Lewis Hamilton has been handed a three-place grid penalty for the Dutch Grand Prix.
The stewards determined that he had impeded Sergio Perez during the first phase of Saturday’s qualifying session.
Perez was on his second flying lap on his first set of tyres when he caught Hamilton at turn nine during Q1. The Mercedes driver pulled to the outside of the corner but Perez drifted wide towards him at the exit and slowed, aborting his lap.
“What the fuck is this guy doing?” fumed Perez. “Fucking hell.”
Hamilton had just been told to pit when he was caught by Perez. His race engineer Peter Bonnington first warned him Kevin Magnussen was three seconds behind, then as the Haas passed by he added: “Then you’re going to have Perez, he’s at five seconds. And Perez at two-and-a-half. Perez one-and-a-half.”
When Hamilton saw Perez had slowed down he suggested the Red Bull driver had exaggerated how badly he had been held up. “I don’t understand, I was completely wide at turn nine,” he said. “Tried to make it seem like I got in his way.”
Later Hamilton added: “I was well out of his way.”
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Perez was able to gain a place in Q2 after taking another set of soft tyres for his final run, but he claimed this wouldn’t have been necessary if Hamilton hadn’t held him up. When told on his radio he had got through Q1 Perez replied: “Yeah, but we fucking waste a set [of tyres].”
After speaking with both drivers, the stewards determined that Hamilton could have done more to avoid getting in his rival’s way.
“The driver of car 44 [Hamilton], being on an in lap, was informed by the team that car 11 [Perez] was approaching on a fast lap when he entered turn eight,” the stewards explained.
“He then drove off line at the exit of turn eight with the intention to give way for Car 11. However, when car 11 arrived, car 44 had already entered turn nine and drove back towards the racing line at the exit of turn nine, thereby clearly impeding car 11.
“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 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.”
Hamilton has therefore been relegated to his second-lowest starting position of the…
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