Lewis Hamilton has been given a three-place penalty for impeding Sergio Perez during Q1 at the Formula 1 Dutch GP.
Hamilton qualified only 12th after changes he made to his W15 went too far in the other direction and left him with what he called a “snappy” car.
Despite the three-place penalty Hamilton will start 14th as Alex Albon has been disqualified from eighth place for a floor infringement, gifting him back one place.
Perez called Hamilton an “idiot” on team radio, and had to abort the lap and use an extra set of tyres in Q1. He eventually qualified fifth.
The FIA stewards noted: “The driver of car 44, being on an in lap, was informed by the team that car 11 was approaching on a fast lap when he entered Turn 8.
“He then drove off-line at the exit of Turn 8 with the intention to give way for car 11. However, when car 11 arrived, car 44 had already entered Turn 9 and drove back towards the racing line at the exit of Turn 9, thereby clearly impeding car 11.”
The stewards acknowledged that Hamilton had tried to let Perez past safely, but insisted that there had to be a penalty.
The said: “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 and therefore consider the impeding to be unnecessary in the sense of the regulations. Therefore a grid drop is applied in line with previous decisions.”
Asked about the incident by formu1a.uno Hamilton insisted that he’d done his best to move over.
“I did absolutely do my best to try and be as far out of the way as possible,” he said. “It just didn’t work.”
Having cooled down after his initial angry response Perez conceded that it wasn’t Hamilton’s fault.
“He tried his best,” said the Red Bull driver. “But unfortunately, we just ended up in the in the wrong time, the wrong moment.
“The stewards have been really strict this year. He did the best he could, and probably there should be a little bit more easiness in that regard. But it is what it is.”
