Hamilton was given a five-second penalty, as well has being hit with two penalty points for causing contact with Sergio Pérez
Lewis Hamilton finished Saturday’s F1 Sprint race at the Belgian Grand Prix in fourth position, but a five-second penalty handed down by race officials saw him drop down to seventh place. Beyond that in-race penalty, stewards “reviewed video and in-car video evidence” and not only upheld the penalty, but added two points to Hamilton’s Super Licence for “causing a collision.”
The incident in question occurred near the end of Saturday’s rain-shortened F1 Sprint race. Hamilton was running in fifth place, behind Sergio Pérez, but was fast closing on the Red Bull driver. As the two raced hard at the exit of Curbe Paul Frere, the two came together.
Hamilton eventually completed his overtake, but it would not be the only place that the Red Bull driver lost. Pérez slid back through the field, being passed by the Ferrari duo of Carlos Sainz Jr. and Charles Leclerc, and then Lando Norris from McLaren. The Red Bull driver complained of losing rear grip, and eventually slid off the track and into the gravel.
His day ended early, as he retired for a 17th-place finish.
Moments later, Hamilton was given the news of the five-second penalty, and despite finishing in fourth, that penalty dropped him down to a seventh-place finish. However, the decision made in-race drew a questioning reaction from the commentary box, as analysts on F1TV made the case that Pérez was already struggling when Hamilton caught him, and any contact might have been caused by his lack of grip.
Here is the incident in question, and you can make the call:
— soph media (@sxph_44) July 29, 2023
After the Sprint, Hamilton largely brushed off the incident, and the penalty.
“In a race like today, I don’t really care too much,” he said to RaceFans. “You don’t get many points. Of course it would have been nice to finish fourth. But I don’t really care to finish fourth, I want to win. Fourth, seventh, it doesn’t really make a difference.”
The Mercedes driver also described it as a racing incident.
“It’s tricky conditions out there, we’re all trying to do our best,” added Hamilton. “Of course it wasn’t intentional.”
“I went for a gap, he was slow going through 14, I went up the inside, I was more than half a car length inside,” Hamilton further stated. “And if you don’t go for a gap then you’re no longer racing as Ayrton [Senna] always said. So that’s what I did. When I watched it back, it feels like a racing incident to me”
Following the race, Pérez attributed his P17 directly to Hamilton.
“It was massive damage from the contact from Lewis,” said Pérez to RaceFans following the Sprint. “He just took the whole right hand side off the car. He damaged the floor and the sidepod, so that that was game over – we lost too much grip with it.”
“Basically he just, I think, ran out of grip and could not stop his car and just went onto the side of me and damaged my floor and that was very unfortunate,” added the Red Bull driver.
“I think he was in a bit of a hurry,” said Pérez. “Everyone was in a hurry to recover today, it’s a very short race, you have to take those level of risks, but not nice to get my race ruined by him.”
We will wait to see if Hamilton and Mercedes appeal the decision.
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