Lewis Hamilton has been handed a three place grid penalty for tomorrow's Dutch Grand Prix after being deemed to have impeded Sergio Perez, compounding a disastrous day for the Mercedes driver.
Hamilton originally qualified in P12 after missing the cut in Q2. The penalty drops him to P15 and promotes Yuki Tsunoda, Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen up one place on Sunday's grid.
Hamilton was deemed to have obstructed Perez during the first round of qualifying. The Red Bull was on his second flying lap on his initial set of tyres when he came across Hamilton at turn 9.
Hamilton pulled to the outside of the corner to allow the Mexican to pass, but Perez drifted wide towards him at the exit and as a result was forced to slow which ruined his flying lap which he then aborted.
Hamilton had been warned about the approach of traffic from behind, first Kevin Magnussen in the Haas and then Perez. “I don’t understand, I was completely wide at turn nine,” he said. “Tried to make it seem like I got in his way.”
Perez did make a subsequent run and actually finished fastest in Q1 but at the cost of using an extra set of soft tyres which will have consequences for the race.
"[Hamilton], being on an inlap, was informed by the team that [Perez] was approaching on a fast lap when he entered turn 8,” the stewards' reported. “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 stewards continued.
“The stewards determine that, whilst there has been appropriate warning by the team and albeit the driver tried to move out of the way, he could have slowed down more in order not to impede the other car
"[We] therefore consider the impeding to be unnecessary in the sense of the regulations. Therefore a grid drop is applied in line with previous decisions.”
Although Hamilton officially drops to P15, a subsequent decision from the stewards that excludes Alex Albon from the results of todays session for a technical infringement on the FW46 will promote him back up one spot.
And Tsunoda, Hulkenberg and Magnussen will all get a further one-place promotion, making two in total compared to their positions at the end of qualifying.
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