Lewis Hamilton reacted furiously after being handed a 10-second penalty for leaving the track and taking the lead during a battle with Max Verstappen at the Mexican Grand Prix. The two world champions were fighting for P3 on the 6th lap.
Hamilton, who started the race in P3, retained his position after a quadruple moment in Turn 1 on the opening lap. On lap 6, Verstappen, who was running in P4, made an ambitious overtaking attempt on the Ferrari driver before turn 1. However, the Red Bull driver gained too much speed into the corner and hit his rival’s wheels.
Lewis Hamilton has lost his position. However, he attempted to retake P3 in Turn 4. Unfortunately, the seven-time champion blocked his left front tire and went onto the grass, while Max Verstappen took the corner. On the other side of the field, Hamilton came out in P3.
Because he did not complete the overtake on the track, the stewards gave him a 10-second time penalty, the standard for leaving the track and gaining the advantage. When Ricardo Adami, Hamilton’s race engineer, informed him of the penalty via the team radio, the Briton was furious.
“That’s so f***ing man,” the 40-year-old replied. “The grip there is so little. The grip there is so weak.”
Shortly afterwards, Hamilton asked Adami if the “other cars” who cut the grass in turn 1 during the first lap, that is to say his teammate Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen, received a penalty.
“What about all the other cars that cheated?” he asked.
Adami responded that commissioners have yet to take any action following the incidents. Lewis Hamilton served his time penalty on his first stop, stopping for 10 seconds in his pit box before the team changed tires.
Explained: Why Lewis Hamilton got a 10-second penalty but not Max Verstappen for seemingly similar incidents
Many F1 fans have been perplexed as to why the Mexican GP stewards gave Lewis Hamilton a 10-second penalty for cutting grass, while Max Verstappen was not penalized for doing something similar on the opening lap of the 71-lap race.
It is important to note that there is a significant difference between the two times. Verstappen started the race in P5 and had already passed George Russell for P4 well before Turn 1. There was a four-wide moment before Turn 1, with polesitter Lando Norris on the inside, Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc in the middle and Max Verstappen on the outside.
The Red Bull driver’s left wheels left the track slightly. Since there were three cars inside and he was almost pushed out, he ran straight into the grassy runoff area. While Russell complained about Verstappen cutting the corner on his team radio, it wouldn’t mean anything as the Red Bull driver didn’t gain any position by doing so.
He got ahead of a Ferrari but surrendered the position to return to P4, which he had gained after overtaking Russell on the main straight before Turn 1. Additionally, incidents at Turn 1 in the opening laps of races are not taken seriously by the stewards because chaos is expected, and this has been happening for a long time in F1. The commissioners ultimately took no further action following the incident.
In the case of Lewis Hamilton, the stewards penalized him because he took a position on Verstappen after cutting a corner and cutting the grass. The only seemingly questionable decision by the stewards could be not to penalize Max Verstappen for his collision with Hamilton to take P3 earlier in the 6th lap.
Edited by Yash Kotak
