Lewis Hamilton 'not on the same page' as the FIA

Lewis Hamilton

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Hamilton 'not on the same page' as the FIA

Two penalties in recent races have angered the Mercedes driver

Ian Parkes

Thursday 1 October 2020 05:01

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Lewis Hamilton feels he and the FIA have drifted apart in their viewpoint on certain situations in recent weeks.

The six-time F1 champion has been hit with penalties in two of the last three grands prix that have left him bitterly frustrated, and questioning whether he is being targeted.

Hamilton was handed a 10-second penalty for entering a closed pit lane at Monza following a crash involving Ferrari's Charles Leclerc during the Italian Grand Prix.

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In Sunday's Russian Grand Prix, the Mercedes driver was again punished with a combined 10-second penalty for conducting two pre-race practice starts outside of the designated area at the Sochi Autodrom.

Asked whether he felt the communication between race director Michael Masi and the drivers was good enough, if everybody was on the same page, Hamilton replied: "Are we all on the same page? I don’t think so.

"I’m probably on a different page of the book or I’ve skipped a few pages clearly."

Initially, Hamilton was also handed two penalty points - one for each infraction - only for them to be later rescinded after Mercedes clarified the six-time champion acted upon its instruction. Hamilton had temporarily stood on 10 penalty points, to away from a race ban.

Hamilton drew sympathy from Russian race-winning team-mate Valtteri Bottas who, in response to the same question, said: "I’ve been up there myself, I think with 10 points or something.

"I said to myself 'I will just try to stay away from the stewards at the track'. Seeing them in the hotel or the bar, that’s not too bad, but stay out of their room during the race weekend.

"It’s difficult. If it’s like a crash or whatever, you caused, I can understand they [would] want to hand penalty points to maybe calm you down or whatever.

"But with things like this, Lewis didn’t do anything on purpose to create an issue. He just wanted to practise his start. Maybe it’s not allowed there, okay, but he was penalised enough by having his penalty in the race. So I don’t think you need to hand out penalty points for that.

"But I guess we’ll talk about it in the next briefing we have and see if something will happen or not. It’s always good, I guess, to talk about it and communicate. At least we know what we’re up to fully and then we move on."

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