24/08/2024
NEWS STORY
Lewis Hamilton has been handed a 3-place grid penalty for impeding Sergio Perez during today's qualifying session.
"Hamilton, being on an in-lap, was informed by his team that Sergio Perez was approaching on a fast lap when he entered Turn 8," said the stewards in their ruling.
"He then drove off line at the exit of Turn 8 with the intention to give way. However, when Perez arrived, Hamilton had already entered Turn 9 and drove back towards the racing line at the exit of Turn 9, thereby clearly impeding the Red Bull driver."
"What the **** is this idiot doing?" shouted Perez at the time of the incident.
The Stewards determined that, whilst there had been appropriate warning by the team and Hamilton tried to move out of the way, he could have slowed down more in order not to impede the other car and therefore considered the impeding to be unnecessary in the sense of the regulations. Therefore a three-place grid drop was applied in line with previous decisions.
"It just went downhill like a domino effect from the moment with Checo," said Hamilton in the moments after the session having failed to make it out of Q2. "Then the balance just got more and more snappy, more and more oversteery. And, yeah, it was terrible. It's definitely very, very frustrating, naturally, but it's is what it is.
"That's kind of the weekend done," he added, "now we can move on to next week."
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