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Lewis Hamilton

Hamilton hit with penalty after qualifying incident

Lewis Hamilton was hauled in front of stewards for allegedly impeding Sergio Perez during qualifying for the Dutch Grand Prix.

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Lewis Hamilton has been slapped with a three-place grid penalty for the Dutch Grand Prix after a meeting with the F1 stewards at Zandvoort.

The Mercedes driver was hauled in front of the stewards after appearing to impede Sergio Perez at Turn 9 in Q1, with Perez on a flying lap. 

Hamilton was on a cool-down lap and was as far to the left-hand side of the track as possible, slowed to let Perez by, but as the Red Bull took the natural racing line to the left to open up the right-hander of Turn 10, the two met. 

Perez labelled Hamilton "an idiot" for the incident, and called for a penalty to be handed to the seven-time world champion.

Hamilton endured a difficult session after the incident and failed to advance into Q3, ending the second qualifying segment in 12th place.

With the penalty in place, Hamilton is now due to start the race from 14th on the grid, having gained back one spot following Alex Albon's disqualification.

Hamilton verdict in full

The driver of Car 44, 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 to give way for 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 has been appropriate warning by the team and albeit the driver tried to move out of the way, he could have slowed down more in order not to impede 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.

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