#F1 - Grosjean until proven innocent?!

Poor old Romain Grosjean - he just cannot get a break!

This weekend, the young French driver was under fire again, for yet another collision on the first lap - this time, a tangle with Mark Webber into the first corner at last weekend's Japanese Grand Prix.  And of course, out came the detractors, endlessly repeating that tired old statistic of "eight first-lap crashes this year" and calling for all kinds of fierce and terrible retribution...  During his post-race interview, Webber claimed that Grosjean should have another ban from the sport, while former F1 driver and Sky Sports pundit Johnny Herbert believes that Lotus should sack Grosjean.

I've already debunked the "eight crashes this year" thing, explaining a few weeks ago how this is a false figure when not all of those crashes were Grosjean's fault, so I shan't go into that now.

I don't condone Grosjean's first-corner driving at Suzuka, even though I'm still not entirely convinced by his culpability - from some views it appears to be Grosjean's fault, but other camera angles make it look like Webber cuts across the front of Grosjean a little sharply.

I'm pleased to see not all commentators are jumping on the Grosjean-bashing bandwagon.  The BBC's technical analyst Gary Anderson wrote in his column that the pressure of having to prove that he wouldn't crash got to Grosjean, and caused the incident, while Sky's Martin Brundle Tweeted that Grosjean deserves his seat in F1 next year:

@sheumais63 yes Grosjean should be in F1 2013 providing he can quickly sort this first lap issue.He's not intentionally reckless and is fast
— Martin Brundle(@MBrundleF1) October 8, 2012

But none of that is the point, really.

What concerns me is that Grosjean cannot get a fair trial any more.

People assume he is going to crash - because he's Romain Grosjean, and that's what he does.  And when he is involved in an incident, people assume it's his fault.  And then he gets given a harsher penalty than other drivers would receive for the same transgression.

In my view, that's not justice - or discipline.  That's a witch-hunt.

#Olympics: rules are rules

Yes, like them or not, rules are rules.  The big news overshadowing the fact that Team GB won a Bronze medal in the Men's Gymnastics Final is the fact that we were on course to win Silver, following a mistake by Japan's Kōhei Uchimura, until an appeal by the Japanese team caused them to be promoted back into second place, having slipped down to fourth.

There followed, predictably, a considerable amount of disappointment, as well as anger directed at the Japanese Gymnasts.  Disappointment I can understand - anyone would be disappointed with the Bronze medal after having had a taste of the Silver - but anger I cannot.

Not only does this miss the point that Bronze is still a fantastic result for Great Britain, who haven't even qualified for the Final in this event since 1924, let alone won a medal, but it also completely ignores the fact that Japan were correct to appeal, and deserved the Silver medal.

Uchimura slipped as he went to dismount from the Pommel Horse apparatus, and it was this mistake which caused him to lose points, thereby meaning Japan slipped from second to four place on the leader board.  But the rules state that he did complete a dismount, because he landed on his feat - it was a poor and a messy dismount, and he had clearly made a mistake, but it was a dismount nonetheless.  He deserved to lose points for the sloppiness, but he didn't deserve to be denied the dismount points altogether.

It was a mistake by the Judges in not awarding Uchimura the dismount points (albeit minimal dismount points, for the shoddy quality of his dismount) which caused the upset, and Japan were right to appeal against this.  We (in Britain) may not agree with the rules which allow them to do this - but rules are rules, and must be adhered to, whether they help us or hinder us.

If this had happened to a British Gymnast, fighting for a medal position, rather than a Japanese one, there would've been an uproar had we not appealed, and been awarded the points which were due to us all along.

It's natural to be disappointed not to achieve the Silver medal, but we can still be proud of Bronze - and we've no right to be cross with the Japanese for fighting every inch of the way to make sure they get the points owed them, in one of the biggest Gymnastics competitions in the world; isn't that what any team would do?  It's what any team's fans would expect them to do.