that two drivers have been hospitalised this weekend (although, thankfully, Vitaly Petrov will be back out later tonight and Sergio Perez will be out tomorrow) underlines that. There's no place for the sort of recklessness Hamilton showed today, particularly when it endangers other drivers' lives. It would be a lot better for the sport if Hamilton stopped doing the victim thing, quit the spoilt child act and behaved like an adult.
After today, it dawned on me that one training course you wouldn't want to go on would be "Media Relations with Lewis Hamilton and Helmut Marko."
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