F1: Hamilton Escapes Penalty In Valencia

Hamilton accused of blocking Rosberg on a flying lap.
Lewis Hamilton narrowly avoided a penalty after facing Valencia stewards over an accused blocking of Nico Rosberg in qualifying. Hamilton carried out this action to give himself clear air at the start of the lap but seemed unaware of the nearby Mercedes.

The escape means that Hamilton is able to hold on to his front row finish, just in front of Sebastian Vettel who secured pole position.

Mercedes felt that Lewis' actions halted the German's lap, and claim that it stopped him from going fastest in Q3, therefore denying him pole and a great chance to win the race on Sunday.

This is an official statement from the FIA:
'Fact: It is alleged that Car 4 Lewis Hamilton did not comply with the instructions of the Race Director, namely "cars should not be driven unnecessarily slowly between turns 21 and 25".


'Decision: The Stewards, having heard from both drivers and the team representatives, examined the video, audio and GPS evidence and telemetry data, decide to take no further action.'


'Reason: 1) The sector time for Car 4 was actually faster than a time set previously in that same sector by Car 8 Nico Rosberg, which is an indication that Car 4 was not being driven unnecessarily slowly between turns 21 and 25.


2) The smallest gap between Car 4 and Car 8 was 18 metres and 1.1 seconds.'

To summarise, the reasoning for the stewards not taking further action is that Rosberg actually went faster than the previous lap and that the cars were not actually close enough to have a serious effect on the speed of the Mercedes.
Also, it was argued that there were a lot of cars around this area of the track, therefore it could be considered unfair for Hamilton to be punished where other drivers were not. Rosberg ended up qualifying 6th on the grid for the race tomorrow.
Elsewhere in qualy, behind Vettel and Hamilton respectively, sitting on the second row is Maldonado in 3rd and Grosejean in 4th. Button looked like a he was experiencing a revival after suffering in recent racing after impressive in Practise, but disappointed once again in qualy, finishing 9th, ahead of fellow Brit Paul Di Resta of Force India. 
Here are the full results of qualifying:
1GermanyS VettelRed Bull
2Great BritainL HamiltonMcLaren
3VenezuelaP MaldonadoWilliams
4FranceR GrosjeanLotus
5FinlandK RaikkonenLotus
6GermanyN RosbergMercedes
7JapanK KobayashiSauber
8GermanyN HulkenbergForce India
9Great BritainJ ButtonMcLaren
10Great BritainP Di RestaForce India
11SpainF AlonsoFerrari
12GermanyM SchumacherMercedes
13BrazilF MassaFerrari
14BrazilB SennaWilliams
15MexicoS PerezSauber
16FinlandH KovalainenCaterham
17AustraliaD RicciardoToro Rosso
18FranceJ VergneToro Rosso
19AustraliaM WebberRed Bull
20Russian FederationV PetrovCaterham
21SpainP de la RosaHRT
22IndiaN KarthikeyanHRT
23FranceC PicMarussia
24GermanyT GlockMarussia