Toto Wolff reacts to CONTROVERSIAL Lewis Hamilton penalty in Belgian GP sprint

Belgian Grand Prix

Wolff reacts to CONTROVERSIAL Hamilton penalty in Belgian GP sprint

The British driver was given a five-second penalty for causing a collision

Chris Deeley Editor

Experienced sports writer covering F1 and other motorsports since 2023

Sunday 30 July 2023 09:42

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Toto Wolff has admitted that while he disagrees with the five-second penalty given to Lewis Hamilton in Saturday's Belgian Grand Prix sprint race, the team can do nothing but accept it and move on.

Hamilton was given the penalty, which dropped him down from fourth to seventh, for a collision with Sergio Perez which punched a hole in the Mexican's sidepod shortly after a safety car restart.

Perez retired shortly afterward due to the damage, a tough end to a disappointing Saturday for the second Red Bull driver – who looked like he had recovered some of his early-season form in Friday's qualifying.

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The decision to penalise Hamilton was criticised by Martin Brundle on Sky, and Wolff agreed that he thought the penalty was harsh. However, he added that the underlying pace of both Mercedes cars pleased him ahead of Sunday's feature race.

Wolff: The car was good today

"Well you know, I'd rather have a quick car that is doing good things and have a less optimal position in the sprint race than benefitting from other people's misfortune and being lucky.

"So I'm ok with that. I think the incident was a racing incident, you can see from both sides, but I would say more racing incident than penalty, but obviously its going to be polarising. The car was good today.

"Once it's (penalty) decided you can't do anything about it anymore. You just have to move on."