Decision made: Three-place grid penalty for Lewis Hamilton for the Hungarian Grand Prix!

He’d probably already suspected as much – and his fears have come true: Lewis Hamilton will start the Hungarian Grand Prix three places further back than expected. He had secured second place in qualifying – so the Ferrari driver will now start from fifth on the grid.

What happened? In the final qualifying session ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix at the Hungaroring, the Briton accidentally got in the way of Oscar Piastri, who was still on his way to setting a fast lap. After the session, Hamilton apologised, stating: “I was told he was behind me at the apex. I had no idea he was coming up behind me. It’s mad because it definitely wasn’t intentional.” Nevertheless, he could not avoid a penalty.

The stewards’ ruling states: “Approaching Turn 1, Car 44 (Lewis Hamilton, ed.) was travelling along the racing line at significantly reduced speed whilst Car 81 (Oscar Piastri, ed.) was on his way to setting a fast lap. The driver of Car 44 explained that he had just completed a fast lap and had not received any message from his team about the approaching Car 81 until Car 81 was already close by. He also stated that, due to the position of his car on the track, Car 81 was not visible to him in his mirrors.“So Hamilton was neither told about it nor did he see Piastri coming. However, the officials did not accept this excuse or explanation.

Hamilton was unnecessarily in the way

Piastri was forced to swerve out of the way and thus had to abort his lap. Consequently, the Australian suffered a disadvantage. The stewards’ verdict: Hamilton obstructed Piastri ‘unnecessarily’. In accordance with the regulations, this results in a three-place grid penalty.

How bitter: even before the incident with Piastri, things had gone extremely badly for Hamilton: he’d set the fastest lap in the first run of Q3, but then failed to improve on that in the second run and had to concede defeat to Lando Norris. Now he’ll drop even further down the starting grid.

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