Lewis Hamilton was not too disappointed about losing the final point in today’s sprint race due to a post-race penalty.
The Mercedes driver had a busy race, scrapping with Kevin Magnussen to begin with and eventually passing Yuki Tsunoda on the final lap to claim eighth place. But his efforts proved in vain when he was given a post-race penalty for speeding in the pit lane during a Safety Car period which dropped him to 16th place.
“The penalty, definitely it sucks, but it’s one point,” Hamilton told the official F1 channel.
The stewards found Hamilton exceeded the pit lane speed limit of 80kph by 10.7kph during the Safety Car period.
The race was neutralised due to a first-corner collision which Hamilton triggered, but escaped a penalty for. The Mercedes driver touched Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin at the start, causing him to hit his team mate who then took Lando Norris out.
“It’s obviously tough battling out there,” Hamilton said. “Turn one, of course, it wasn’t intentional to be touching with anyone, but everyone’s pushing as much as possible, and I went for a gap, but then I think those guys went wide and then came back across. So that’s kind of where we connected.”
Hamilton made several attempts to pass Magnussen, who went off-track more than once trying to keep the Mercedes driver behind him. The pair made contact at one point and Tsunoda took advantage of Hamilton’s delay to pass him.
Despite eventually losing the point he gained on the final lap, Hamilton said he relished the scrap with his rivals.
“I was just fighting, trying to get past this Haas. It was really tough battling but I was just enjoying that I was racing. At least I wasn’t going backwards.”
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