Motorsport: F1 farce has serious fallout

A mistake which turned into a farce and ended in controversy started three laps from the end of the opening round of the 2009 Formula One championship in Australia.

Jenson Button won in the re-skinned former Honda F1 team's, now Brawn GP's first race, with Rubens Barrichello in second and Jarno Trulli third. Trulli was given a 25-second penalty for passing Lewis Hamilton while the safety car was out on the circuit, pushing him back down the field and elevating Hamilton up to third. Later that week, Hamilton was stripped of his third place and the team disqualified for telling untruths at a steward's meeting.

Following the second Grand Prix of the season, McLaren announced their sporting director had left the company as a result of evidence he gave at the first steward's meeting.

Here's the sequence of events:

* Three laps from the end of the Australian race, Robert Kubica and Sebastien Vettel have a coming together while fighting for second place. Kubica crashes into the wall, bringing out the safety car.

* No one is allowed to pass under safety car conditions unless someone leaves the circuit. Now running in third, Trulli runs wide on to the grass at turn 15, allowing Hamilton through. This can be seen on a spectator's video.

* Trulli catches up to Hamilton, sees him slowing down, thinks he has a problem, so passes the McLaren driver.

* Trulli finishes the race in third. As the race finishes under the safety car, Trulli's pass is deemed illegal and he is given a 25-second penalty. There is no footage of Trulli's re-pass.

* Hamilton tells Speed TV he was forced to pass Trulli when he went off and slowed down as much as he could. He was then told to let Trulli back past. He didn't know if that was the regulation, and if it wasn't, he should get third anyway.

* However, at the first steward's inquiry, Hamilton states Trulli went flying past, hence in breach of the "no passing under safety car" rule. Hamilton and McLaren's sporting director, Dave Ryan, were specifically asked whether there had been an instruction given to Hamilton to allow Trulli to pass.

Both Hamilton and Ryan stated that no such instruction had been given. Hamilton was specifically asked whether he had consciously allowed Trulli to overtake and he replied he had not.

* After checking the transcripts of the radio transmissions between Hamilton and his pit crew, the FIA discovers Hamilton was told to pull over, which results in the team's disqualification.