Buemi pays the penalty

Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton were not the only drivers on the receiving end of harsh penalties in Malaysia.

While the Ferrari and McLaren drivers received post-race 20 seconds penalties for incidents that they were involved in, Sebastien Buemi receiving a harsh stop-and-go penalty for speeding in the pit-lane.

While this infringement of the regulations was obviously more clear cut in relation to the Hamilton and Alonso's, which appeared to be nothing more than racing incidents, the penalty was thought to be harsh on the Swiss driver.

'I made a good start, passing Rosberg and was running well, closing up on Kobayashi and Schumacher, but at my first pitstop, I had the impression that the pitlane speed limiter had not been engaged.' the Toro Rosso driver explained to Autosport Magazine.

'I immediately pressed it again, which deactivated it, so I sped in the pitlane and picked up a ten second stop-go penalty, which I felt was a bit severe, as usually you get a drive-through penalty which loses you less time.

'After that I gave it my best shot but it was not enough to get a reward for the work, as I felt we could have got the Force Indias and at least finished ninth.'

Formula One really does do itself no favours at times, while the regulation changes to try and make the races more enjoyable is to be commended, the people in charge also need to realise that spectators do not want to see outcomes of races decided by over the top penalties.

Just because Sebastien Buemi wasn't fighting for the win or even a place on the podium, it doesn't make his race any less important, he was fighting for valuable points and this decision took any realistic chance of that happening away.

A simple drive thru penalty should have sufficed, penalising Buemi for the infringement, but not ending his race entirely.

But at least the Buemi incident was resolved during the race, as having these continued amendments to the results a few hours after the chequered flag has been waved which we have now had in Australia and Malaysia makes F1 look farcical.