Frédéric Vasseur came to Lewis Hamilton’s defense after the sequence of penalties the driver received in the last stages of Formula 1. The Ferrari boss stated that the incidents should not be treated as a single problem and assessed that each case had different circumstances.
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Hamilton received five-second penalties at the British, Belgian, and Hungarian GPs. In Silverstone, he was penalized for a jump start and finished third. In Spa, the sanction came after a touch with George Russell on the first lap, an incident that caused the Mercedes driver to retire, although Russell himself considered the move a racing incident. At the Hungaroring, the Briton exceeded the pit lane speed limit by just 0.1 km/h during a stop under a virtual safety car and dropped from fourth to fifth in the final classification, being overtaken by Charles Leclerc.
Additionally, Hamilton was also penalized for speeding in the pit lane in Monaco, although the result was not affected, and lost three grid positions at the Hungarian GP for impeding Oscar Piastri during Q3. The Briton arrives at the summer break in second place in the championship, 50 points behind Kimi Antonelli.
When asked about the sequence of penalties, Vasseur rejected the idea that there is a single pattern behind the episodes. “It’s hard to put all these penalties in the same package. For me, the incident with Russell was a racing move and if he had to do that again, I would ask exactly the same thing, because he couldn’t go over the curb,” he said.
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Regarding the penalty at the Hungarian GP, the manager assessed that the mistake was the result of a succession of small events during the pit stop. “It was probably a sequence of errors. He locked the wheel during the stop, we lost a few tenths and then he tried to be as efficient as possible leaving the pits, but ended up anticipating the ideal moment a bit.”
Vasseur highlighted that when a race starts to go off plan, small details end up having a big impact. “When you start making mistakes, it’s very easy for more than one to happen. This weekend was a good example of that. We were trying to gain time in the pit stop, lost a bit, came out two tenths behind Antonelli and everything happened in sequence.”
The Ferrari boss also recalled that the margin for the penalty was minimal. “The limit was 80 km/h. The FIA accepts up to 80.5 km/h and we recorded 80.6 km/h. When the weekend is not going in the right direction, 0.1 km/h makes a big difference, and we ended up receiving the penalty,” he concluded.
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