Lewis Hamilton Received a Penalty

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton received a three-place grid penalty for Sunday’s Dutch Grand Prix after he impeded Sergio Perez in Q1. The incident occurred when Sergio Perez came up on Hamilton through the slow Turn 9 during Q1. Although Hamilton remained outside on the corner, Perez still had to get off the throttle on the exit to avoid a collision. This incident ruined Perez’s first Q2 run, forcing him to use an extra set of tires to advance, which he then missed in Q3.

At the time of this incident, Perez said “What the **** is this idiot doing?” on the team radio, while Hamilton maintained that he was “well out of his way.” Unfortunately, the stewards disagreed with Hamilton and handed him a three-place grid penalty, meaning Hamilton will start 15th on Sunday. Hamilton already felt that the weekend was lost for him, given that he would be starting outside the top 10.

In their report, the stewards wrote: "The driver of car 44 [Hamilton], being on an in-lap, was informed by the team that car 11 was approaching on a fast lap when he entered Turn 8. He then drove off line at the exit of Turn 8 with the intention of giving way to Car 11. However, when Car 11 arrived, Car 44 had already entered Turn 9 and drove back towards the racing line at the exit of Turn 9, thereby clearly impeding Car 11. The Stewards determine that, whilst there was an appropriate warning by the team and although the driver tried to move out of the way, he could have slowed down more to avoid impeding 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."

Alex Albon Was Disqualified

Alex Albon was disqualified from the qualifying session results as the floor on his Williams was found to not meet the FIA’s legality checks. Albon had an impressive afternoon, finishing with his newly upgraded Williams in eighth place. As a result, Albon will start tomorrow from the back of the grid.

The decision about his disqualification was made in a post-session scrutineering session, where the FIA found that the Williams’ floor had exceeded the maximum bounding box permitted by the regulations, leading to the matter being reported to the stewards. When the FIA scanned the floor, it was found to be too wide, exceeding the acceptable 1600mm width specified by the regulations. Williams stated that their measuring device had shown that it was within the limits, but the FIA's measurements indicated otherwise.

The floor was one of the upgrades Williams had brought to the first race after the summer break. Among the other upgrades are new sidepods and engine cover bodywork, with hopes of moving up in the championship standings.

The stewards’ report stated: "The Stewards heard from the team representatives of Car 23 (Alexander Albon), the FIA Technical Delegate, the FIA Scrutineer conducting the measurement of the car, and the FIA Single Seater Director. The floor body of Car 23 was found to lie outside the regulatory volume mentioned in Article 3.5.1 a) of the FIA Formula One Technical Regulations. The team did not dispute the calibration of the FIA measuring system and the measurement of the car, but stated that their own measurements had produced different results. The Stewards determine that the result of the measurement conducted with the FIA system in Parc Ferme is the relevant one, and the due process prescribed by the regulations has been followed. Therefore, the standard penalty for such an infringement is applied."

Williams also submitted a request to the stewards, asking to allow Logan Sargeant to race tomorrow. This request was granted, as Sargeant’s times in the earlier practice sessions met the requirements of Article 39.4 in the F1 sporting regulations.