Lewis Hamilton has taken a 3 place grid penalty and will start Sunday’s race from 5th place.
This all came about after Hamilton was judged to be “impeding” Kimi Raikkonen during the early stages of qualifying. Though both men got through to Q3 and a top 10 finish, the stewards after a post-qualification review decided to hand Hamilton the penalty. It is believe that Mercedes are mounting some sort of appeal behind the scenes.
“The Stewards reviewed video evidence and heard from the driver of car 7 (Kimi Raikkonen) and the driver of car 44 (Lewis Hamilton) and the team representatives and determined that car 44 unnecessarily impeded car 7 at turn 3. Car 44 had just come out of the pits and was informed of the cars approaching, including car 7.
“Although car 44 tried to take evasive action when he became aware of car 7 approaching on a fast lap, it was not sufficient to avoid impeding car 7, which had to then abort the lap.”
Hamilton was also given a single penalty point in his Super License.
This promotes Norris to 4th and makes for a fascinating race tomorrow. The Englishman will certainly be feisty for tomorrow’s race so expect some aggressive driving from him.
