The Road goes ever on and on

Unbelievable.

formula1.com: Hamilton excluded from Australian results, Trulli regains third

McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton has been disqualified from last weekend’s Australian Grand Prix after a second stewards’ investigation on Thursday decided both he and his team had provided ‘misleading' evidence during a hearing held after the Melbourne race.

(...)

In addition to Hamilton’s disqualification, Trulli’s penalty has been withdrawn and the Italian therefore regains his third place - and six world championship points.

You know, I genuinely didn't think they'd do this, and still can't quite believe they did. That means Trulli is back on the podium, as he should be, Hamilton is out, and Sebastien Bourdais is the eighth-place finisher. Whew.

So, for those of you keeping score, now the alternate podiums are:

1. Jenson Button
2. Rubens Barrichello
3. Jarno Trulli

or

1. Fernando Alonso
2. Sebastien Buemi
3. Sebastien Bourdais

That's easier! So, now the drivers' championship looks like this:

Jenson Button: 10 or 0
Rubens Barrichello: 8 or 0
Jarno Trulli: 6 or 0
Timo Glock: 5 or 0
Fernando Alonso: 4 or 10
Nico Rosberg: 3 or 0
Sebastien Buemi: 2 or 8
Sebastien Bourdais: 1 or 6
Adrian Sutil: 0 or 5
Nick Heidfeld: 0 or 4
Giancarlo Fisichella: 0 or 3
Mark Webber: 0 or 2
Sebastian Vettel: 0 or 1

Constructors' standings:

Brawn GP: 18 / 0 pts
Toyota: 11 / 0 pts
Renault: 4 / 10 pts
Williams: 3 / 0 pts
Toro Rosso: 3 / 14 pts
Force India: 0 / 8 pts
BMW: 0 / 4 pts
Red Bull: 0 / 3 pts

As the diffusor appeal is due on 20090414, we'll have to work out a second table of possible results after Malaysia because we won't know the final results of either the Australian or Malaysian GPs until before the Chinese GP. But other than that, the Australian GP results are one of the two above.

Unless McLaren appeals Hamilton's disqualification to the FIA court. I know they've said they won't, but we'll see. The way I see it, they can't appeal the decision to remove Trulli's penalty, for the same reason Toyota couldn't appeal the original penalty: even though it was assessed after the race, it's technically a drive-through penalty and those can't be appealed afterward. If, however, McLaren appeals the decision to disqualify Hamilton, and the FIA appeals court reinstates him, he should return to fourth place, which is where he finished before any penalties. But I'm not sure how that would work. Anyway, if they do appeal, that means there are three possible results of the Australian GP, but only two possible podiums; or if the appeals court can mess with Trulli's finish as well, then we're back to four different results.

I'm going on at length simply because I want to document every tortuous step of the remarkably stupid process of trying to find out who won a race that was run last Sunday.