Grapevine: Straw Poll: Thursday at Monza

No surprises that talk in the paddock on Thursday was pretty much exclusively dedicated to the Lewis Hamilton penalty.

With just four days passed since the controversial finish to the Belgian Grand Prix, it was still fresh meat for a story.

And with the decision coming so late on Sunday afternoon at Spa and most of the paddock either sheltering from the rain of being packed up for dispatch south to Italy, this was the first chance the media had to find out what the bulk of the Formula One paddock thought about the penalty.

By and large, there wasn't a great deal of support for McLaren's protest.

Oh, there was some sympathy that the punishment didn't fit the crime, that maybe a blind eye should have been turned to an incident which had no bearing on the final result, or that if the stewards really wanted a physical penalty a ten-place drop for Monza would have been more appropriate.

But no one could get one of Hamilton's 19 fellow drivers, for example, to say that he shouldn't have been penalised. And despite the best efforts of the media, the best we could get was that the punishment didn't fit the crime.

The interesting thing was that opinion had pretty much converged into a consensus.

On Sunday evening, in the heat of a grand prix race day, the general feeling in the press room was that the penalty was completely unwarranted, which in turn refuelled the usual conspiracy theories about Ferrari.

But in the cold light of day, with a little time to reflect, everyone pretty much agreed that there was a minor offence committed, but that the penalty was ludicrous and had ruined one of the most exciting laps of grand prix racing we've seen for a long time.

Speaking to the drivers, an interesting pattern emerged. Most of them reckoned that Hamilton had probably not given back every last iota of the advantage he gained by cutting the chicane.

From that point, the discussion normally went down the line of 'it was probably a little harsh, but rules are rules and we all know them.' A long way short of the kind of sensationalist accusations flying around in some sectors of the media a few days ago.

The one exception was Fernando Alonso, who couldn't have been more emphatic about his feelings on the matter.

There was definitely an offence, he reckoned, and his old teammate Lewis Hamilton deserved all he got. Now Alonso is a particularly popular man whenever there's a Hamilton-related story going around - which will come as no surprise given his history with McLaren - but after canvassing the opinions of the majority of drivers on Thursday you'd have to say most leaned slightly closer to Alonso's view of events than that of McLaren.

It's a classic example of F1 shooting itself in the foot, that a fantastic double-header of two of the most atmospheric, high-speed and historic tracks in Europe was overshadowed by the whole Spa penalty mess.

Whatever the result of the appeal, everyone loses. Again.