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Lewis Hamilton

Why 'dangerous' u-turn sparked Lewis Hamilton penalty escape

The FIA has explained why Lewis Hamilton avoided being penalised for allegedly impeding Alex Albon during FP2 at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit.

Ham FP2 Saudi
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Lewis Hamilton was hauled before the stewards at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix after the Ferrari driver was alleged to have impeded Alex Albon during FP2.

Early in the session at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, the seven-time F1 drivers' champion was seen going slowly through Turn 18 when the Williams driver approached at speed whilst on a fast lap.

He immediately had to back out of his effort, jumping on team radio call the move "dangerous", whilst the stewards deemed it worthy of investigation after the session.

However, following that review of the incident, the officials decided that "no further action" was the correct decision for the near miss.

In the official FIA decision document, the stewards explained how that call was reached, with it being predicated on Albon backtracking on his view that Hamilton's driving was dangerous.

Check out the full explanation given by the stewards in their verdict below.

'Reason' outlined by the FIA in the official decision document

"The Stewards heard from the driver of Car 44 (Lewis Hamilton), the driver of Car 23 (Alexander Albon), team representatives and reviewed positioning/marshalling system data, video, timing, telemetry, team radio and in-car video evidence and determined that Car 44 unnecessarily impeded Car 23 during Practice 2 at Turn 17.

"However, as agreed with the teams, unless the impeding during free practice was such that it could be regarded as dangerous, there will be no penalty for such impeding.

"During the hearing, the driver of Car 23 felt that he had the car under control at all times and while he was impeded, he did not consider the situation to be dangerous.

"He had seen Car 44 in front of him during the corner before. However, he did not expect Car 44 to be in the position on track that he was in and that shocked the driver of Car 23 as he approached Turn 17 and had to take evasive action. While his immediate reaction when the incident occurred was to say that it was dangerous, having looked at it subsequently, he agreed that it was not.

"We accordingly took no further action."

Also interesting:

WATCH: Bad day for Hamilton as Tsunoda suffers first Red Bull crash

Be sure to join RacingNews365's Ian Parkes and Nick Golding, as they dissect a challenging opening day in Jeddah.

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