FIA stewards explain costly Lewis Hamilton Monaco penalty

The FIA stewards have explained why they opted to hand Lewis Hamilton a three-place grid penalty for the Monaco Grand Prix

Hamilton ended qualifying in fourth place, which was set to be his highest starting grid position of the season.

However, he was forced to visit the stewards after impeding Max Verstappen during Q1 while the Red Bull driver was on a fast lap.

Both drivers advanced into the next stage of qualifying and eventually qualified in fourth and fifth respectively.

Hamilton was bumped back to seventh following a deliberation from the stewards, who accepted the seven-time champion wasn't solely to blame as Ferrari informed their driver that Verstappen was not pushing.

“Car 44 was on a slow lap and off the racing line as he was approaching Turn 2,” read a statement from the stewards. 

“Car 1 was approaching Car 44 on a push lap. The team first informed the driver of Car 44 that Car 1 was on a fast lap. Then they sent another message saying that Car 1 was 'slowing down' when in fact Car 1 was always on a push lap and was not 'slowing down' as suggested by the team. 

“This resulted in Car 44 speeding up and moving into the racing line of Car 1 entering Turn 3. 

“Car 1 had to react to Car 44 appearing to move into the racing line. This meant that Car 1 had to move off the usual racing line and the push lap had to be aborted by Car 1. We carefully examined the racing line taken by Car 1 in previous laps at the same area and determined that Car 44 did in fact enter the racing line that Car 1 used in previous push laps. This put it beyond doubt that Car 1 was impeded.”

Despite accepting Hamilton was not at fault as he received incorrect information, the stewards could not ignore circumstance created by Ferrari.

“The driver of Car 44 expressed his displeasure at the incorrect message from the team immediately after the incident.

“During the hearing, the fact of the team’s incorrect message leading to the incident was accepted by the driver of Car 44. 

“As with previous incidents of this nature where a driver has received inaccurate or incomplete information resulting in a car impeding another, the fact that the radio message was the cause of the impeding does not amount to a mitigating factor.”