FIA stewards questioned over timing of Lewis Hamilton’s Monza penalty
Lewis Hamilton will drop five places on the Italian GP grid
Hit with a five-place grid penalty at the Italian Grand Prix for an infringement that took place even before the start of the previous race in Zandvoort, Karun Chandhok does “not really understand” the timing of it all.
Last time out for the Dutch Grand Prix, Race Control announced even before the formation lap that Hamilton was under investigation for a yellow flag infringement. The incident, though, would only be investigated after the race.
Lewis Hamilton has a five-place grid penalty at Monza
Hamilton lined up seventh on the grid with that hanging over his head, and was in contention on lap 22 for a solid points finish when he got it wrong on the slippery painted lines into the banked Turn 3 and crashed.
His race was over.
But was already a bad outcome only got worse when he arrived back home to learn he had a five-place grid penalty for the next race, Ferrari’s home event in Monza, for his pre-Dutch Grand Prix infringement.
“I landed back home and then saw that I got this penalty, and I was really, really shocked, to be honest. But it is what it is,” Hamilton told PlanetF1.com and other media outlets at Monza.
“To get the penalty and get penalty points was pretty hardcore, but I learned from it, and there’s no point whinging about it. I’ll move forwards.”
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But while Hamilton argued that he did lift, “but to their liking, not enough”, Chandhok reckons it was a slam dunk penalty as the Ferrari driver carried too much pace on his way to the grid despite it being packed with various F1 personnel.
“A very unusual penalty, something we haven’t really seen before,” Chandhok told Sky F1.
Going on to stress that Hamilton was “on his way to the grid” and that it “30 minutes before the start of the grand prix”, the former F1 driver says the penalty was deserved.
“Now in the Race Director’s notes for the weekend, they were all told that there will be a double waved yellow flag through the banked Turn 14. So the drivers need to slow down and be prepared to stop.
“And that’s because as we come around the corner at full speed, look at that line of people – you’ve got mechanics, you’ve got camera crews, got all sorts of people standing on the track, and look at the speed that Lewis came charging past them into the pit lane.
“So I think it was right to penalise Lewis.”
But what he doesn’t understand is why it was only investigated after the grand prix, meaning any penalty would be applied to the next race – in this case, Monza.
“Where I’m a little bit confused,” he continued, “is the timing of it, because it was investigated after the race and the penalty was given to Lewis when he was on his way home, or at home.
“If you look at the speed race… Lewis Hamilton has done a small lift off the throttle, to show that he has slowed down a little bit, he has acknowledged the double wave yellow and slowed down.
“Now the stewards took that into account. They said the normal penalty would be 10 places, they gave him five because they recognise he has done something but in their view, he didn’t do enough.
“Now the bit that is confusing for me is all of this information should have been available before the grand prix. The teams all have live telemetry data. The FIA have access to live telemetry data comes straight off the car.
“So what I don’t really understand is why this wasn’t looked at before the grand prix, why Lewis wasn’t given the penalty during the Dutch Grand Prix.
“In which case, he would not have carried that five places here to Monza, because having five places on the grid as a penalty here really can be damaging for your race. So that’s what I think of it.”
