FIA confirms decision after Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc Italian GP incident

Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc went wheel-to-wheel at the start of the Italian Grand Prix. Hamilton was the loser in that exchange.

With Hamilton kicking up gravel out of the opening chicane, the FIA stewards noted that incident, but decided that no further action was required. Sky F1’s Martin Brundle and Karun Chandhok had pointed the finger at Hamilton over that incident.

FIA does not act on Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc incident

It was an all-Ferrari second row at Monza. Hamilton had squeezed down the inside of Leclerc into Turn 1, though Leclerc now had the inside for Turn 2. Hamilton ended up in the gravel briefly, and dropped down to 10th.

Hamilton complained over Ferrari radio that “Charles pushed me off.” Sky F1 commentator Martin Brundle did not agree.

“I’m sorry, Lewis, but Charles was always going to do that,” he said.

“You bundle him into the first apex, he’ll bundle you straight back, and it has cost Hamilton dearly.”

The FIA stewards were seemingly on a similar wavelength. Having noted that incident between Hamilton and Leclerc, it was soon decided that no further action would be taken.

In a further analysis of Hamilton versus Leclerc down at the chicane, Karun Chandhok, Brundle’s Sky F1 colleague, also stated that Hamilton put himself in risky territory.

“Both get pretty good launches,” said Chandhok. “I’d say Leclerc a slightly better launch than Lewis.

“But Lewis gets a slipstream. Now, if we get down into the braking zone, there’s just about enough space there. Lewis, he’s just about being given enough space alongside his teammate. Charles knows he’s coming, and they get very, very close to contact down into the first right-hand part of the first chicane here.

“Now, at this point, Charles’ hands, he’s turned full 180 degrees. Both drivers have got full lock on. Charles recognises Lewis is there. He’s thinking about, ‘I’ve still got to stay on the track. I don’t want to cut across it. I don’t want to go across that gravel there and give myself room.’

“And this is the point that I think Martin was talking about earlier. Charles, he’s got a lot of lock on. He is on a slightly different trajectory to where George [Russell] is. You could argue and say George is on a tighter line.

“So I think Charles is conscious of the fact, and I can see that’s why Lewis is a little bit annoyed. But I fully agree with Martin, in the sense that you put yourself on the outside in a position of risk by trying to go around the outside of another car. That’s always a risky move and a gap that is always going to close.”

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Disaster struck for Leclerc on the second lap as he spun out at Parabolica, triggering a red-flag pause of the race as barrier repairs were completed.

Hamilton raced on to a P6 result in front of the tifosi, which also witnessed home hero Kimi Antonelli claiming a sensational victory on Sunday.

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