F1's biggest scandals: Hamilton disqualified for lying to the stewards

The 2000s was a decade full of unusual situations, fights andscandals in Formula 1. Teams were pushing the technical boundarieswith BAR being found guilty of running a second fuel tank, toMcLaren being chucked out of the 2007 Constructors' and fined $100million for Spygate. That's before the debacle of Indianapolis in2005 that shredded F1's image in the US. In this story, we go back14 years and take a look at the controversial opening race of the2009 season - the race that Brawn GP debuted and incredibly claimeda one-two finish with Jenson Button setting up his title-winningcampaign. This was the first race for the new major aerodynamicrules that had de-cluttered and simplified the cars, with Brawn'sdouble-diffuser stealing all the headlines. Whether it was legal ornot remains a fascinating debating point to this day... Anyhow,both Ferrari and McLaren had fumbled the new rules, having pouredso much into the 2008 fight with the F-60 and MP4-24 both turningout to be awful at the start of the year. However, Lewis Hamilton -in his first race as reigning World Champion - finished third,having overtaken Jarno Trulli's Toyota under a late Safety Carafter the Italian skated off the track. That was fair enough, butwhat followed led to 'Lie-gate' and Hamilton being chucked out ofthe race and a long-serving McLaren employee being sacked. Thearticle continues below the images . The 'lie-gate' scandal After acrash between Sebastian Vettel and Robert Kubica, the Safety Carcame onto the track, with Trulli running third and Hamilton fourth.McLaren summoned the brand-new world champion via radio to let theToyota car back past, which Hamilton did on the exit of Turn 4, butwhile the Safety Car still on-track, technically meaning thatTrulli had overtaken Hamilton, and was duly hit with a 25 secondtime penalty. This was based on evidence provided by Hamilton andteam manager Dave Ryan that no instructions to allow the Toyotaback through had been transmitted over the radio. Next time out inMalaysia, a interview was discovered that seemingly contradictedthat, with the radio communications proving Hamilton had lied tothe stewards with the Briton being clearly told to let Trulli backthrough. Hamilton was promptly disqualified from the Australian GP,and the team hit with a suspended ban from the FIA, providing nosimilar incidents happened again. Ryan was sacked for misleadingthe stewards, while a truthful Hamilton apologised to the stewardsand media. The article continues below the images . Hamilton almosthung up his helmet on the willows Some years later, Hamiltonadmitted he almost wanted to quit F1 in the aftermath. "It was alot to deal with after everything that had happened," he revealed."I care a lot about the way people look at me." "I thought: 'Hey,maybe I shouldn't be here in this sport'. But McLaren is my dreamteam and I should count myself lucky to have raced here since thebeginning of my F1 career. I've never wanted to drive for anotherteam, so at that point it wasn't a desire to leave the team, it wasjust to stop racing. For a moment I thought, 'This is too much tohandle. How do I come back from this?'." But the people aroundHamilton knew how to get him through it. "I love racing, but I justdidn't know ... sometimes it's just hard to deal with theconsequences. It's hard to deal with people who as soon as you turntheir back on them immediately talk about you. It created negativeenergy and I don't like that." "However, I quickly realized that itwasn't just negative energy and that I received a lot of supportand respect. That made me stronger. It was an extraordinaryexperience. I can't predict the future, but I love the sport, I'vealways said that. I love winning, in a fair way. Integrity is veryimportant to me."