Both Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen have each been penalised for blocking Nick Heidfeld and Fernando Alonso during qualifying at Sepang and moved back five places on the grid.

McLaren gracefully accepted their punishment and released the following statement: “We accept the stewards’ decision but would like to add that neither Lewis nor Heikki impaired any of their competitors deliberately.”

The final grid positions are below for tomorrow’s Malaysian Grand Prix

1. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m 35.748s
2. Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m 36.230s
3. Jarno Trulli Toyota 1m 36.711s
4. Robert Kubica BMW 1m 36.727s
5. Nick Heidfeld BMW 1m 36.753s
6. Mark Webber Red Bull Racing 1m3 7.009s
7. Fernando Alonso Renault 1m 38.450s
8. Heikki Kovalainen McLaren 1m 36.613s *
9. Lewis Hamilton McLaren 1m 36.709s *
10. Timo Glock Toyota 1m 9.656s
11. Jenson Button Honda 1m 35.208s
12. David Coulthard Red Bull Racing 1m 35.408
13. Nelson Piquet Jr Renault 1m 35.562s
14. Rubens Barrichello Honda 1m 35.622s
15. Sebastian Vettel Scuderia Toro Rosso 1m 35.648s
16. Nico Rosberg Williams 1m35.670s
17. Giancarlo Fisichella Force India 1m 36.240s
18. Sebastien Bourdais Scuderia Toro Rosso 1m 36.677s
19. Takuma Sato Super Aguri 1m 37.087s
20. Adrian Sutil Force India 1m 37.101s
21. Anthony Davidson Super Aguri 1m 37.481s
22. Kazuki Nakajima Williams 1m 36.388s **

* 5 place penalty given
** 10 place penalty given from last race

You can now get this Lewis Hamilton baseball cap for half price!

Our friends at Grand Prix Legends are now selling this cap for £12.49 instead of £24.99, that’s a saving of £12.50!

The cap is mainly silver but peaked with a red brim which continues around the edge and side of the cap to become an embroidered Union Jack logo. Lewis’ name is embroidered across the peak and there is a large Mercedes-Benz logo on the front. The cap has an adjustable strap on the back and is perfect for any fans of Lewis Hamilton or British Formula 1 racing.

Click here for more details.

Lewis Hamilton’s book - “My Story” has just been released for the first time in paperback.

The recommended retail price is £7.99 but Amazon are selling it for only £5.59 new, at the time of writing. Here at Lewis-Hamilton.org.uk we’ve read it and its a great account of his life and career to date. We recommend it for any serious Lewis fans!

Merry Christmas to all our regular readers here at our little blog, it has been a good year for us, being linked by BBC America, among other noteworthy websites.

Most importantly it has been a great year for Lewis Hamilton, regardless of any negative press. I’d be slightly annoyed about him moving to Switzerland were it not for the fact that I’d love to move abroad, for better weather, less banning of everything, and governments more honest about what thieving b’stards they are!

Lewis has achieved a remarkable first season in F1 and make no mistake by thinking otherwise. OK it would have been fantastic if he had won the season outright, but in reality, just like when all our kids get fantastic GCSE results, the critics would be out crying F1 is now all about the car, or computer simulation training would be likened to steroids. You know what the critics are like.

Hamilton coming second by a hair’s breadth shows how competitive and exciting the sport can be – and how much concentration in extended periods is needed to stay on top. Their may be a fair bit of jiggery pokery in the cutting edge cars these days, but one second’s concentration lapse, and as an F1 driver it could be the difference between first and last place in the race.

With Heikki Kovalainen and Nelson Piquet Jr. joining the fray, there will be some fresh new talent in F1 for 2008 and I’m sure it’s going to shake the sport up and make it more exciting for all the fans, bringing more and more people into following F1.

Let’s all wish Lewis good luck for the New year’s F1 season!

Naomi Campbell has been a fantasy gal for me since I was a teenager, so I know I’m getting old when Lewis Hamilton tells the press, Naomi’s “too old” for him. I don’t know, when your in your early 20’s older women have a lot of experience to give – at the same time I’d say ten years older should be the cut off point, so Lewis’ would be right in this case.

I’m sure Lewis’ is very happy being the toast of F1, and that all the romantic experience in the world will come his way – and we are not some tabloid gutter press here at Lewis-Hamilton.org.uk, so we try not to speculate. It’s all about the F1 usually, but hey, its Christmas, and stories are slow.

Age is such a wonderful thing, and it’s both amazing and sobering to see raw youthful exuberance; Amazing when in Hamilton’s case it gets results, and sobering when you hear a youngsters wildest dreams and know they are surely biting off more than they can chew:

Alonso has told the world press it would be crazy to expect him to win next years F1 season, as while the man himself is on top form, he knows the cars at Renault are somewhat less up to par than the ones at Ferrari and McLaren.

Nelson Piquet Jr. however, has set high goals for his debut season in Formula One, and has already told the world press that he believes he has a very good chance of winning the F1 season!

Piquet Jr. has very big boots to fill, and I’m sure he will be an interesting addition to the F1 season next year – but talk about precocious!

The Race of Champions is a pretty cool day out for the family, so it’s really a shame that Lewis’ contract with Mclaren prevents him from taking part, and probably the reason the turn out was so poor. Organisers say it was also a clash with two football matches.

This year saw the likes of Michael Schumacher, David Coulthard, Jenson Button, Heikki Kovaleinen and American X-Games champ Travis Pastrana competing for the title of Champion of Champions around a temporary tarmac track on the Wembley pitch.

This year’s championship was dedicated to the memory of Colin McRae after his tragic helicopter accident in September, he won the event back in 1998 and was signed up to compete in this years race. The one kilometre track includes a bridge jump and provided plenty of opportunities for the Champions to show off their stuff.

The organisers say they are eager to arrange a way that Lewis can compete next year, it would be a great thing to see Lewis in some Rally cars for a change, cars such as Aston Martin N24, Abarth Punto S2000, Ford’s Focus WRC car that were in this years race.

I hope they can work out some contract changes. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!

This Sunday Lewis has done a Nigel Mansel and been caught doing over 121mph in a Mercedes near Laon in the north of France. The police confiscated his car, his licence has been suspended for a month, and he was fined a paltry 600 Euros, which must be small change to him. Just a small burden to pay in a life of driving around Europe in flash cars I suppose.

Maybe another award from the British Racing Drivers Club will cheer him up. This one was the Richard Seaman Trophy which is awarded to the winner of the Club’s Gold Star points scoring system. Lewis Hamilton’s 2007 F1 debut led him to top the Club’s Gold Star table by a margin of 34 points.

Its been announced that Heikki Kovalainen is set to replace Alonso as Lewis Hamilton’s new team mate, in almost a straight swap as Alonso moves to Renault.

It will be a superb opportunity for Heikki to establish himself amongst the elite of formula one driving. Like Lewis, Heikki started out Karting in 1991, becoming Nordic Champion in 2000 and winning the Elf masters.

His Formula One debut with Renault this year has been somewhat patchy, looking somewhat ragged in his first race but he began to eventually outperform his experienced Italian team mate Giancarlo Fisichella later on in the season.

Heikki expects equal treatment from Mclaren alongside Lewis, it will be interesting to see how far Mclaren can carry this out and I really hope there’s no in fighting next year.

As a rookie driver with a far less outstanding first season under his belt, I think Heikki should keep his head down and do his best this year, If he turns heads he can then talk about equal treatment.

As a lad I always loved Karting, but the chances to have a go were limited to family trips to Spain, the Canaries and various Mediterranean destinations where my sister and I would have to beg and whine if we were to convince our parents to go there.
It’s only in the last five years I have discovered the wonders of Warden Law Karting outside Sunderland, and in any weather it’s definitely a fab day out.

Not surprising then, that Lewis’ first F1 championship has provided a well deserved boost to the Karting industry, and tracks all around the UK have been upgrading their karts.

The Rooksley circuit in Milton Keynes is owned by Datona karts, where Lewis Hamilton himself used to race, and this year saw Hamilton fly in by helicopter just before the UK Grand prix to offer advice to young Karting cadets.

Daytona have just invested more than £25,000 in 160cc 4-stroke Honda
Cadet Karts. The state-of-the-art machines have adjustable seating, increased wrap-around safety bodywork, aerodynamic styling and a sleek profile.

My local circuit at Warden Law have just upgraded to 390cc Biz Thunderkarts too! Of course, if you are young and serious about following in Lewis Hamilton’s footsteps, then it’s certainly worth buying your own Kart. It’s a great way to learn and improve technique before graduating to the national or international circuits and if you’re really good - on to Formula 1.

Writing about the certainty of Lewis Hamilton winning the BBC Sports personality of the year award, I mentioned the small possibility of Ricky Hatton gaining headway over Lewis, but unfortunately I forgot to mention the very possible case of Joe Calzaghe winning, or at least coming very near the top.

Admittedly I am not a huge fan of Boxing, so while vaguely aware of Calzaghe rounding off a decade as world champion with victory in a unification bout against Mikkel Kessler, I must credit the Times; with the only paper I read who gave Calzaghe a look in. Let’s hope there were some good winnings at the bookies for folks at the Times’ offices this Monday morning!

No one else tipped for Calzaghe, although the bookies obviously did to some extent with shorter odds on Ricky Hatton and the Welsh boxer.

The nation obviously has been taking heed of the sporting argument for Calzaghe, helped in no small part by the BBC itself, probably in an attempt to generate interest in the programme. Piers Morgan argued for Calzaghe on The One Show, opining that the British are always supporting our losers and underdogs: Lewis had “lost” while Calzaghe had “won”, but more importantly that Lewis was in the infancy of his career, while Calzaghe had been world champion for ten years.

Lewis has won a good deal of awards this year, and in no way do I, or many of his fans believe he “lost” in any way. Gaining second place in the F1 championships on your first season is absolutely outstanding, and while detractors may say Lewis had the championship for the taking, he has many more championships to come and has already beaten world records. I doubt he has any reason to lose his ambitions.

As for the sports personality, it won’t be the last time Lewis is nominated, but let’s be honest – it’s next years F1 season we’re all waiting for!

The highs and lows of Formula one have never been so steeply set for one as Lewis Hamilton. On Thursday Hamilton got his wish of beating Michael Schumacher by 0.554 seconds in Jerez, and by Friday his McLaren team have found out they will not here about any penalties carried into the 2008 F1 Season until February 14th of next year.

From the 13th of September this year, the FIA has been carrying out a full and forensic inspection of the garages at the Woking based Mclaren, including a full technical inspection of Mclaren’s 2008 car. The report was finished today, and a decision was expected to be made on the outcome, but the FIA have given Mclaren and Ferrari a further 2 months to be afforded the chance to present their views on the report.

This is quite a rollercoaster ride for Hamilton and it looks bleak for the Mclaren team; if nothing had been found in the inspection, Mclaren would have been simply cleared.
Since the FIA has involved Ferrari, it may be the case that the FIA have found out that technical data has been used for the 2008 car.

If the FIA have discovered that McLaren have copied components, or used design ideas that can be traced back to the original Ferrari blueprints, further sanctions will most definatley be imposed such as minus points. The team could even be thrown out of the 2008 championship.

Mclaren denies any foreign intellectual property has gone into the new car and believes they have nothing to hide. Us Brits have no luck with our sportsmen, if it’s not a case of them losing out at the very last minute, its always some red tape that has us defeated on a technicality. Keep your chin up high Mr Hamilton!